Graham Norton discusses ‘worst ever guest’ on his BBC talk show

Might I say that was the most fucking annoying format for delivering a few lines of quotation?

That is also a very cowardly and boring way to answer that question, picking Weinstein, someone in jail that everyone hates.

I'm sure there were celebrities that people like who rubbed Norton the wrong way. That would have been interesting to hear.

I also thought he once said it was that chick from Mork and Mindy? or who the hell am I misremembering??

Norton basically admits Weinstein is now his easy answer because he is so acceptable to hate on. He implies its not even his most honest answer, just a deflection

Lindsay Wagner

The chick from Mork and Mindy is Pam Dawber

Mark Wahlberg got pissed on Norton's show and made himself look like a prick a few years ago.

Pam Dawber was on Graham Norton?

R8 No, my mistake. I was thinking of Lindsay Wagner.

Anytime I see any headline about Graham Norton I read it as Big Black Cock initially. Everytime lol.

Yeah R8, truth is stronger than fiction

The worst guest I've seen on the show was Robert De Niro - clenched ass and no fun as if joy had been sucked out of his life.

The best guest was Joan Rivers - nonstop hilarious and not afraid to say shit about other people. RIP Joan!

Norton used to regularly insult and make fun of tom cruise all the time UNTIL cruise agreed to appear on his show and since then cruise has appeared a number of times and Norton's turn around of 180 degree kissing cruise's ass is pathetic and sickening...

From The Daily Fail:

[quote] I failed with Kylie. I’ve seen her on other shows since, and met her myself and she was lovely, but it just didn’t work. I wonder if it was because it was the first series [it started on Channel 4 in 1998] and she thought I was out to get her. 'That was a problem in the early days. People were on their guard, sitting there braced to be made a fool of. I had that reputation, which wasn’t deserved. Yes the show looked edgy, and crazy things happened, but the guests were safe as houses.’ Who else? ‘Lindsay Wagner. 'We flew her into London, but in hindsight she just wanted a free trip here to see her friends. On the show she was monosyllabic.’

Why on earth would Lindsay Wagner have been a guest worth flying in? Has Graham been on the air since 1980?

Not a DL favorite, but Miriam Margolyes is always a funny guest on the Graham Norton Show. A few years ago she was on with Will.I.Am, they had great chemistry together. GN is a good interviewer and the red chair is always good for a laugh.

The very first time I ever saw The Graham Norton Show, he had a an audience member go backstage and strip down and get spray=painted in gold paint and then appear onstage Totally Naked with his gold dick flopping about!!! In the US we don't have full frontal nudity on Network Television. I was so shocked that I became a total fan!!!

So the best guest ever, was the guy who appeared totally naked!!! The worst guest was....... Bea Arthur. (Because, why not.)

Was it Jon Stewart who said Hugh Grant was his worst interview ever?

[quote] Lindsay Wagner, who was the Bionic Woman – but in that instance, it was completely her fault. She had seen all the tapes, she’d had lunch with me, you know, she absolutely knew what she was getting into. And she just sat there like a big lump. You just looked at her and would think, “Why on earth did you agree to come on this show?” You know, it wasn’t like we were doing anything different.

The way Graham groveled with Hillary Clinton was really repulsive. Then he brought her back and did it again! Gross.

After the thread about "cancel culture" and him calling JK Rowling problematic was deleted, Norton has deleted his Twitter account, one he never tweeted from other than promotional stuff about his twee Maeve Binchy lite novels.

There is a now a #istandwithgrahamnorton hashtag.

Boo hoo

You never see Norton or Billy Bragg calling themselves "cis people," "testicle havers" or "ejaculators" though, do you? Yet they feel the need to wag their fingers in the faces of women who disagree with the redefinition of womanhood being forced onto them under threat of violence by misogynistic autogynephiles who think womanhood is a costume they can appropriate..

Since Graham's comments on "accountability" some people have been sharing some of his incredibly misogynistic jokes from over the years, including celebrities with well known mental health problems.

BUT GRAHAM IS THE VICTIM

Tom Hiddleston did a funny/accurate impression of Norton.

The episode with Lady Anne Glenconner promoting her memoir book was excellent. Helen Bonham-Carter was also a guest.

I since saw Kylie on with Russell Crowe, Cameron Diaz and Richard Ayode, she was as sweet and fun as ever.

Even Rusty was good humoured.

I love his show. It's a great idea to get the guests on the sofa at the same time and they always seem more relaxed and chilled than on most talk shows. It feels more like a chat than an interview.

He's also very skilled with how he keeps the conversation flowing in a way that gives his guests equal airtime.

Unfortunately the length of each season has been shortened, so it's not back till September.

Joan Rivers was one of the lesser guests: same old tired shtick, bless her.

The worst guest of recent memory was a supremely uptight Taylor Swift on her first appearance.

