[Georges] Simenon could be very brave like that. You never quite know what you're going to get or how the story's going to be told.

I find his films about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it.

I can be reasonably funny and light-hearted when I'm in the company of good friends, but I'm not a jokesmith. I tend to be quite serious.

Lord, thy one-liners are as good as thy tricks. Thou art indeed an all-round family entertainer.

The first couple of weeks of filming were quite tricky for me to find my feet with the character [Maigret], which wasn't helped by the story that we were telling.

I tend to play rather odd men. People that are slightly odd or eccentric, or have a more particular attitude to life.

I suddenly think the job of acting is a difficult one. It's not as flip, irrelevant and shallow a calling as I thought it was in the Eighties.