Graham Norton struck up a close friendship with a Hollywood icon, but admits he couldn’t admit that he wasn’t familiar with her work, after she thought he was a ‘fan’
Chat show host Graham Norton revealed he was good friends with a Hollywood icon, but hid a huge secret from her. Graham, 63, met Star Wars icon Carrie Fisher when he was filming Ruby Wax’s BBC Two series Ruby.
The chat show saw a series of guests sitting around a dinner table for an unscripted conversation. Graham however revealed that Ruby admitted she felt she knew the Princess Leia actress too well to ask her about Star Wars.
Graham though “didn’t really care” for the sci-fi franchise as a youngster so was asked if he could quiz Carrie about George Lucas’s project. Speaking on his Wanging On podcast, he said: “I didn’t really care about Star Wars at all, but years later there was a time where Ruby Wax did this chat show where it was kind of a dinner table and Ruby had people and you chatted to each other.
“I was doing one with Ruby and it was the first time I ever met Carrie Fisher and so before the show, Ruby said to me, ‘Look, I know Carrie so I can’t ask her about Star Wars, can you ask the Star Wars questions?’
“And so I did, and from that day on, Carrie thought I was a fan of Star Wars and I never told her that I could not have cared less for Star Wars. To the point where there was all the secrecy about the new Star Wars Coming back, she told me the whole plot, she told me everything.”
Graham went on to joke that he wouldn’t have “anyone to tell” but he “doesn’t know anyone who would care” about the franchise. He believes that Star Wars was both the “making of” and “undoing” of Carrie.
He added: “Princess Leia, that’s a big old thing to drag through life, it’s hard. She was just generally funny and so well liked.”
In a 2015 interview with Time magazine, Carrie, who died aged 60 in 2016, admitted she had accepted “long ago” that she would always be seen as Princess Leia. She said: “I long ago accepted that I am Princess Leia. I have that as a large part of the association with my identity.”
Having starred as Leia in the original trilogy, Carrie made a return to the role after 32 years in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
When asked why she decided to answer J.J. Abrams’ call, she replied: “I’m a female and in Hollywood it’s difficult to get work after 30, maybe it’s getting to be 40 now.”
After starring as Leia, Carrie went on to write a series of semi-autobiographical novels as well as appearing in a string of television shows and films, including the likes of When Harry Met Sally and the Blues Brothers. She was twice nominated for an Emmy award for her role in the sitcom 30 Rock.
Carrie’s 2016 appearance on the Graham Norton Show turned out to be her final interview. Discussing the star on ITV’s This Morning, he said: “It transpired that was her final interview. If we had know, I wish we had done a better job! It was such a shock.
“It’s taken a long time to figure out that she has gone. She did nearly cancel, she was ill, under the weather. But she got through the show. When we got news, I thought that can’t be the end of Carrie Fisher. She was a life force.
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