To pee or not to pee: Depardieu explains all

Gérard Depardieu as Obélix and Edouard Baer as Astérix in the spoof video which sends up the incident in which he urinated on a plane

The French film actor, Gérard Depardieu, yesterday laughingly explained, but did not apologise for, his decision to pee into a bottle on a Paris to Dublin plane last month, describing himself as "not a monster" but "an elephant".

Depardieu, 62, caused the cancellation of a CityJet flight after the bottle overflowed in the passenger cabin just before take-off. In an interview with CNN, the actor told the American news channel that a flight attendant had refused to allow him to use the toilet.

"I'm not a monster. I'm just a man who wants to pee... I don't understand why she blocked the door," he said, laughing. "I say, 'Madam, I have a lot of pee. I have to go pee. It's hurt me. I'm not a terrorist, I just want to pee'." After the flight attendant again refused, he said, he took an empty bottle and relieved himself. "It was so beautiful, you know. It's very hurt," the actor said, in somewhat broken English.

"The bottle was too small, you know. I am an elephant... I said, 'Don't worry, I will clean it up'."

Depardieu denied that he was drunk. Friends have said that he suffers from a prostate problem.

The actor was flying to Dublin to film scenes for a new Astérix movie in which he plays Obélix, the tiny but recalcitrant Gaul's giant sidekick. He and his co-star Edouard Baer have already released a spoof video in which Depardieu, dressed as Obélix, is seen on a plane insisting on his right to eat a wild boar just before take-off.