EXCLUSIVE: Mr Bean star Rowan Atkinson has reprised his role as Trevor Bingley in Netflix’s Man vs Baby and he shared his real thoughts on the project
Man vs Baby has just landed on Netflix and the four-part series serves as a sequel to Man vs Bee, with Rowan Atkinson returning as Trevor Bingley.
Whilst he worked as a house sitter in the original series, Trevor finds himself caring for something far more valuable in Man Vs Baby, after his role as a school caretaker.
The amusing Christmas series sees Trevor forced to mind a baby who had been cast as the baby Jesus in the school nativity play, and had been abandoned by his mum.
After an early preview of the series, the Mr Bean and Blackadder icon was questioned during a Q&A about his favourite filming moment.
His response might shock some admirers, as he revealed: “I have none, I can’t think of anything that I enjoyed filming. But that’s just me when I’m filming, so I apologise for that.”
Even after pondering, he still couldn’t identify a preferred moment from the shoot.
When asked, “You are not able to relax, even now?” he responded: “I think the show is very good, but I can also see holes in it. I keep thinking, hmm.”
The 70 year old performer, comedian and writer has been recognised for being openly critical of his own work, including his earlier Netflix series, Man vs Bee.
During a stint on The One Show, he had revealed: “I’m always glad when it’s over. I don’t really enjoy the shooting, I enjoy the scriptwriting, we spent two years trying to write the thing and compose the thing.
“I enjoyed the postproduction and the bit of shooting I got quite stressed about. I’m always convinced whatever I have done, I haven’t done as well as I could.”
Some of Rowan Atkinson’s past roles
When quizzed by a member of the audience regarding what lies ahead for the Man vs Baby series, he responded: “Well there’s nothing in the cupboard at the moment, the cupboard is bare. Literally no plans.”
Co-writer William Davies quickly jumped in, suggesting there are “many other things” on the horizon, though he noted: “Rowan rather would never do anything ever again, that is where we always begin”.
The comedian confessed that working alongside a genuine infant during filming proved challenging this time around: “You can only have a baby on set for 45 minutes [a total of two hours a day] and a shoot day is eight or 10 hours so there are so many hours that you can’t actually continue filming that scene.
“You have got to film a different scene, or a different shot, just looking the other way. The scheduling is tricky with babies.
“So we have identical twins, the hero babies, and then we had twin crawling babies because the hero babies couldn’t crawl. So that’s where the CGI comes in, when you implant the face of the hero baby into the crawling baby.”
Man Vs Baby is available on Netflix.
