“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.”

The job is interesting, and the task is difficult, but the man is just a decent man doing a very ordinary job.

I’m not a collector. I don’t like the toy cupboard syndrome that causes so many good cars to evaporate.

I consider myself more of a visual comedian than a physical one.

I like to juggle with one ball at a time. Then I put the ball down and do nothing for extended periods of time.

Mr. Bean is essentially a child trapped in the body of a man. All cultures identify with children in a similar way, so he has this bizarre global outreach.

I have always worried about things more than I should.

In TV, and in particular in commercials, you don’t really need to explain very much at all.

A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

Funny things tend not to happen to me. I am not a natural comic. I need to think about things a lot before I can be even remotely amusing.

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.

My personal problem is that I take the business of film-making so seriously that I find it very difficult to relax.

The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.

I’m more critical of the films I make than anyone else.

But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.

Try to be creatively lead rather than market lead.

I think in many ways Johnny English is a more believable character.