Episode 12 The Graham Norton Show

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my only hope. Please be my final guest

of the series. Why have you got two Danish pastries on your head?

They are my hair. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello. Hello. Hello everybody. Good evening.

Welcome to the show. The last show. The last show. I'm going on my

holidays next week, yes off to Greece. I'm looking forward to

strolling among the ruins. Ah, there they are making more! Greece

is not in a good way. Not in a good way. 2,000 years ago they had the

Acropolis. Now all they are giving is this.

LAUGHTER . It is our last show of the series

and we have got a lads night for you. Train spotting star and Jedhi

knight, Ewan McGregor is here. Chris ODowd is here.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And later we will be hearing the

number one song from Chample, ladies and gentlemen.

-- Example, ladies and gentlemen. There he is. And he will be be

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 118 seconds

chatting to us. I am very excited How are you doing? I'm very well.

It is Ewan McGregor. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I haven't heard this since Justin Bieber was on the show. Settle

yourself, ladies. You look smart, but Chris you just

came back from Glastonbury? Yeah, I did Glasto this weekend.

Did you do it properly? We tented up by the toilets thinking well

that's easy access to the toilets! And you realised your tent is

everybody else's toilet, but it was a lot of fun. We had a great time.

Beyonce who is or is not backstage right now!

Is not being the operative word. LAUGHTER

Also Pope Benedict may or may not. That's a cruel game!

LAUGHTER Have you done festivals? I haven't

done festivals for a long time. Now and again, I think I'll go when I'm

50. You see them, don't you? The crowd. The divorcees, you know. "I

haven't been to Glastonbury, but I'm going now." Ah, shit.

Now you you spilt your tea tea? Yes, I will be there drinking my tea

when I'm 50. I thought I was going to have a

real celebrity moment. I went to watch Plan B and I went backstage

and I saw him before he went on and we had that eye contact thing and

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 118 seconds

He was fully alive and happy. It is the telling of that. It is a

fantastic premise for a film. I'm going to go and see that.

And the way it is made, is really interesting. It is beautiful. There

is two stories, a father and son father me and Christopher plumber

and there is a love story, my character meets a French actress.

Listen, we have got a clip this is Christopher Plummer as the dad.

Oliver, I'm not sorry I woke you. went to Ackbar. They had

wonderfully loud music. What kind of music is that?

Probably house music. House music? OK. House...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE He really is fantastic, Plummer. He

tells stories about acting, actors stories from Hollywood in the 60s

and the people he was knocking about then. He is incredibly modern.

When you are acting with him, he is a contemporary actor. He really

lives the scenes with you. He is about ten years older than

the character he plays? He is about 80, Christopher.

It is an amazing story, a little bit true. You have got Christopher

Plummer there playing 70 odd, but 80 something. In the film, comes

out, his first boyfriend is the doctor from ER. That's not true!

That's not going to happen. He does say that young men or young gay men

aren't interested in young gay men. That's true. He is at the other end

of the bar. But the love story you talked about

there, you had to bond with her as well. Yes. The first thing he did,

we met each other at Mike's house and the first, I never met Melanie,

I loved her in that film. We were about to embark on this love story

together and we sit down and I said, "I would like to you split up with

each other. You have been in a relationship for a long time and I

would like you to improvise through a breakdown. Ewan, I want you to

leave Melanie." He Said, "Melanie, you don't want him to leave." The

thing about improvisation, you think the other person is going to

think this is how I would do it. It is like a master bation scene in a

film. It is difficult to pull it off without everybody knowing

that's just how you do it. Do you someone. It reminds you that the

Like would you rather have a nipple on the end of your nose or a tooth

growing out the end of your cheek? Or would you rather have to eat a

bathful of poo or have a small bird poo in your mouth every morning for

the rest of your life. That's easy. Which would you go

for? The bird, wouldn't you? have to do it every day for the

rest of your life. But you would get used to it.

The bird would become your friend. It would be nace to wake up -- nice

to wake-up, here comes the bird. suppose the bird poo is only wee.

