The good thing about those original credit card commercials was that they were very "filmic", they were like little movies, so it wasn't a big step to think well maybe we could make a big movie using this character, which we eventually did.

The job is interesting, and the task is difficult, but the man [Maigret] is just a decent man doing a very ordinary job.

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.

The older you get, the more you realise how happenstance... has helped to determine your path through life.

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

The character [Maigret] is bound to change and develop, and I wouldn't like to claim that we are perfectly formed straight out of the box. I think it's what I'd call an 'optimistic start'. As you know, for me, no glass is anything other than half empty, so I apologise for my reticence in terms of promoting this programme.

I think I have an inner confidence that my tastes are pretty simple, that what I find funny finds a wide audience. I'm not particularly intellectual or clever or minority-focused in my creative instincts. And I'm certainly not aware of suppressing more sophisticated ambitions.