Having spent a substantial part of my career parodying religious figures from my own Christian background, I am aghast at the notion that it could, in effect, be made illegal to imply ridicule of a religion or to lampoon religious figures.

ITV and the production company contacted me and asked if I fancied playing the role [of Maigret]. It took me a long time to decide to do it. In fact, I decided not to. I thought about it for some weeks, and thought 'perhaps not' and it went away for a while, and then it sort of came back. They said 'Are you sure you don't want to play him?', so I thought about it for a lot longer again, and eventually decided that I would.

I have always believed that there should be no subject about which one cannot make jokes, religion included. Clearly, one is always constricted by contemporary mores and trends because, after all, what one seeks above all is an appreciative audience.

But generally speaking, I tend to be quiet and introspective.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D.31 'Best Disciple' competition.

The one thing I would never wish it to be thought is that you play serious roles in order to achieve some sort of respectability which you can't if you're playing comedic roles.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.