This script has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio. Chief Inspector Jules Maigret isn’t interested in playing by the rules nor just solving crimes — he’s far more motivated by following his intuition and solving people. However unconventional his approach and personal code of ethics, Maigret’s impressive track record speaks for itself.

 

CLIP

Maigret: Where are you gonna go?

Janos: How would I know? I sacrificed so much moving here. And then she was irrational, the accusations. She was not a well woman.

Maigret: I’d stick around if I were you.

Janos: Why should I?

Maigret: Do you want your face all over the TV? A lot of people like me coming after you? Stick around.

 

Despite having his hands full solving some of Paris’ most dangerous crimes, Maigret is haunted… by dreams of his childhood, a church in his village, and memories of his late father. By the time Episode Six rolls around, Maigret reclaims his roots in Saint-Fiacre to solve a crime decades in the making.

 

CLIP

Sophie: Maigret? You decided to show up. Well you needn’t have bothered. I can handle things here.

Maigret: That’s not what you said last night.

Sophie: Last night I was upset.

Maigret: What’s happened to Janos?

Dr. Bouchardon: Good morning, Countess.

Sophie: Dr. Bouchardon, good morning. I kicked Janos out. I’m kicking them all out. I’ve relied too long on untrustworthy men.

 

But despite Maigret’s intuition, he just might take this case too far. He returns to Paris to find his wife, Louise, being held hostage by a crazed killer with a knife, a man with whom Maigret had been playing a dangerous game of chicken. Both Maigret and Louise’s courage under pressure shine through as they talk the man down and convince him to surrender his weapon. Before the rest of the police team takes over, Maigret offers this man one last bit of humanity.  

 

CLIP

Maigret: Take a seat.

Louise: Would you like a drink?

Maigret: Please. And one for… I don’t know your name.

Bercy: It’s Bercy. Guillaume Bercy.

 

Actor Ben Wainwright, Jules Maigret himself, joins us today to talk about stepping into the long line of Maigrets, and how his character balances solving crime with his personal duty to the social contract.

 

Jace Lacob: And this week we are joined by Maigret star Ben Wainwright. Welcome.

Benjamin Wainwright: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Jace Lacob: During his career, author Georges Simenon wrote 75 novels and 28 short stories about pipe smoking French detective Inspector Maigret, known for his deductive skills as well as his bowler hat. How familiar were you with the classical character of Maigret before being cast in this contemporary Maigret?

Benjamin Wainwright: I’m going to have to disappoint you and say I’d never heard of him. This was my first introduction. It’s kind of surprising, I studied French at school. I’ve had a lot of holidays in France. I worked there for five months, and somehow I managed to avoid him. But yeah, Simenon is this colossus and Maigret even bigger. And I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Maigret and the rest of Simenon’s work through this script and through making it. But yeah, I’m afraid I wasn’t a fan beforehand. I can’t say I was.

Jace Lacob: So, unlike the Jules Maigret that has been previously played by people such as Sir Michael Gambon and Rowan Atkinson and more than 30 other actors, your Maigret is the first time that the character has been portrayed in a contemporary, rather than period drama. How did you look to stay true to that original character while making Maigret resonate with a 2025 audience?

Benjamin Wainwright: Yeah, it’s a good question. I’ve tried to stay away from thinking too hard about the fact that Michael Gambon and Gérard Depardieu, Rupert Davies and Rowan Atkinson have all come before me. We are a contemporary version, and I think we bring something very different to it. And by being contemporary and by being, I think at least two decades younger than anyone else who’s played Maigret to date, I think it gives us an opportunity for a bit more freedom. And I think we have the joy of finding our way to that Maigret that everyone knows. And just giving hints of how we might get there.

But he’s still a young guy. He’s only just been promoted, and he’s very much trying to find his way and trying to find his feet as chief inspector. And I think that kind of echoes my journey of feeling my way into this part. So it’s refreshing and it’s raw, and he makes more mistakes, and he’s not quite as staid and patient. He’s still quite rash and he loses control. I think there’s more freedom in our version of Maigret. And we’re not completely tied to the canon. But there’s enough there, I think, to keep people happy who are fans of the original.

