It was the challenge of that that I found daunting, but also engaging and interesting [to play Maigret].

Certainly in the second film [Maigret's Dead Man], which is quite a more unpleasant and darker story, it's quite different in tone and feel.

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.

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

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.

The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression.

I'm not a naturally funny man. I find that I can only be funny, if I become someone else.