You could go for a little bird. No, no,, no, you don't get to

choose. You said a small bird.

So when you are at Glastonbury and you are backstage and there is

Beyonce who is waiting for you back here.

My friend, yeah. When you are speaking to her, would

you rather sneeze and have both barrels blow snot all down your

face or cough and shit yourself? LAUGHTER

That is a very good one. Both of them are a nightmare.

I'm going to have to go with shit. Because you can leave quickly and

hope she didn't notice. She wouldn't know.

The thing about Glastonbury, the smell wouldn't affect you.

would just have to back off. It is a weird example because

Beyonce and I are so close! I don't mean any offence.

We hang out a lot. We just like to dance together more than anything.

She loves to cook. I love to cook. We are just close. Yes.

I don't want to talk about it. LAUGHTER

I just plucked it as an example. I didn't mean any offence by it.

We're just really, really close. Listen, Ewan, you have got

interesting choices the films you have made over the years,

Trainspotting, Big Fish, the anomaly, the one that seems out of

kilter is thaw decided to do Star Wars. Yes. Were you a big fan of

Star Wars, was it so much money, what was it? It wasn't so much. I

know that. At the time I thought it was a lot of money. No, no, I was a

big fan of them. When I was seven when the first one came out. My

uncle was in the original three. He played a character called Wedge, he

said, "I think I'm getting close to getting this part in Star Wars." He

said don't do it. He managed to survive all three, he was an ex-

ring pilot. He said if you want to have a career after your your 30s

don't do it. I didn't listen to him. Presumably that stage in your

career you thought you were famous? Yeah.

But then you did Star Wars and it must have moved into a different

realm? I don't know. I don't know because I thought I was really,

really famous so so it didn't really make much difference to me.

I was walking around just being famous. Zblu know You know who I

am! I suppose it did change things, but the film itself was the star.

Star Wars was the star of our ones. The characters became, you know,

more iconic in a way and because he had so much access to technology

that became the star of Star Wars was the affects and the effect nolg.

I have been left not that bothered by them.

Didn't you visit a Star Wars set in Tunisia when you were on one of the

bike rides? That was one of my less famous moments. You know uncle

Owen's place in the original Star Wars film, they live in this hole

in the ground. Yeah. That still exists. It is a tourist

attraction for serious Star Wars fans who go to Tunisia to find this

hole and look at the old props. It is a bit sad, not them, but the

place itself. The people. We went on our motorcycle. We were

going past it so we stopped and we said we should go in, it would be

funny. So we went down there and I didn't get recognised by anybody!

Not one person. I was wearing a Long Way Down T-shirt with McGregor

written across my shoulders and not one person recognised me. I found a

poster of myself which I stood next to for about 20 minutes.

LAUGHTER Nothing. Nothing. Not one person.

LAUGHTER I was disappointed. Is it true or

not that you kept a light Sabre? officially don't own a light Sabre.

LAUGHTER The props guy gave me one. No, he

didn't! You bought some light Sabres. Oh,

that one is on already. Hang on... You have to know what you are doing

with these. You do. Which one would you like?

The one in the middle is the one I use. That's Alec Guinness's one.

These are really nice. If you bang them against each other,

will they break? No. You make the sound effects yourself, don't you?

Do you want one? Not at all. Go. Go. Go.

Oh, look at that. That's fantastic. Can you make the

noises? Is it true that you did this thing like in Rocky as well

where they had to, you would make the sound effect yourselves so they

had to go back and like sound was a nightmare because it was a bunch of

people going whoom. It was Difficult not to make the

sound and because it makes that noise when it goes down. Yes.

In Rocky, in the first film particularly there is loads of

sound effects of Sylvester Stallone going...

LAUGHTER Let's have the lights sound.

You have to start them up. Off. Off. How do you do that?

LAUGHTER There there. It is off off now.

When you put it on, it has to make this noise.

LAUGHTER You are so good at it. I spent

months doing T mine keeps going off when I twirl it. They are They are

They are 150 quid each. How much? 150 quid each.

