But Generally Speaking, I Tend To Be

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.

Itv And The Production Company Contacted Me And Asked If I Fancied Playing The Role [of Maigret]. It Took Me A Long Time To Decide To Do It. In Fact, I Decided Not To. I Thought About It For Some Weeks, And Thought 'perhaps Not' And It Went Away For A While, And Then It Sort Of Came Back. They Said 'are You Sure You Don't Want To Play Him?', So I Thought About It For A Lot Longer Again, And Eventually Decided That I Would.

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.

I Can Be Reasonably Funny And Light-hearted When I'm In The Company Of Good Friends, But I'm Not A Jokesmith. I Tend To Be Quite Serious.

I Don't Really Have Plans Like That [move Towards More Dramatic Acting].