Jace Lacob: Maigret’s trademark bowler hat and overcoat are gone, though his pipe remains. This time, however, it’s his father’s pipe, one that our Maigret never smokes. What did you make of the pipe, and how did you use it as an actor to connect to the character’s inner life?

Benjamin Wainwright: Well, it’s interesting because in the first version of the script, he was still smoking the pipe. And I think when I met our director, I said, really? Are we going to get away with this in 2025? Should we be vaping or a cigarette or something? And it was talked about, we didn’t really resolve it. And then it popped up again in the script as this kind of, like a worry bead, like a totem, a memory of his father and something that he used to think, just not by smoking it.

And I think he still has the impulse. He still has a lot of these kinds of self-destructive impulses to eat, overeat, to drink and to smoke this pipe. And maybe one day down the line, if we get a few more seasons, he might have to smoke that pipe in frustration. But I think I enjoyed finding a way to use it to think without smoking it, because it would have been a lovely crutch, believe me, to be able to smoke a pipe, but I think I probably would have looked ridiculous. I can’t get away with it. I just don’t have… I’m not cool enough, let’s face it.

Jace Lacob: I mean, I love it because the pipe becomes almost, you said like a totem, but it is almost talismanic. It’s redolent with sweet tobacco, but also with nostalgia. And it connects him to his past, to his father. Do you see the pipe then, as something that weighs him down or something that lightens him?

Benjamin Wainwright: Yeah, I think it does weigh him down. I think he’s trying to figure out who his father is. Over the course of the series, everyone has a different view on it. He died when Maigret was relatively young and that might have slightly arrested his image of him. We all kind of think our fathers are heroes, and if we don’t meet them as an adult and see them with all their flaws, then do we ever know who they are? And he’s constantly told who his father is, and he’s constantly trying to find his own version and his own way through. At the same time, he’s also trying to become a father himself. So it’s all this long line of who was he? Who am I? And who might my child become? All distilled down into this pipe, I think.

Jace Lacob: It’s pretty amazing. The character of Maigret has been called the Sherlock Holmes of France, though unlike Holmes or Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, it’s not logic that allows him to solve crimes, but often intuition. Simenon wrote, “Patiently he strove to understand, aware that the most apparent motives are not always the deepest ones.” How does that need to understand drive your Maigret?

Benjamin Wainwright: Yes. I mean, they talk about solving people, not crimes. And I think often with these cases there, we know who the perpetrator is, and the real joy of Maigret is discovering why, and finding out that, as you say, that that deeper motivation. And Maigret is very bullish about not settling for an arbitrary result or an arrest. He is committed to understanding the victim and the perpetrator and meting out justice on that basis. And in that sense, I think he feels an obligation as a human, as a flawed human, to understand all the parties in a given crime.

He recognizes when people are out of their normal context or behaving slightly bizarrely. And whilst others might kind of jump on the most obvious bit of evidence, in this case, it’s usually Cavre who he has a lovely dynamic with because they approach cases from a completely different perspective. He’ll see that some little detail is out of place where Caver has gone, well, this is where the evidence points and this is where we’re going. But Maigret is kind of more sensitive and takes a more holistic approach to all of these situations. And the crime is one thing, but justice is separate. And his idea of that is quite radical. It’s not about just putting someone behind bars. It’s about finding out where the real crime has been committed in the sense of probably like a crime against humanity as opposed to something that law has determined to be a crime.

Jace Lacob: So the sort of law of man, the law of God.

Benjamin Wainwright: Exactly.

Jace Lacob: Yeah. It’s a deeper justice,

Benjamin Wainwright: I think so.