They are good, aren't they? Do it over here. Who is who? There you go.

Can you throw a ball, Chris? Don't be like that.

You go. You go. Let's baseball it instead. Yes!

Well done. Very good. APPLAUSE

Beautiful. What are you going to do with them? You can have them if you

want. Well, we can sign them and give them to charity.

That's a good idea. That's a very good idea.

I have got to sit here like this for the rest of the interview.

You look like a snooker player. Chris ODowd, huge congratulations,

Bridesmaids, it is properly, properly funny, isn't it? No, it is

a fun film. I'm really happy with LAUGHTER

It is brilliant because it is just like it has taken you to a whole

new level? I heard all about it. Because it is your first big hit

movie, have you been to see it loads? I go every night!

LAUGHTER I feel like, this doesn't come

along a lot. And it sounds silly, I have seen it 46 times! I have seen

it maybe three or four times during the premieres and whatever, I have

enjoyed it every time. Night I went the audience because

you know, it is mostly women in it and you are the one kind of man.

Sure. Every time you came on all the

women in the audience went, "Ah." At the end of every scene they were

going ah. Women are dumb

LAUGHTER They are a bunch of bloody idiots.

He is a sweet character. You know the main character, it is hard to

come back from that. She is so lovable, you know, everybody wants

her to be happy so much. It is more about, it is obvious that my

character can probably make her happy more than the other guy.

Do you get women coming up to you and hugging you in the street? And

things like that? More than that. There has been a lot of that kind

of stuff and I'm in a very happy relationship. I'm just so happy

that she has been so open to me being so sexual.

LAUGHTER No, there has been a lot, he is the

kind of character, it is not even women - they want me to be the god

godfather to their children rather than get down and naughty.

For your girlfriend it must be really annoying that now all these

women think you are so lovely. think she likes it.

Does she? She likes the idea of anybody finding me attractive as a

human being. LAUGHTER

In some way it justifies her own decision.

LAUGHTER She doesn't feel so alone. When we

got together at the start a lot of people were like, "Really?" This

has helped. We have got a clip of you in the

movie and it's you and Chrisian Wigg and the wedding planning isn't

going well and you are the cop trying to cheer her up.

Yes, that sounds rough. It is going to get better, right?

wouldn't have thought so. My sister was maid of honour at our cousin's

wedding and she found it so stressful that her hair started

falling out. That's terrible.

It grew back, but it was gross. If I ever had a wedding, I would want

everybody to be stress-free, you know. I would like it to be like a

carnival. Like people win prizes for guessing the bride's weight.

You could have elephants and the bride and groom could walk on a

tight rope. What you are talking about there is

a circus wedding. APPLAUSE

That's one scene in the film, but we shouldn't misrepresent it

because it has incredible knock about, physical? It has full on set

pieces where a lot of, I want to say a lot of s hit goes down, but a

lot of shit goes down. There are sequences of high hilarity as well

as being dispersed with real and beautiful moments.

I am sure a lot of people would like to know, how does this happen.

Chris ODowd in, you know, a successful Channel 4 sitcom, the IT

Crowd, how do you go from that to being in the number one film in the

planet? I just went and auditioned for it to be honest. And luckily

the director of the show or the director of the film was a fan of

the IT Crowd because he is a big British comedy person. I went and

auditioned and I did like an hour long with Christian who is

fantastic and it is probably one of my stronger areas rather than

scripted stuff. I kind of it, it went really well and it just kind

of happened. Back in the start of your career

when you were going for parts, it wasn't so easy, was it?

LAUGHTER No, like I am a big dude now, but

back then I was like three stone heavier. I wasn't a very natural

casting for anything. LAUGHTER

I come out of drama school and the problem with coming at the same

time, everybody comes out of drama school around the same time. London

is suddenly kind of scattered with these thousands of actors that are

coming out of drama school. I asked a guy who had just come out and

started doing a little bit and bits and pieces and asked him for advice.

