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 naturally funny man. I find that I can only be funny, if I become someone else.

I consider myself more of a visual comedian than a physical one.

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.

[Maigret Sets a Trap] was always going to be the first film, and it seemed to be quite a nice story. But of course it meant that here I was playing this new character for the first time, in a place where he had been a relative failure, as all these people had been murdered and the pressure was on. Rather than starting optimistically with his pipe in front of the fireplace, he was in quite a difficult place.

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

I don't really have plans like that [move towards more dramatic acting].