Rowan Atkinson on Inspector Maigret, the artistic value of comedy, and playing an ordinary man

When he was first asked to play the role of Inspector Jules Maigret in ITV's new version of Georges Simenon's celebrated Parisian detective stories, Rowan Atkinson turned it down. The 61-year-old actor says that initially he couldn't see a way in to the character of the emotionally buttoned-down sleuth.

Atkinson makes for a fascinating interview. Far removed in person from his more extravagant, out-there screen creations such as the Blackadder, Mr Bean and Johnny English, he is a very thoughtful and intelligent man who takes time to give a well-considered answer to your questions. He also displays an admirably precise use of language.

He begins by revealing why he was at first deterred from taking on the part of Maigret, the subject of 75 novels written between 1931 and 1972, which have sold an eye-watering 853 million copies worldwide.

“The problem with Maigret is that he hasn't got a limp, he hasn't got a lisp, he hasn't got a French accent, and he has no particular love of opera or any of those other things that people tend to attach to fictional detectives. He's just an ordinary guy doing an extraordinary job in a very interesting time.”

In the end, though, it was Maigret's very ordinariness that won Atkinson over. When he was approached by ITV a second time several months later, he changed his mind and assented to play the part. He explains why. “What appealed to me about it was the very challenge of it. I found the prospect quite difficult. The decision to do it was related to the fact that the character is a very ordinary man.

“Generally speaking, I haven't played many ordinary men. I tend to play rather odd men or people who are more eccentric or have a more particular attitude to life. You go through the part in your head and read the speeches and think, 'Can I find a way of doing this?' The demand of modern TV drama is to be very low-key and naturalistic, and in general the characters I've played have not been low-key or naturalistic.”

Atkinson continues that, “I like to relish words and sentences and phraseology, and there are no opportunities for that in Maigret. What directors in TV drama are constantly telling you is, 'Don't act it. Don't try. Don't emphasise that word.' Whereas someone like the Blackadder relished the lines that he had and the words that he was given. So there was a lot of inflection in that. Maigret is inflection-free acting.”

And it has to be said, in his first outing as the detective (the second, “Maigret's Dead Man”, will go out at a later date), Atkinson really pulls it off. In the first episode, “Maigret Sets a Trap,” which goes out on ITV at 9pm on Easter Monday, the actor reins in his natural screen exuberance to deliver a banked-down, contemplative performance. His role in this film, where Maigret is initially struggling to track down a serial killer on the streets of 1950s Montmartre, is all the more effective for being so understated.

As Maigret, Atkinson is not given to showy, “look at me” acting. While he puffs melancholically on his pipe and stares into the middle distance, the pain he feels for the victims is clear from his faraway look. The eyes are the window to the soul.

John Simenon, Georges' son, an executive producer on the film and the keeper of the Maigret flame, concurs. Simenon, 65, who makes a Colin Dexter-esque appearance in the closing frames of “Maigret Sets a Trap” reading a Tintin book to a young boy on a park bench, observes that, “Three qualities characterise Maigret: his humanity, his empathy for the victims and to a large extent for the criminals and a touch of vulnerability as well.

“When I met Rowan for the first time, it was obvious he had all those qualities. I never had any doubt about it. And when I see the film now, I know that I was right.”

For all that, some people were still surprised when they first heard the news that Atkinson – renowned the world over for his comedy performances – was going to play this very serious character, who in the past has been portrayed by, among others, Michael Gambon, Richard Harris, Charles Laughton, Jean Gabin and Rupert Davies. One wag even joked that Atkinson would be more suited to portraying Inspector Clouseau than Inspector Maigret.

But the actor does not hold with the view that appearing in comedy is in some way inferior to tragedy. “One thing I'd never wish it to be thought is that you play serious roles in order to achieve some kind of respectability that you can't get if you're playing comedy roles,” he asserts with quiet authority.

“It's quite weird the way the arts community, for want of a better word, still have a long-lasting cynicism about the importance or the artistic value of comedy. To them, comedy is just farting around for money. Whereas as soon as you play a serious role – aha, now you're an actor and doing something of meaning. For them, art is something where nobody laughs and nobody makes any money out of it – which is an attitude that I would dispute!”

Which, Atkinson adds that, “Is why I'm not looking for anything other than an interesting role to play. As far as I'm concerned, when I play a serious role, I'm using the same skills as I do when I'm playing something more obviously comic. It's slightly different muscles, but the same skill set.”

So it is evident that Atkinson does not see the role of Maigret as part of a master plan for “going straight”. “I don't really have plans like that,” he reflects. “You go for the parts that are offered or the parts that inspire you. I'd never wish to say that I'd finally waved goodbye to any character if I feel I could still play him. It's just that the emphasis tends to shift. I don't think you should be too absolutist about what you play and what you don't play.”

Atkinson proceeds to disclose that he used to be more rigid about the sort of parts he would accept. “Prior to 2008, I'd always said that I'd never play a part that had been played before. Mr Bean, the Blackadder and Johnny English were roles that I created.

“Then I got offered the role of Fagin in a revival of the musical Oliver!. And I thought, 'Wow, that would be a fun thing to do. The role has been played before extremely successfully on film and on stage, but I shouldn't let that stop me having a go.' So I had a go, and it seemed to work. So I broke my own rule again by having a go and playing Maigret.”

One disappointment for Atkinson, a card-carrying car enthusiast, was that on this production he did not get to drive any of the gorgeous 1950s cars. “A great frustration for me – and it's a discussion that John and I had very early on – is that the one thing Maigret never does is drive.

“The cars are great, but he's always driven or gets the train or the bus. So I was saying, 'Why don't we ring the changes for the 21st century and stick him behind the wheel of a car?' John replied, 'You can if you want, but will be lots of Maigret devotees who don't like it'. So he's still a non-driver!”

The other non-negotiable aspect of this production – which was filmed in Budapest, a city that looks a lot more like 1950s Paris than present-day Paris does – was Maigret's trademark pipe, which he turns to in times of great stress.

Atkinson did not find it hard to make those scenes look convincing. “I used to smoke a pipe when I was 20, a fact of which I'm not proud. So I did know vaguely what to do and how to do it.”

Simenon was impressed by the actor's pipe-smoking technique. “I've seen all the versions of Maigret, and Rowan is the first one who makes the smoking believable. It's actually the way my father used to smoke his pipe.”

'Maigret Sets a Trap' is on ITV at 9pm on Easter Monday