At the moment, I'm certainly not thinking 'never again', but neither am I thinking 'I can't wait to play that part again'. I'm somewhere in between.

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.

Confronting a stadium audience, you can't see the whites of their eyes. It's just an amorphous mass of noise and, of course, you can't see the alleged billions watching at home either, so the degree to which you are intimidated is quite low.

To criticise a person for their race is a manifestly irrational and ridiculous. But to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom.

It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.

Of course, some would say if you have a performing inclination, then you should become a lawyer. That's a platform we use, or a priest. You know, anywhere you lecture and pontificate to people.

The first couple of weeks of filming were quite tricky for me to find my feet with the character [Maigret], which wasn't helped by the story that we were telling.