It’s always juicy when big name talk show hosts decide to dish the dirt on their A-list guests — but Irish presenter Graham Norton has nothing but positive things to say about Taylor Swift.
The comedian and host of the U.K.’s long-running Graham Norton Show has interviewed hundreds of big names over 31 seasons of his award-winning talk show, with Swift appearing on his couch four times over the course of her career so far. And now Norton has revealed that, despite being the biggest popstar on the planet, she is one of the most normal stars he’s met.
“Someone like Taylor Swift, who is arguably the most famous woman in the world – I don’t know if it’s an act, but she appears to be so close to normal,” he said on the Kylie and Jackie O radio show in Australia. “It’s weird. It’s like you can change the economy of a country just by showing up. How can you be this normal? And yet she’s so lovely and normal and just fantastic.”
Norton, 61, also spoke about Swift’s decision to write “easy” songs to protect her voice on tour. “I remember saying to her, you know, because she’s going on a big, long tour. And I said to her, ‘Are you worried about keeping your voice?’ And she went: ‘No, I write songs that are easy to sing,’” he said. “She always has been super sweet. Like, she went from that gangly giraffe teenager country girl into a megastar, but has been the same from the beginning to the end. I love her. She literally decided ‘I will write easy to sing songs. And therefore, I need never worry about my voice because I’ll be fine.’ And also, now all the fans sing all of them.”
One star who Norton didn’t have such a great experience with interviewing was actress Daryl Hannah — but it was all down to nerves rather than a personality clash.
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“Weirdly, she can do a play, but she’s terrified of a studio audience,” he reveals. “I guess being herself in front of a studio audience makes her terrified. I think they tried to make her do David Letterman once, and she walked out and fainted. So, she did our show, and bless her, she wasn’t a great guest. But what I loved was, because she got through it, afterwards she was high as a kite. She really felt like she’d done an amazing thing. And I was thrilled for her that she had gotten through it. It was still a very poor show.”
Norton is currently touring Australia with his one-man show, An Evening With Graham Norton, so we’re looking forward to him sharing a few more showbiz secrets.
