It's Not Easy To Take A Sit-com

Although The Great Frustration About This [role] Is The Fact That There's One Thing Maigret Never Does, And That's Drive. He's Always Driven, Or He Takes The Train, Or He Gets The Bus. I Was Saying 'well, Why Don't We Ring The Changes For The 21st Century, And Stick Him In The Car?'. [executive Producer And Son Of The Author, John Simenon] Said, 'well, You Can If You Want, But There'll Be Lots Of People Who Won't Like It'. So He's A Non-driver ... But No, Top Gear Was Never A Consideration For Me; And Neither Was I Asked

When You Play A Serious Role, As Far As I'm Concerned, I Feel I'm Using Exactly The Same Skills, Whatever They Are, To Play The Role As You Do With Something More Obviously Comic. It's Slightly Different Muscles, But The Same Skill Set.

What Directors Of Television Drama Constantly Tell You Is 'don't Act It. Don't Try. Don't Emphasise That Word'. Whereas With Someone Like Blackadder, Even Though He's A Relatively Low Key Character In A Way, He Did Relish The Lines That He Had And The Words That He Was Given, With A Lot Of Inflection.

I Like To Juggle With One Ball At A Time. Then I Put The Ball Down And Do Nothing For Extended Periods Of Time.

It's The Difficulty We Had With Mr. Bean, Actually, When It Went From Tv To Film. You Certainly Discover That You Need To Explain More About A Character.