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

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.

Paris in the mid-'50s was a very interesting place. It was only ten years after the Third Reich had left, and the city was awash with guns, and crime, and racketeering, and all sorts of hangovers from a very difficult time in French history. So it's an interesting time to be a policeman.

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

I've read about eight or ten of the original novels, and one of them is where Maigret's in bed for the entire story! His wife is running around and solving the case!

For telling a good and incisive religious joke, you should be praised. For telling a bad one, you should be ridiculed and reviled. The idea that you could be prosecuted for the telling of either is quite fantastic.

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.