The best guests by far have been British: Miriam Margolyes, Greg Davies, and Robbie Williams.

Williams cock story is hard to beat.

I met Norton back in the late 90s during one of his trips to Los Angeles.

Most talk show hosts' "worst guest" is the monosyllabic one. Everyone knows the deal when you go on a talk show is to offer the most entertaining side of yourself, and if you don't you're just spiting the host and the audience. You're only allowed to withdraw if you're there to talk about something serious (e.g. a Greta Thunberg type) and they keep insisting you "join in the fun".

R7- Who cares if that HATEFUL GUTTER SNIPE is pissed 😤

[quote]Was it Jon Stewart who said Hugh Grant was his worst interview ever?

I think Stewart said he was the rudest to his staff and didn't want him back; based on recent behavior, I could see Grant being awful to the production staff, but at least cordial to Stewart.

This show would be tough because it's not enough to just come on & sell your movie/TV show, whatever. You have to get into the spirit of whatever Norton is doing & not everyone is on board with that. I recall one episode, Norton had this weird fanfic of X-Men Magento/Professor X of MacAvoy & Fassbender and they were clearly uncomfortable with it. They were good sports & played along, but you could just see the "dear god, let this be over soon" looks on their faces. So someone Norton considers a bad guest might be someone who just isn't willing to play along with his schtick

Graham has such little dick energy. Just when i think the Irish curse is BS., I catch some of the penile envy of his on camera. Very off putting. Lucky for Professor Sprout( Margolyes)her dick is smaller than his, so she gets a pass.

Graham Norton is so insincere it's cringe inducing.

Miriam and DL favorite, Daniel Radcliffe.

R33, where did you get that McAvoy and Fassbinder were uncomfortable with the fanfic? They seemed pretty relaxed to me.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were uncomfortable with fanfiction provided by, I think, Caitlin Moran.

Cumberbatch said he was being unfairly inserted into what is written for a community of fans to share among themselves and there’s a humiliation factor with him having to public engage with it.

Joan Rivers killed every time she was on that show.

Joan.

It is interesting how he manages to get his guest to relax and interact with each other. This rarely happens in US late shows where they appear, talk to the host (share some funny anectode, plug their latest project) and then move aside and sit there quietly while the next guest plugs his latest project. The focus is on the host and the guest of that segment. On Graham it's more like a bunch of people gabbing and making it look utterly charming (most of the time).

Joan Rivers was fine in the ep I saw, even if her jokes were blah (Michelle Obama is a man and Asians eat dogs), she was energetic and interacted with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jeremy Clarkson.

Nah. It was just her usual stage act. The great guests are the ones who are approximations of their natural selves.

Early Norton was great.

And the immortal speed dating segment.

How have so many innocuous posters on this thread been banned?

R38 The most uncomfortable episode I've ever seen was a fairly recent one where some musician told (gay) actor Andrew Scott straight to his face that she masturbates to him as his character on Fleabag. Repulsive.

It's always interesting when someone bumps an old thread and it's just redtags galore.

[quote]Cumberbatch said he was being unfairly inserted into what is written for a community of fans to share among themselves and there’s a humiliation factor with him having to public engage with it.

I always feel so badly for actors who get the fanfic and slashfic treatment, because the kind of nerd who is into that kind of thing doesn't see actors as real people, they just see them as objects and then get mad if any of them say they're uncomfortable about that treatment.

Then you occasionally get actors like Hiddleston who embraced the fanfic part of the job, and they just chewed him up and spit him out. The second he was made fun of for hanging with a "cool girl" (who was too young for him, too) they ran away instead of defending him. If he'd been caught choking out a girlfriend or breaking into homes in Hawaii they'd have stuck with him!

This thread is from October. I'm assuming the red tags must all be related to the Midterms.

I don't the purpose of red tags was to keep people who say things like "The chick from Mork and Mindy was Pam Dawber" off the DL.

R49 the industry openly encourages that shit too, and always has, because obsessive fangirls will spend money on anything.

Found the video of R47. Poor Andrew 😞

Upthread, someone commented about how Norton has everyone on the couch together and the guests seem to chat and relax. Much of that is because a) it's the format, chosen by Graham and producers and b) the program runs without commercials. Isn't this a BBC production?

Also, the show has a lot of schtick these days... any guest knows what they're getting when agreeing to appear, so get on the bandwagon and enjoy.

I do with BBC America showed the program more often than just 11pm Sunday evenings. A few repeats during the week would be great.

[quote] Cumberbatch said he was being unfairly inserted into what is written for a community of fans to share among themselves and there’s a humiliation factor with him having to public engage with it.

