Celeb interviews don’t always turn out well, as many of us can attest.
For Graham Norton , interviewing Rihanna , Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett was like chaperoning a hen do.
The BBC host invited the all female cast of Ocean’s 8 – which also included Sarah Paulson and Helena Bonham Carter – to appear together on his sofa after the film’s premiere in June.
Now, he describes it as one of the worst episodes of his chat show.
“I felt like the guy driving the bus on a hen party,” he told an audience at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.
“For 45 minutes people were talking over each other and laughing. They were having a great time but the audience was nonplussed.”
Still, they were preferable to Robert De Niro, who won’t be invited back by Graham in a hurry.
“He’s not a storyteller, or very verbal,” moans Graham. “He’s a benign presence. Last time he started telling a story – he went on and on.
“We were all leaning in, willing it to be amazing… then he finally went, ‘why am I telling this?’ Nobody had an answer. We cut it.”
Careful consideration goes into timing possibly problematic guests.
“You want the big Hollywood stars on the sofa, and you plan the rest around them,” he explains.
“If they’re a particularly precious star, then you won’t put on a very rude comic with them or some sort of drug-addled rock star…
“We save those for Christmas.”
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