I Like To Relish Words And Sentences, And Phraseology, And There's Not Much Facility For That [playing Maigret].
One Of The Conventions That I Always Liked Was Doctor Zhivago, Where Everything That's Written On The Screen Is In Russian But Everyone Speaks English. That Seemed To Me To Be Quite A Good Convention To Follow.
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.
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
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.
It Is Very Linear Storytelling, And I Think That's Not So Much The Fashion. I Was Watching A New Drama The Other Night Which Was Extremely Non-linear, Where You Flash Back And Flash Forward In Ways That Certainly Keeps You On Your Toes As The Audience. There's Not Much Of That Courage With The Storytelling In Our Maigret Film.
I Tend To Play Rather Odd Men. People That Are Slightly Odd Or Eccentric, Or Have A More Particular Attitude To Life.
No, No, I Was Only Funny On Stage, Really. I Think I Was Funny As A Person Toward My Classmates When I Was Very Young. You Know, When I Was A Child, Up To About The Age Of 12.
Marketing Is What Gets You Noticed, And That Side Of It Something - This Side Of It, If You Like, Doing Interviews - Is The Side Of It That I Least Enjoy, And Yet Is 50% Of The Project.
The Problem With Maigret Is He Hasn't Got A Limp, And He Hasn't Got A Lisp, And He Hasn't Got A French Accent, Or A Particular Love Of Opera... Or All Those Other Things That People Tend To Attach To Many Fictional Detectives. He's Just An Ordinary Guy Doing An Extraordinary Job, In A Very Interesting Time.
It Was The Challenge Of That That I Found Daunting, But Also Engaging And Interesting [to Play Maigret].