He said, "You are going to go in loads of general meetings with

costume directors and all these just to say hi. Make sure they

remember you because they are going to remember, there is loads of

people." I went away from that and I thought "OK." Got it.

So I decided from there on, I was going to go into every meeting with

a casting director and pretend I had been bitten by a dog. So I

would go in. I would be at the door and I would kind of just ah hey,

I'm Chris. And they were like "how is it going" I just got. Did you

see the cocker spaniel. I would pretend I had been bitten and the

stories would get more and more complicated. And he was hold ago

baby's rattle and I tried to pull it out.

LAUGHTER He looked so friendly. He bit. They

would offer me plasters and stuff and I did this for four months and

every meeting I went into until I went into a meeting and I did the

same, ah, Jesus Christ I just got bitten and they were like, that's

so so weird. I know because the last time you were here you had

been bitten! LAUGHTER

I don't know if I thought the meeting was going to end and

everybody in the room was going to "I really liked that guy that was

bitten by a dog." I didn't work for another year after that.

You don't have to audition? Occasionally. Not so much now.

Meetings? Yeah, meetings. But in terms of ice breaking you

seem gung ho about filming, particularly sex scenes, you just

get on with it? Yes. Is that fair? That is fair. They

are tricky. I don't know, I don't like them very much. The the sex

scenes are awkward. No, it is not funny!

LAUGHTER They are serious things. It is

awkward and it is because it is a very strange and bizarre thing to

be doing. It is not a normal situation going, "Hello I am Ewan."

You have to and also, I'm I'm 40 and the actresses get younger and

younger and I get worried that they think you might be taking advantage

of that. It is an awkward thing. I don't really like it and I find

they are not useful unless I made made films like Young Adam where

they are more about sex and the sex scenes are more about character and

story and that's fine. That's good. But gra sex scenes are embarrassing

to watch and do. The Christian Bale sex scene

sounds... Yeah, that was fun. Was it? Yes.

No, no, I did have a sex scene with Christian Bale which I did to the

best of my ability. Zblurp on a roof -- you were on a

roof or something? We were on a roof. I was play ago rockstar and

we would have a shag on top of a rooftop in King's Cross, but they

wanted to shoot it from another rooftop, a wide shot. We did close-

up stuff, but this was a wide shot. The director, we heard the kind of

of "action." We started slowly. Slowly with and the film crew are

on the other side and it went on and on. It was really going now.

That's it. LAUGHTER

And then I just thought - there he is. And then I thought I would have

come by now. So I went round to the other side of his ear on the non

camera side and I said, "I think I would have come by now." I looked

over and they were packing up the camera.

LAUGHTER They must have gone cut really

quietly, you know. LAUGHTER

Did anyone ever talk about it ever wards? They thought it was a

sensitive thing and should just leave us to it.

There is nothing wrong with "cut" nothing wrong with that.

The moment. It is nearly time for music. But before that, let's look

at our last website of the series. We like to look at websites. It is

our final one. The end of our series. The end of a series. It is

called perfect timed photos.com -- perfectlytimedphotos.com. It is

that thing where you know with shutter speeds you have just taken

a I can a picture at the right moment. This is a dog doing an

impersonation of a kang a kangaroo. It looks like someone has thrown a

tennis ball at its nuts! tennis ball at its nuts!

This is so clever. It is like two dachshunds and they are in a rush

down a lane. "We're Coming." LAUGHTER

They are so cute. Finally, there is a few of people

with animals. It kind of looks worse than it is. Is this it? This

is a lady playing frisbee. Oh god. LAUGHTER

Oh my god. LAUGHTER

You think that's bad. Look at the smile on her face. She is smiling

now. That's why it is perfectly timed photos. Wait until you see

the next one. Everyone is fine. No one got hurt, but check that out.

LAUGHTER It looks like the girl has just

told a joke and the dog is going... LAUGHTER

"cat you say." It is like the dog is going, "Wait, I need to sneeze."

LAUGHTER Oh my god.

This is a brilliant encounter of someone being taken by surprise by

an animal. There we go.

LAUGHTER Very good.

