DATE: Sunday, November 9, 1997              TAG: 9711060248

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E14  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   78 lines

DOES U.S. HUNGER FOR ``BEAN?''

``I never thought of him as being retarded,'' Rowan Atkinson commented, a bit huffily, ``but, of course, he is not in the mainstream of life.''

He was talking about his creation ``Bean,'' which is also the title of the new comedy film that has been imported from Britain. ``You're something of `Bean' virgins here, aren't you?''

``Bean'' arrives in the Colonies amid a bit of puzzlement as to just what all the fuss is about. In Australia, most of the population is reportedly engulfed in Bean mania. In Spain, they fall in the aisles. The film has made $100 million in Europe. Here, the character is seen in ``Mr. Bean'' only on PBS and HBO.

America is apparently poised for ``Bean,'' which opened at theaters this weekend.

Mr. Bean will attack his tongue with an electric razor. He has a face that looks like Silly Putty.

``I believe he's a child,'' Atkinson said. ``This is how a 10-year-old boy would behave. Generally, 10-year-olds ignore other people. They tend to their own needs. They haven't grown up yet.''

Mel Smith, who directed Atkinson, puts the appeal another way. ``You LOVE not being Bean. That's his appeal. Being able to watch someone going down in the whirlpool and being able to know you don't have to be there. Kids love him because he's like them. Bean is selfish at times. He's very self-seeking at all times. That's childlike. Take a look around. That's what children are like.''

Smith describes ``Bean'' as ``not dumb comedy. It's just very simple comedy.''

Atkinson, who flew to America for the film's opening, doesn't at all create the appearance of being an idiot. ``People talk about these faces I make. I tell you, I haven't looked in a mirror to create one since I was at Oxford, some years ago. I depend upon instinct. I never learned anything about performing. I never went to drama school. Never went to mime school. I never expected to be a performer. I just did a bit in a festival - kind of a college kid doing comedy. It's continued since that.''

He majored in electrical engineering at Oxford. ``I use the degree to plug in electrical things around the movie set,'' he quipped.

Atkinson says he began his show biz career at the Edinburgh Festival in 1977, and created Mr. Bean for a revue in 1979. Currently, he's on TV daily in England in repeats of everything from ``Black Adder'' to ``Not the 9 o'clock News'' and ``The Thin Blue Line,'' as well as ``Mr. Bean.''

``The scale of success for the film is something of a surprise,'' Atkinson said. ``I feel rather relaxed about the American release. But it is, after all, a British movie and those don't always go well here.''

Atkinson, who was dressed in a very proper pinstripe suit and tie, wanted to emphasize that ``this is not three TV shows strung together and called a movie. It is a real movie, and it's somewhat realistic. This presented some problems. We had to let Bean talk a bit more. He talks rarely on the TV show. But in a movie, it means that the audience would wonder why he never talks. I found that one phrase is worth a thousand gestures.''

Bean purists have complained that Mr. Bean is not nearly as cruel in the movie. ``In the movie,'' the actor says, ``Bean will look around and accept the blame for some of his actions. He didn't do that on TV. He seemed unaware of all the trouble he caused. The problem was that it has to be a bit more realistic as a movie.''

Atkinson says that the TV show is much more improvised than the movie. ``With the movie, we had to plan more than I would have liked. Rehearsals feed the script. I'm not a writer, but I do contribute to the script, by instinct.''

Most interviews with comics turn into neurotic showdowns. Comedians often feel threatened when they don't have a script and everyone expects them to be funny off camera. Not so with Rowan Atkinson.

``I see myself as an actor, not a comedian,'' he said. ``It's just that the characters I play are rather extreme characters.''

Shaking his head in the face of American skepticism, he adds, woefully, ``Oh, perhaps I sometimes try harder than I should.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

LIAM DANIEL

...Rowan Atkinson... KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MOVIES

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