I enjoy racing historic motorcars from the '50s and '60s. The seed of my interest was planted when I was about 12 years old and took over my mother's Morris Minor. I drove it around my father's farm. But my favorite car is still a McLaren F1, which I have had for 10 years.

Marketing is what gets you noticed.

This is sort of inflection-free acting [playing Maigret], and I really wasn't sure if I could do it - you make your mind up on whether I've succeeded or not. But yes, I found it difficult when we were shooting; it was a couple of weeks before I settled into not worrying - to finding a way of delivering those lines - so my worries of many months before I think had been justified. I found it a difficult way of being.

The Maigret stories are all very different in terms of the content and the way that the stories are told. They're not what I would call formulaic.

I want to express myself in a different way. I have a performing inclination.

If you're a serious actor, it's when you know you're going to die tomorrow that you really start to feel it.

It's a bit disconcerting being treated like Madonna.