Right, it's time for music. Singing his number one song, Change The Way

Everybody point to the sky. Here we go.

# I've never been afraid of the highest heights

# Or afraid of flying now # I've never been afraid of the

wildest fights # Not afraid of dying

# But now I want off this ride cause your scaring me and I don't

like where we're going # I need a new fun fair cause your

scaring me and I don't like where were going

# And now you're gonna miss me # I know you're gonna miss me

# I guarantee you'll miss me cause you changed the way you kiss me

# Cause you changed the way you kiss me

# We used to be so so soulful # Al Green on the background vocals

# T total were on the next high # We get by with a so called soul

mate made for each other chit chat # But that dried up wise up to the

cutting edge facts # Now I'm chilling on my jack Jones

# Looking for a way back home but I can't get back

# Our love feels wrong please wind it back

# Our love feels wrong can't hide the cracks

# I guarantee you'll miss me cause you changed the way you kiss me

# I've never been afraid of the highest heights

# Or afraid of flying now # I've never been afraid of the

wildest fights # Not afraid of dying

# I need a new fun fair cause your scaring me and I don't like where

we're going # I guarantee you'll miss me cause

you changed the way you kiss me # Because you changed the way you

kissed me # # Our love feels wrong please

wind it back # Our love feels wrong can't hide

the cracks # I guarantee you'll miss me cause

you changed the way you kiss me # I guarantee you'll miss me cause

you changed the way you kiss me # I guarantee you'll miss me

# Because you changed the way you kiss me #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Thank you.

Example, ladies and gentlemen. That's fantastic. Thank you very

much. Have a seat. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Loving it. Loving it. Congratulations, sir.

Cheers. Example. You can call me Elliot

because it is a grown-up show. The name, I feel like a fool for

not understanding why you're called Example.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 118 seconds

I went to see you the other day. You were incredible. Was that by

accident or did you choose to come and see it? Sometimes people wonder

in and out of tents, oh, who's this guy. Go on.

LAUGHTER You were incredible.

Listen, before we go, we have time for our final story of the series

in the red chair. Who's up first? Hello? Hello. What's your name?

Marion. What do you do? I'm an emergency planner. Oohh...

LAUGHTER What do you do? We make plans for

emergencies. APPLAUSE

Got it. Got to use your noggi any. I'm all

over it. An emergency planner, I get it, right. Off you go. When I

was young my mother used to take my brother and my family to see our

great granny in Slough. She had a big garden which was a treasure

trove for children. My brother was looking in the shed one day and

found a big rusty dirty dart board with darts in it. Rusty, dirty old.

Sorry darling, carry on, please. And he threw some darts at it. As

he was removing the darts, in my exuberance as a child I threw mine

and it stuck straight into the back of his head.

One more. Definitely. We're up for one more.

That was disappointing. We shouldn't end on that one. Stories

about people in sheds. Hello. What's your name? William. Where

are you from? Brighton, originally from France. Aahhh. I've heard of

that. And what do you do? I'm a school

teacher. Oh, right. A day off today?

LAUGHTER Using his time effectively. That

must have been a tough vote. I've got Graham Norton tickets, oh,

the strike ballot is coming up. Right, William. Off you go. It's a

dog story. When I was at university, I helped my Nan choose a Yorkshire

Terrier. She chose one called Jessie. I was servicing the car. I

finished, I reversed the car, and I heard a squeaking sound, soy

thought that must be the belt squeaking. I got out of the car and

to my horror I saw Jessie nrt wheel. I rushed it to the vet. My cousin

on the phone "You've killed the dog." The vet says she's got

fractured pelvis. We have to put her down. I said I would nurse her

and hopefully she might get better. 15-year-old dog, cataract, couldn't

hear a thing, death's door and she made it and she's still with us

today. APPLAUSE

Lovely story. You can walk.

Thank you. APPLAUSE

You're still an idiot for driving over it. Well done everyone. By the

way if you'd like to join us on the show and have a go in the red chair,

contact us via the website. Huge thanks to my guests tonight