ITV Mr Bean’s Holiday: Rowan Atkinson’s off-screen life from flying an airplane when the pilot passed out in a £ 1 million car accident

As the man behind Mr. Bean and Johnny English, Rowan Atkinson might be expected to lead a somewhat reserved life, perhaps a little awkward like his characters.

But outside of Bean and English, Rowan, 66, has lived a pretty exciting life, even once in a “real” James Bond movie, as if to illustrate it.

Those thrills include death defying escapes as well as some very expensive car accidents.

Rowan’s first film appearance after making a name for himself in comedy was actually in the infamous 1983 non-canonical Bond film Never Say Never Again, which also starred Sean Connery.

After that, he appears to have become an action hero in real life, making several blockbuster-worthy escapes.

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The most impressive of these was in 2001, when the Mr. Bean star saved the lives of his wife and two children when the pilot of their private plane collapsed on the stick.

Rowan’s family, his then-wife Sunetra Sastry, 64, and their children Ben (then 8th) and Lily (then) were on vacation in Kenya.

They were flown from a runway in Ukundu to Nairobi on a Cessna 202 light aircraft.

However, after 45 minutes of the flight, the pilot passed out and the family could not haul him around.

That meant Rowan, who had never flown before, was forced to take the helm and save the family from impending disaster by correcting the plane’s course.

Fortunately, the pilot regained consciousness before the plane had to land and was able to take control of it and get everyone back safely to the ground.

Rowan’s other happy escape came in 2011 when he crashed his rare McLaren F1 supercar in Cambridgeshire.

Rowan Atkinson at the wheel of his McLaren F1 supercar, which he owned from 1997 to 2015
(Image: Barry Batchelor / PA Wire)

He had the car crashed back in 1999 when he hit a subway and got away unscathed, but his 2011 accident was a little more serious.

This time he lost control while driving the 240 mph top speed supercar and spun against a tree. The damage to the vehicle was so great that it caught fire and he was hospitalized with a shoulder problem.

Due to the rarity of the McLaren F1, it took over a year to be repaired and resulted in the UK’s largest auto insurance payout of £ 910,000.

Fortunately, however, Rowan was unharmed and was released from the hospital after an examination. He later sold the car for £ 8 million in 2015.

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