1) Born as the youngest of four brothers in the town of Consett, Atkinson was brought up Anglican by his parents Eric and Ella May.
2) While he used to be a class clown when he was young, by the time he got into his pre-teens he developed self-consciousness and became rather quiet and withdrawn.
3) A very educated man, Atkinson is a graduate from two universities – the Newcastle University and the Oxford University. His thesis was on self-tuning control systems.
4) When attending Durham Choristers School, Atkinson was Tony Blair's schoolmate.
5) Despite being known mainly as a great actor, he also starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 called The Atkinson People.
6) One of Atkinson´s greatest passions are cars. Once he even said that one of the best moments of his life, aside from personal relationships, was to get a Class 1 license to drive a lorry (semi-truck).
7) Naturally, cars have played an important role in his film career as well. The scene with Mr. Bean driving his mini from a chair on the roof is known all over the world.
8) Occasionally, Atkinson also writes for some British car magazines such as the Car magazine.
9) He was one of the guests at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton as well as the one of Prince Charles and Camilla.
10) For most of his life, he has suffered from a mild stammer, which might be also why he has been known as very taciturn in his private life, particularly disliking interviews. In fact, Mr. Bean also hardly ever speaks.
11) Atkinson has been a big fan of James Bond and he even got a chance to play a supporting character in the James Bond movie “Never Say Never Again” from 1983 with Sean Connery.
12) In 1990, Atkinson married Sunetra Sastry, a BBC makeup artist that he met in the late 1980´s. They have two children – Lily and Benjamin. In February 2014, though, he filed for divorce from Sastry.
13) Originally, the name of his most famous role, Mr. Bean, was Mr. White. It was later changed to Mr. Cauliflower but finally ended up Mr. Bean.
14) Atkinson has been so protective of his family´s privacy that not even his closest friends knew Sastry was pregnant until the kids were born.
15) In 2001 while on a holiday trip to Kenya, the plane he and his family were in, started to go down after the pilot had passed out. Atkinson managed to take control of the plane before the pilot woke up. The plane landed safely.
16) During the first date with Sastry, Atkinson allegedly said nothing except for a request to pass the ketchup.
