Who is Maigret?

(upbeat music) - Jules Maigret is the recently promoted chief inspector of the Brigade Criminal.

He's married and he is trying for a child and wrestling with that and his professional career, which is suddenly quite full on.

- Morning Boss.

- Morning Locas.

- Congrats on the promotion.

- Thank you.

It brings a lot more responsibility.

I think he suddenly has a bit of a profile, which he doesn't find very helpful.

I think he prefers to operate slightly under the radar.

He's a good leader, but he's not naturally inclined to tell people what to do.

So he's kind of learning the ropes of Chief Inspector.

- Even though we work in the same office as him, he's like this mysterious figure that seems to just really know what he's doing.

(upbeat music) - Our version of Maigret is the first contemporary Maigret in well over 50 years, one that's set in contemporary Paris with everything that that means.

The internet, CCTV, GPS, celebrity culture, influences and a cast reflecting life in contemporary Paris.

A different pace, a higher quotient of action.

I wanted my Maigret not to be noir, but to be emotional and fun.

- He doesn't like to be distracted by detail.

He takes a very open-minded, intuitive approach to cases, he likes to let motivations emerge.

- For me, there's been one key theme.

(speaking in foreign language) Understand and judge not.

Yes, he seeks justice for the victim, but his heart and his mind are just as involved with the criminal.

- And obviously when it's results driven and criminals need to be locked up, that's quite frustrating for the people around him.

- Maigret.

- Especially Kernavel, his boss, she doesn't really understand why he won't go down the obvious route.

- You said no one had died.

Well someone has now, does this make it a crime worthy of your attention?

- It's always had my attention.

- In particular, I think Maigret irritates Kernavel to some degree, primarily because she can't work out what he's doing and he's not very keen to communicate what he's doing.

- Excuse me, I need to think.

- And we have a lot of looks to each other like what is Maigret thinking at the moment?

'Cause he's obviously thinking of something that we haven't thought of yet and we all want to be able to think like him.

- Most crime shows have this sort of lead detective always knowing the answers and driving the team.

And I think with Maigret, what makes him so exciting is that everyone is hanging on his last word and that's not only the audience, but also the actors in the scene.

We don't know as characters where we're going.

- He's very empathetic and relies a lot on his gut feeling.

- And at the end of the day, we're trying to create human characters.

And I think Maigret as a show and as a character feels more relatable to an audience.

(upbeat music)