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.

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.

To Be Successful You Don't Need Beautiful Face And Heroic Body, What You Need is Skillful Mind And Ability To Perform

Look, if I'd wanted a lecture on the rights of man, I'd have gone to bed with Martin Luther.

I enjoy racing historic motorcars from the '50s and '60s. The seed of my interest was planted when I was about 12 years old and took over my mother's Morris Minor. I drove it around my father's farm. But my favorite car is still a McLaren F1, which I have had for 10 years.

A law which attempts to say you can criticise and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

In TV, and in particular in commercials, you don't really need to explain very much at all - you just say he's a spy and he's a little bit theatrical and overblown and smug and he's not very good at his job.