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'm not a collector. I don't like the toy cupboard syndrome that causes so many good cars to evaporate.

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.

Lord, thy one-liners are as good as thy tricks. Thou art indeed an all-round family entertainer.

ITV and the production company contacted me and asked if I fancied playing the role [of Maigret]. It took me a long time to decide to do it. In fact, I decided not to. I thought about it for some weeks, and thought 'perhaps not' and it went away for a while, and then it sort of came back. They said 'Are you sure you don't want to play him?', so I thought about it for a lot longer again, and eventually decided that I would.

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.

I mean I can do it when I'm very relaxed, and with good friends, then I think I can be amusing.