Jace Lacob: A deeper transgression. In the first two episodes, Maigret must balance solving a string of high profile bank robberies and the murder of a thief, Honoré Cuendet. He’s under pressure to solve the former and drop the latter. “Who are we working for?” He asks. “The banking system or Honoré Cuendet and his heartbroken mother?” That tug of war feels particularly relevant in 2025 to me. You mentioned justice earlier and this tug of war between God’s law and man’s law. How does Maigret struggle with his duty to the social contract that he enforces?

Benjamin Wainwright: Yeah, good question. I think he’s found himself in a position whereby he thinks he’s in the best place for his particular skill set to try and strive for this radical idea of justice he has. But with that comes a lot of restraints. And I think he’s frustrated that he’s not allowed to pursue a very pure form of justice, whereby he thinks there’s a real hierarchy of crimes whereby murder, a violation of humanity in that sense is the worst and a corporate bank raid is something he maybe slightly appreciates and salutes. I think there’s a bit of Robin Hood about him.

So, I think he’s frustrated that he can’t choose exactly what he investigates, not that it stops him. But yeah, I think he has very much a social conscience. I think that’s what makes him unique. It’s what gets him into trouble. And ultimately, I think that’s what makes him empathetic. I think victims and perpetrators both see that in him, that he cares. He’s not cold and distant like a lot of other detectives, I think.

Jace Lacob: He feels.

Benjamin Wainwright: He feels. It’s dangerous.

Jace Lacob: Yes. Our introduction to Maigret is when his wife, Louise wakes him up from a dream.

 

CLIP

Maigret: I had a strange dream.

Louise: Was I in it?

Maigret: Not this time.

 

Jace Lacob: Even that brief scene of Maigret and Louise in the bedroom speaks volumes about their marriage. There’s a tenderness there, a sense of care and love. And I love their dinner scenes together. And the way that Maigret will call to ask what she wants for dinner each night. There is this beautiful familiarity between you and Stefanie Martini in these scenes, and they feel really as lived in as the Maigrets’ kitchen itself. How did you look, then, to develop that sense of chemistry and ease with each other? With Stefanie?

Benjamin Wainwright: It’s a funny thing, chemistries can sometimes be elusive when you’re acting and sometimes it’s just there. And I think Stef and I were very lucky. I actually had known her for a long time through friends, but kind of not very well. And now obviously know her very well through this show. And it’s kind of just been fun and playful since the start. And it doesn’t always happen and you can work at it, but I think in this instance we just kind of enjoyed each other’s company and it was great to spar on screen.

And she’s just so good and has done this kind of thing an awful lot before. So it was very comforting for me to have her telling me when I was worrying too much or not worrying enough. And, you try and establish or sometimes you accidentally establish a similar kind of dynamic to what the characters have on screen. And we were lucky that we had that, I think.

Jace Lacob: So Stephanie is also the most patient woman.

Benjamin Wainwright: Oh God, so patient.

Jace Lacob: One of the ongoing narrative arcs in series one is Maigret and Louise’s attempts to conceive a child. Their attempts to conceive are fraught. Louise is taking progesterone. They’re both working mad hours. Their excitement over the ultrasound to hear their baby’s heartbeat is quickly shattered when we learn Louise has lost the baby. And that scene in the bar immediately afterwards is just sort of summed up, “We will try again”.

 

CLIP

Louise: We will try again, of course.

Maigret: No, it’s too much. The injections, the hormone changes, everything. We’re fine as we are. More than fine.

Louise: I know, but we will try again.

 

Jace Lacob: What was it like tapping into this couple’s heartbreaking, emotional roller coaster here?

Benjamin Wainwright: That was the first scene Stef and I shot together, so we were very much in at the deep end.

Jace Lacob: Wow.

Benjamin Wainwright: Yeah. And I think it’s very much a time in my life where I know a lot of people going through the same thing, and a lot of people who have worked very hard and are now working even harder to try and conceive and. I think it’s such a powerful thing in your 30s, it’s all around you. And we really wanted to do it justice. And it’s a hard thing to confront, certainly, but I think we got somewhere close to it.

