-Our next guest is the award-winning host
of "The Graham Norton Show."
The second season of his show, "Queen of the Universe,"
will premiere on June 2nd on Paramount Plus.
Please welcome back to the show, our friend from across the pond,
Graham Norton, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Welcome. -Thank you very much.
-Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is a big deal for us.
-Wow. That's -- Yeah, that's --
[ Cheering ]
It's impressive that they can cheer
and whoop like that while Googling me.
-Oh, no, no, no.
See, you don't realize you're a big deal over here
and people are very excited. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[ Cheering ]
-I think a lot of them think they would have to
cross the Atlantic to see you. -Take a plane.
-And now they get you here in person.
-Here I am. -Here you are.
-And I'm very happy to be here. I love New York City.
I think it's very good for old people fun.
-Oh, wow. Interesting. Meaning what?
-Well, you know, my days of daytime clubbing
and zip-lining, they're over.
-And you were very good at them both.
-I loved them. -Were you a zip liner for real?
-No. -Okay.
-You went to some clubs in the daytime, though.
-That I did, too. -Yeah.
-So now I'm here,
and, you know, you can go to see shows.
There's galleries. They deliver things.
It's easy to get a cab. It's old people fun.
And if you are an older thrill-seeker,
you can be excited by maybe being hit by a bike,
because that gets your heart rate up.
-That's the new zip-line. -Yeah, that is it.
-Yeah. Ooh! Where's my medication?
-You obviously, you usually are asking the questions.
How do you feel about
being the interviewee as opposed to the interviewer?
-I mean, not great, to be honest --
[ Laughter ]
So sorry, apologies in advance. That bit's so much easier.
It's so much easier to be you. -I agree.
I just did James Corden's show last week,
and I genuinely said to him,
"Being the guest is so much harder."
-Really, really hard. So bear that in mind.
[ Cheers ]
This is very difficult.
[ Applause ]
-And I think that, you know,
sometimes I'll have people,
often will be on the show and when it's over,
they'll lean over and go, "How do you do this every night?"
And I'm like, doing it every night is the easy part.
Doing it once every six months, that's the hard part.
-Yeah, no, I remember when I was growing up,
there was a show in Ireland called "The Late Late Show,"
and I mean, it started about 7:00, but...
but it was dark out, so...
And there was a host called Gay Byrne.
That was actually his name.
And he did it forever. The show is still going.
And as a kid, I always dreamt of
being a guest on the show and it's only as an adult,
I've realized it's much better to be the host,
because you get to be on every week.
And also, you know,
the chances of you coming back are higher,
because -- you know what it's like.
When you started this show,
there were probably guests you really wanted to get.
-Now, not so much. -Yup, exactly.
The longer you do it, you want it --
you start repeating people and other people
sort of get dropped off the ledger.
-Yeah, yeah.
-But the thing that I'm very impressed with,
because I do think you have a harder job as a host than I do,
is you have to navigate multiple guests out at once.
And it's sometimes as many as six people.
Also six very famous people.
Do you get nervous about that part of it?
-Well, sometimes.
But I think what's good about actors is -- no offense,
but sometimes they don't care about an audience.
-Right.
-But they do care about each other.
-I see.
-So if an actor tells a funny story,
you can see someone seething, kind of like,
"I have a funny story! I [bleep] myself!"
And so the stakes get higher and higher.
Sometimes we do get, like, terrible stories,
like, don't tell that on television!
-Well, that is fascinating, because I will say,
in my head, when I think of famous people
and the most embarrassing story they've told on a chat show,
it's always on yours.
-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.
-And I do believe she is someone a perfect example.
She knows the role she plays. -Yes.
-When someone says something, she knows to
lean into the Dame in those moments.
-Absolutely. "Ooh!"
-Do you ever -- I always, if I ever get nervous --
I think the longer I do the show,
the less I get nervous, which is wonderful.
But it is the sort of very famous people,
especially famous people when I was young,
and you tend to get a lot of those.
Do you get nervous anymore with people like that?
-I mean, sometimes.
Backstage, we were talking about Tom Cruise.
-Yeah.
-And Tom Cruise is one of those people, you know --
Because normally once they come through that 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.
Tom Cruise, I never get past the fact that it's Tom Cruise.
He remains Tom Cruise throughout the interview,
and an audience likes that, and I enjoy that,
and also, you know, the other guests, you can tell
they're all a bit starry about him,
and there aren't many people like that.
That kind of old star system's kind of gone.
-It's really funny how you would say,
"Oh, there's no movie stars anymore.
There's just great actors and actresses."
And then every now and then you're like,
"Oh, I just saw a [bleep] movie star."
Like, they come out, the audience is different.
It's really, it's a trip.
-Like, Jennifer Lopez is not everywoman.
-Yeah. [ Laughs ]
-It's so funny that she played a maid.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, right.
-When you come on
another one of these shows like this,
do you sort of check out the green rooms?
Are you measuring them up compared to yours?
-I have to say, already now, I have to go back to London
and I may have to change my ways.
A handwritten note from Seth Meyers.
-I should note I learned the handwritten notes,
that was a gift given to me.
Jimmy Fallon told me, "Make sure, when you get this job,
you leave a --"
So I leave a handwritten note every day. Yeah.
[ Crowd awws ]
-See, what's sweet is, I used to do it.
[ Laughter ]
-So this isn't a thing you didn't know about.
You just stopped. -I just stopped.
It's like, very nice of you
to swing by the dressing room, say hello.
Don't do that anymore, either.
-You don't even say hi to the guests?
-What's the other thing I don't do?
Oh, talk to them afterwards.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheering ] No, no.
If I bump into them in a corridor, I'll say hello.
-Oh that's lovely. -Yeah.
-I mean, that's above and beyond.
-Sometimes, though, I don't recognize them,
and I'll think, "They're well dressed."
[ Laughter ]
-I once saw -- A young person on the street said hi to me,
and I panicked and I thought they had been a young actor
who'd been on the show and I'd forgotten.
And we were waiting for the light.
So I leaned in and I go, "So what have you been up to?"
And they looked at me and go, "Just getting ready for finals."
[ Laughter ]
I was like, "Cool, cool.
That's a normal question that a man my age asks."
-Yeah. "You busy right now?"
-Hey, I got a lot more questions.
You guys, that's Graham Norton! We'll be right back.