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

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

I would never wish to say that I've finally waved goodbye to any character, it's just that the emphasis tends to shift.

We still have a tradition certainly in English television; it's faded a bit in the last five years, but we still have a tradition where the important thing is the quality and the challenging nature of the programming.

But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.

Confronting a stadium audience, you can't see the whites of their eyes. It's just an amorphous mass of noise and, of course, you can't see the alleged billions watching at home either, so the degree to which you are intimidated is quite low.

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.