You can fall down a rabbit hole watching clips of celebs reading what is being said about them on social media. At some point, someone decided that it's ok for celebs to acknowledge creepy shit written about them. I don't know if it encourages fans to get more outlandish, or these fans just see how creepy they look when their comments become public knowledge "without context" and stop posting that creepy stuff.

It inures everyone to the creepiness and normalizes it.

Graham can veer a little sadistic. I think he gets off on humiliating actors.

Thanks for posting that, r52. I love Paloma Faith and was thinking about other appearances of hers while scrolling through this thread

[Quote] I always feel so badly for actors who get the fanfic and slashfic treatment, because the kind of nerd who is into that kind of thing doesn't see actors as real people, they just see them as objects and then get mad if any of them say they're uncomfortable about that treatment.

And if said actor is uncomfortable, it automatically means he's a homophobe. And 9/10 the character they're playing is straight.

R29 exactly. The answer is always Robbie Williams . He brings such hysterical stories and gets it. Knows how the show works, where to put his goofiness in and just loves to take the piss out of everyone. He’s cheeky and British and perfect for the red couch.

Meeryl

Dame Helen's reaction to hearing that Paul Rudd kissed Jack Nicholson. won't see this on Corden.

Kylie had massive beef with Norton because he made so many jokes about her sister. When the Jonathan Ross show lost its popularity, I guess she had to swallow her pride and go back to Norton as there was no other high-rating talk show. I also heard Norton apologised to her.

I'm certain Madonna was always one of the people he said was the worst guest, ever.

He's such a pandering misogynist. He showed his true colors. Women should boycott him.

Oh, Mary, lighten up.

Greatest 180 degree turn around ass kissing by Norton? Tom Cruise.... Norton regularly made fun of him, his cult, and so on but once Cruise showed up on his show and ever after the other appearances, Norton has figuratively whipped out the kneepads....

R32, R7 is British and meant that he was trashed.

The point Cumberbatch made about fanfiction is that it’s fine for fans to share end engage with among themselves but the vast majority of fanfiction writers don’t want the celebrity to read their stuff in public - and he doesn’t want to read it. The writings are their responses and fantasies to his art and he wants nothing to do with it.

He blamed the interviewer who ambushed him with it and declined to read.

Making fun of Dannii is one thing - though she was never off-key the way he claims - but making fun of her with the talentless and charmless Sharon Osbourne?

[quote]Kylie had massive beef with Norton because he made so many jokes about her sister. When the Jonathan Ross show lost its popularity, I guess she had to swallow her pride and go back to Norton as there was no other high-rating talk show. I also heard Norton apologised to her.

There's a clip of Kylie on Jonathan Ross where he slips in a dig about Dannii and Kylie isn't having it at all.

Is there footage of the Lindsey Wagner interview?

I don't know about worst guest from his perspective, but the two that I always remember as being particularly bad (not just uninteresting) were Madonna and Mark Wahlberg, the former because he was very sycophantic towards her and she just came across badly (plus wearing an outfit that pushed her tits up ridiculously and seemed like she could barely breathe) and the latter because he came across as drunk and was just annoying.

On the sycophancy issue, Norton has a radio show and interviewed JK Rowling who had a new book out. He was his typical self to her, and asked about Twitter stuff, but not directly about the gender/sex stuff.

Shortly after he had his own book out and it was during a Sunday Times interview he was totally dismissive of her, interpreting her "pub brawl" answer to a question that she enjoyed the abuse she gets.

Every single media engagement after that focused on JKR and trans issues. It must have been devastating to be promoting a novel yet constantly being asked about a more famous and successful writer.

^that’s interesting. It’s a sign of weakness. But I’ve noticed that people who are great company - like Graham obviously is - are not necessarily sincere with it. Socialising is a skill and and controlling the space is an art.

When Tom Cruise was filming Mission Impossible 2, he regularly stopped by the cafe I worked in to buy milkshakes for his kids. He would wait patiently in line, chat to whoever approached and would leave a massive tip. He profoundly pleasant in manner, and galvanisingly charismatic. In spite of the spurious cult and his insanity I can never fully dismiss him.

Norton has the element of a sycophant and I am pretty sure Tom Cruise targeted him as an easy mark to for his charm offensive, and bingo, it worked, the jokes have stopped, Graham sucks up him and his action move sequels have Royal premieres.

r73, that happens a lot.

As soon Perez Hilton got invited to PR events, he stopped making fun of certain celebrities, later ditching his "queen of mean" act altogether.

Two Broke Girls made fun of the Kardashians early on. Once Kim appeared on the show, it stopped.

The days of gossip columnist Ted Casablanca calling Gwyneth Paltrow Fishsticks are long gone.

Has he ever had Debra Winger on his show?

[quote]How have so many innocuous posters on this thread been banned?

It's because they aren't innocuous elsewhere on DL, r46. If you ignoredar a Muriel-designated troll, the reasons why they were banned are usually evident.