I would never wish to say that I've finally waved goodbye to any character, it's just that the emphasis tends to shift.

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.

And, we put a lot more value, or at least I personally put a lot more value, on the creative values and creative challenges of something than the commercial necessities.

Get that right, then- if you get the quality right, then the marketability or whatever; your ability to sell videos or your ability to earn money or whatever, will follow naturally. But try to be creatively lead rather than market lead. And that's important to me.

It was the challenge of that that I found daunting, but also engaging and interesting [to play Maigret].

We haven't made any particular decision [on Maigret], I haven't been asked if I want to carry on with it. All these things are a matter of whether you feel as though the idea is developing and whether it's still interesting to play.

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