Jace Lacob: It hit me in the gut, that scene. Just the emotional sparseness and simplicity of it, but it spoke volumes. I cannot believe that that was the first scene that the two of you shot together, because there is such a honed intimacy between the two of you with what’s not spoken in that scene. Having said that, though, my favorite scene across the entire series is at the end of Episode Four, where Maigret and Louise meet up with Layla outside the camper van.

 

CLIP

Layla: Do you have any children?

Louise: Not yet, but we’re going to.

 

Jace Lacob: To me, there’s so much hope and optimism embedded in that statement. How did you read this scene between the three of them?

Benjamin Wainwright: Yeah, it’s a lovely scene. And throughout that, the genius of Patrick’s writing is he’s got this kind of reminder of what they’ve lost just in front of them for the whole of that second film with this lovely influencer, Layla. And for all of the theories they have around her, she turns out to just be a very sweet kind of teen who’s trying to find her way. And yeah, to be confronted with her at the end of two hours that have begun with their miscarriage, they steal themselves. They’re like, well, it’s got to be worth it. Look what we might produce. Look at this great individual. And I think it’s probably exactly what they needed. I think it’s a shot in the arm to meet her and see a kind of bright young thing like that.

 

MIDROLL

 

Jace Lacob: We’re back with Maigret star Ben Wainwright. Maigret reminds us that we’re all running from something. In his case, it’s his childhood in Saint-Fiacre. But he’s drawn back both by the reappearance of Sophie the Countess in his life and then a childhood enemy in the form of Ferdinand Fumal. How do these two strands help us to better understand Maigret in “Maigret’s Failure”?

Benjamin Wainwright: I think, as I mentioned before, in terms of his father, in this first season, we’re trying to establish Maigret and what drives him, and I think he, too, is trying to find that. Why has he ended up in the police force? Why does he have this strange empathy for everyone? And he looks for the answer in his father, and he’s told all sorts of different stories about his father and his competencies, and whether he was a good man or a stupid man or, you know, a noble man. And he hears in all of that people essentially talking to his character.

And I think at a certain point he is drawn back to solve this case, to help Sophie de Saint-Fiacre, and it’s him confronting the kind of man he’s going to be. And trying to step out of his father’s shadow, I think, as we all have to at some stage. And trying to work out is he his father or is he a different man? And at some point, you have to stand up for yourself and examine what made you who you are versus who you’re going to choose to be. And I think Saint-Fiacre and his father, that’s what he has to confront.

Jace Lacob: So let’s go down that rabbit hole a little bit. The Countess Sophie de Saint-Fiacre re-enters Maigret’s life at this time of uncertainty. She calls him Jules, which seems to harken back to his childhood, a remnant of another time. He’s carrying around his father’s pipe. He’s dealing with his father’s legacy. What does the Countess herself represent to Maigret? Is it part of that past that he tried to outrun? And how does he react now that it has forcibly re-entered his life.

Benjamin Wainwright: So Sophie, she was more or less a surrogate mother to him. He lost his mum when he was quite young and growing up on the estate when he was younger, he did have a crush on Sophie, I think. And that crush kind of transmogrified into something else when she became like a mother figure to him. So he feels a deep obligation to her, and some kind of complicated Oedipian thing is probably going on as well. We don’t wade too far into that. But she’s a very complex character. And she also may hold the key to who his father was and therefore who he is.

So there’s a hell of a lot wrapped up in her, and she comes with this huge estate where he spent his entire youth, at times happy and at times not so happy. And he’s not been back since he left decades ago, 19 or 20 years, I think, because the place is so charged. It’s the death of his mother. It’s the death of his father. I mean, in Episodes Five and Six, it’s a place where crimes have been committed. So he really has to grit his teeth to go back down there. And he sort of makes the wrong choice and leaves his wife exposed in Paris. So he’s chosen his contemporary world, but is being dragged back into his past and somehow has to find a way through them both.

Jace Lacob: You mentioned Cavre earlier, he’s never part of les Maigrets. He operates outside of their circle, and he’s filled with resentment and jealousy and more than a little bit of ambition. And I love that Series One ends with him being forced off the team, Lucas telling him he needs to find a new team and Torrence clocking him. What does Maigret make of their loyalty here against Cavre?

