Graham Norton has revealed that his celebrity guests often compete with each other to be the centre of attention on his show.
On Thursday, Norton was a guest on Seth Meyers’ US talk show where he was asked how he manages to seamlessly interview multiple star guests at a time and often gets funny and embarrassing anecdotes out of them.
“I think what’s good about actors is sometimes they don’t care about the audience, but they do care about each other,” he explained.
“So if an actor tells a funny story, you can see someone seething. Kind of like, ‘I have a funny story! I shit myself!’. And so, the stakes get higher and higher.
“And sometimes we do get terrible stories – kind of like, ‘don’t tell that on television’.”
Recently the TV host had Kate Winslet share a story about a moment she thought she’d “totally sh*t myself” on stage during the early years of her career.
“When I think of famous people and the most embarrassing story they’ve told on a chat show, it’s always on your show,” said Myers.
Norton continued: “But I think that is because of the other guests. They’re trying to outdo each other.
“And also, it is funny to say something really rude in front of Dame Judi Dench or something.”
When asked if he ever gets nervous interviewing big names, he explained that he no longer gets star-struck, with one exception.
“Once they come through the door and they sit down, pretty quickly, it’s just a man in a jacket or some woman in a frock and that’s the end of it,” he explained.
“[But] Tom Cruise, I never get past the fact that he’s Tom Cruise. He remains Tom Cruise throughout the interview.
“And an audience likes that, I enjoy that, and also the other guests, you can tell, they’re a bit starry about him. And there aren’t many people like that, that old ‘star system’ has kind of gone.”
