I'm sure that a French production of this [Maigret series] would be different. For better or worse, who's to say, but probably not very good for 8 o'clock on ITV.

Marketing is what gets you noticed, and that side of it something - this side of it, if you like, doing interviews - is the side of it that I least enjoy, and yet is 50% of the project.

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

Nope, I don't enjoy work generally. Not because I'm lazy; it's just all so stressful and worrying.

I'm sure that a French production of this [Maigret series] would be different. For better or worse, who's to say, but probably not very good for 8 o'clock on ITV.

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

I suddenly think the job of acting is a difficult one. It's not as flip, irrelevant and shallow a calling as I thought it was in the Eighties.