Depardieu denies being drunk on TV

The French actor Gerard Depardieu denied yesterday that he was drunk, rude or out of control when he appeared on a BBC TV chat show.

Depardieu said that he was only acting - and performing according to the expectations of the producers of the Jonathan Ross show. If so, it was one of the movie star's best recent performances on the screen.

While on the show, Depardieu appeared to slur his speech, chain-smoked cigarettes and ground out one stub on the studio floor. He told viewers that he drank "between four and eight bottles" of wine a day.

Asked how he would cook a hedgehog (the actor was in Britain to promote his cookbook), Depardieu said: "You inflate it through its arse."

In an interview yesterday with Le Journal du Dimanche, Depardieu angrily dismissed criticisms in France of his performance.

He also said that he had given up drinking six months ago.

"It was all fixed in advance," he said. "Ask the BBC how big their audience was. I can tell you they were very happy.

"It's only the French who were shocked. We had a laugh and it was great. [The British] are people who have a great sense of humour and with whom you can arrange things like that. It is the French who are cretins."

Depardieu pointed out that the show was pre-recorded. If the BBC had not been happy with his performance, IT could have edited it.

The actor - known for drunken escapades - added: "The truth is that I gave up drinking six months ago. I have lost 25 kilos. Everything is going fine."

Reminded that he had also appeared to be drunk on the Michael Field French TV chat show in April, Depardieu responded: "Ah, yes, with Field, precisely because it was a French show, and that pissed me off, I was sloshed, that's true.

"It's not the performance I'm most proud of but it was because television in France bores the shit out of me and the media here annoy me. France annoys me profoundly."

- INDEPENDENT