No, no, I was only funny on stage, really. I, 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.

[commenting in 2004 on Britain`s proposed Racial and Religious Hatred Bill] To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. 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.

I mean I can do it when I`m very relaxed, and with good friends, then I think I can be amusing.

I want to express myself in a different way. I have a performing inclination.

I think I am a creative person, but I`m slightly more kind of visionary... I prefer to guide writers, than to claim to be one of them.

People think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I`ll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn`t the case at all. I am essentially a rather quiet, dull person who just happens to be a performer.

I`m not really a writer, so my main problem always is finding the writing talent to write something of the caliber that you would like to do.

You`re about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.

In TV, and in particular in commercials, you don`t really need to explain very much at all - you just say he`s a spy and he`s a little bit theatrical and overblown and smug and he`s not very good at his job.

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.

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.

I don`t much enjoy Back and Forth. I mean, I think it has its own particular qualities, but I think it`s inferior to any of the half-hour ones we did.

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. And 10-year-old boys from different cultures have more in common than 30-year-olds. As we grow up, we acquire this sensibility that divides us.

Monty Python crowd; half of them came from Cambridge, and half of them came from Oxford. But, there seems to be this jewel, this sort of two headed tradition of doing comedy, of doing sketches, and that kind of thing.

I think the character does tend to suit an episodic thing, because what`s fun about him is that he doesn`t care about anyone else, and it`s very difficult for a main character - a lead character - in a movie to not care about anybody else.

But generally speaking, I tend to be quiet and introspective.

Of course, some would say if you have a performing inclination, then you should become a lawyer. That`s a platform we use, or a priest. You know, anywhere you lecture and pontificate to people.

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 feel as though the camera is almost a kind of voyeur in Mr. Bean`s life, and you just watch this bizarre man going about his life in the way that he wants to.

Not so much in Canada, but certainly in the US, as I`m sure you know, money is all, and if they can get another 26 programs of the same thing even though it advances the culture or those actor`s careers not at all it doesn`t matter.

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.

We still have a tradition certainly in English television; it`s faded a bit in the last five years, but we still have a tradition where the important thing is the quality and the challenging nature of the programming.

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.

I would return to the Blackadder character if the opportunity came up. I have no qualms about that at all.

And what`s interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.

And that sort of reinforces to me that fact that he causes so much trouble, and never really pays a price for it, which I think he should.