Benjamin Wainwright: The dynamic with Cavre is fantastic. I think one of the most fun things for me to play was against Cavre. And again, that crackly chemistry was just kind of there. Rob and I, we get on very well, but I think we come at life from very different angles. And likewise, Cavre’s approach is by the book. He’s very forceful. He’s not empathetic. It’s us and them. He likes to ‘other’ the criminals and the victims, and everyone is to blame. Whereas Maigret is obviously seeking to blur those lines between lawman and law maker and show that we’re all fallible and we could all be the other side of the law, but for decisions made.

But he also knows he’s a kind of necessary evil, and that he keeps his team looking legit by investigating those leads in a conventional manner that will look good on paper. So it’s slightly cruel that he kind of lets Cavre hoist himself by his own petard. Just what’s so lovely about Cavre is that he doesn’t know that he’s not part of the team, and that he’s not seen as part of the team. He very much thinks he is one of the Maigrets. And that’s the kind of tragedy of it is that he’s not really embraced by the team, but he can’t even see that that’s how he’s seen. Does that make sense?

Jace Lacob: It does. And it is so cringed at times to watch because he does feel like he is part of this team, but he’s better than the team, but he’s part of the team. But they let him know at the end that he is most definitely not and has never been part of this team.

Benjamin Wainwright: Bless him.

Jace Lacob: Bless him. It’s great. So Sophie begs Maigret to return home. She tells him that she suspects Janos has been conspiring with the Saint-Fiacre estate manager. She’s ill. He returns to Saint-Fiacre where Sophie dies in the church, almost like his dream. And his actions have left Louise vulnerable in Paris.

 

CLIP

Louise: Are you coming back or staying?

Maigret: Staying. A little bit longer.

Louise: I saw on the news you’re charging someone in the boy’s murder.

Maigret: Yes, but not the killer. He called me.

Louise: And?

Maigret: And I don’t know. He’s made contact, so I’m one step closer.

Louise: Are you in the right place Maigret?

Maigret: Do you mean in my head?

Louise: No, in reality. Geography. You should be here. Paris.

Maigret: Crime was committed here too. I rolled the dice. I have to follow through.

 

Jace Lacob: Does Maigret suspect that Louise herself might be in danger, given that the killer had made contact with him?

Benjamin Wainwright: I think when he calls her, I think he knows it’s a risk. Absolutely. And he is treading this very fine line between his present and his past and I don’t think he does it lightly. But it makes for a very thrilling conclusion for us. But I think he knows that for him to progress happily in his marriage, he has to deal with these demons from his past. And actually, as he says back to Madame Maigret, “You said that I had peace to make.” So he wields that sword against her when she questions his decision. So she’s to blame, really.

Jace Lacob: Sophie’s death scene is hauntingly beautiful. Maigret comes over and he touches her and she keels over in the church pew. She is sort of as he remembers her in his youth, almost. It is back in that church again. Does her death, his solving of her murder, absolve Maigret ultimately of the sense of guilt or shame he feels about his home?

Benjamin Wainwright: I think it does absolve him. I think in allowing Maurice to perform the denouement at the end of Episode Six, he’s stepped away comfortably from the whole situation, from all of its implications, and also delivered the kind of radical justice that that he looks for. Not many of those people are actually ending up arrested at the end of the episode, but they all have a sense of their complicity in killing this woman.

And I think that is exactly how he likes to mete out his justice. Those people will have to live with what they’ve done. They know that other people know, and that is kind of punishment enough and allows him to go back to Paris confident in who he has become. And he no longer needs to, I mean, literally, he doesn’t need to worry about Sophie, but he doesn’t need to go back there. It’s a different place to him now. The ghosts of the past are exorcised.

Jace Lacob: Episode Six leads to a climactic standoff with Bercy, who has taken Louise hostage inside the Maigrets’ flat. In true Maigret fashion, he understands Percy’s motivation.

