I think I have an inner confidence that my tastes are pretty simple, that what I find funny finds a wide audience. I'm not particularly intellectual or clever or minority-focused in my creative instincts. And I'm certainly not aware of suppressing more sophisticated ambitions.
I have to say that I've always believed perfectionism is more of a disease than a quality. I do try to go with the flow but I can't let go.
In the modern media age we are rarely surprised by what we see. Whether it's on television or film or in the theatre, everything is so advertised, so trailed, that most entertainment is merely what you thought it was going to be like.
It's a bit disconcerting being treated like Madonna.
I find his films about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it.
When I was doing Bean more than I’ve done him in the last few years, I did strange things - like appearing on chat shows in character as Mr. Bean.
I'm more critical of the films I make than anyone else.
I have always regarded Mr. Bean as a timeless, ageless character, and I would rather he be remembered as a character mostly in his 30s and 40s.
The one thing I would never wish it to be thought is that you play serious roles in order to achieve some sort of respectability which you can't if you're playing comedic roles.
But, actually, so many of the clerics that I've met, particularly the Church of England clerics, are people of such extraordinary smugness and arrogance and conceitedness who are extraordinarily presumptuous about the significance of their position in society.
I would never wish to say that I've finally waved goodbye to any character, it's just that the emphasis tends to shift.
Look, if I'd wanted a lecture on the rights of man, I'd have gone to bed with Martin Luther.
I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people-and I wish them no ill-are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one.
A law which attempts to say you can criticise and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.
And, we put a lot more value, or at least I personally put a lot more value, on the creative values and creative challenges of something than the commercial necessities.
I don't think you should be too absolutist about what you play and what you don't play.
If you're a serious actor, it's when you know you're going to die tomorrow that you really start to feel it.
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.
Get that right, then- if you get the quality right, then the marketability or whatever; your ability to sell videos or your ability to earn money or whatever, will follow naturally. But try to be creatively lead rather than market lead. And that's important to me.
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.
The Scarlet Pimpernel is the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D.31 'Best Disciple' competition.
Lord, thy one-liners are as good as thy tricks. Thou art indeed an all-round family entertainer.
I mean I can do it when I'm very relaxed, and with good friends, then I think I can be amusing.
The character [Maigret] is bound to change and develop, and I wouldn't like to claim that we are perfectly formed straight out of the box. I think it's what I'd call an 'optimistic start'. As you know, for me, no glass is anything other than half empty, so I apologise for my reticence in terms of promoting this programme.
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.
