This is sort of inflection-free acting [playing Maigret], and I really wasn't sure if I could do it - you make your mind up on whether I've succeeded or not. But yes, I found it difficult when we were shooting; it was a couple of weeks before I settled into not worrying - to finding a way of delivering those lines - so my worries of many months before I think had been justified. I found it a difficult way of being.

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.

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

If you're a serious actor, it's when you know you're going to die tomorrow that you really start to feel it.

I think in many ways Johnny English is a more believable character.

But generally speaking, I tend to be quiet and introspective.

You're about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.