 

CLIP

Maigret: It wasn’t planned. Someone angered you or disrespected you. You stabbed him. Your uncle. You weren’t even suspected. But for months you were afraid you’d be found out but you never were. But eventually, you began to get angry because no one knew what you’d done. This incredible thing that you’d done.

Bercy: What had I done?

Maigret: Taken a life. Crossed the line. Removed yourself from the community of man.

 

Jace Lacob: But Louise disagrees with her husband.

 

CLIP

Louise: I don’t agree with my husband. You haven’t crossed some magical line. He cares about the pain that you feel. I care about the pain that you’ve caused.

 

Jace Lacob: Where does Maigret draw the line between understanding criminals and excusing them?

Benjamin Wainwright: I think this is it. This is him having to deal with that. Is there a person that Maigret can sympathize for despite the horrific crime that he’s committed, almost arbitrarily? What Bercy’s done and Maigret is being pushed to his line to find his line. And I think what’s refreshing is that he doesn’t save the day here. Madame Maigret very much saves the day because there has to be a point where you go, no, that’s not okay behavior. There is no justification. And there’s a kind of steely core to Louise that I think Maigret needs to kind of pick up from this point, because he’s let this situation get so out of hand. And Louise never would have done. And she warned him. And this is how he grows through this relationship and why she’s so good for him.

Jace Lacob: So Series One begins with a haunted Maigret having these dreams of Saint-Fiacre. It ends with Maigret home in Saint-Fiacre again. He takes Louise to his parents’ graves and Louise says, “Saint-Fiacre, you’ve come home.” And the series ends on Maigret’s rare smile. What did you make of this smile, and on the decision to end the series not on a moment of doom, but on this expression of happiness?

Benjamin Wainwright: Does it end on a smile? My God. They are rare. They are rare, those smiles, although we get one at the end of Episode One, I think. So that’s nice. I mean, my first impression is I obviously should have been smiling more if it’s such a significant thing. But no, I mean, I think it’s a very deliberate choice on the part of our executive producer, showrunner, Patrick, to get away from the cynical Maigrets of old, the grit and the rain and the grayness. We wanted to make a different Maigret capable of levity and fun and optimism. And I think we have a show with a lot of levity and humor in it, and it’s not necessarily coming from Maigret. It’s probably from his team, but if we’re going to stick with this character, we need to see more from him. And we want to see that warmth and we want to see that humanity. And we don’t want to see the Maigrets of old. This is a different Maigret.

Jace Lacob: Ben, your acting CV lists some rather interesting skills, including Mandarin and French language skills and juggling. How proficient of a juggler are you?

Benjamin Wainwright: Oh, God. I need to change that, don’t I? I mean, I can juggle, I can juggle three items. You give me three items, I can juggle them. You shouldn’t bring these things up with actors. They put a lot of stupid stuff on their CVs, you know? But that’s no lie. I’ll at least say that, nor is the French or the Mandarin.

Jace Lacob: So, proficient. Proficient.

Benjamin Wainwright: Let’s say proficient.

Jace Lacob: Benjamin Wainwright, thank you so very much.

Benjamin Wainwright: Thank you very much.

 

Coming up next on MASTERPIECE Studio, join us on December 16^th for a special podcast episode celebrating the 250^th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. But before then, On November 23^rd, be sure to catch Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson as they star in the comedy-drama, The Great Escaper.

 

CLIP

Bernard: Did you happen to see…

Irene: Woah, woah, woah. Hold your horses.

Bernard: What’s wrong?

Irene: Nothing. Only I haven’t got my face on.

Bernard: I’ve seen it without.

Irene: 1973. It’s not happening again.

 

This film is based on the true story of Bernard Jordan, the 90-year-old British World War II veteran who escaped from his retirement home to attend a 70th anniversary D-Day memorial in France. That’s Sunday, November 23rd at 9pm Eastern, 8pm Central on MASTERPIECE on PBS.