The Secret Of His Success

Graham Norton, Ireland’s most beloved “bachelor” and only bona-fide transatlantic TV star, looks wired to Uranus. He practically leaps from his chair in an upstairs lounge of Belfast’s Ten Square Hotel to greet hotpress, arms and eyelashes a fluttering, talking non-stop from the off, more animated than a Disney cartoon. Within twenty seconds of meeting him, I’m tempted to adopt a laconic Denis Hopper style drawl and go, “Slow down, man!”

It turns out there’s a reason for his general air of excitability.
“We’re conducting an experiment,” he brightly informs me, as he signals over to his publicist. “We’re trying to see how much coffee I can drink in one day!”
Caffeine-overdose or not, his personality amp seems permanently set to ‘11’ anyway. Such has been his omnipresence on late night TV over the last five years that I actually feel like I already know him personally, although this is the first time we’ve ever met. TV “personalities” are often very different creatures off-screen, but Norton in the flesh seems exactly the same larger-than-life, camp character you see on the box.
Casually attired in black DKNY bondage trousers, white trainers and a Persil-clean blue and white striped shirt, and with bleach-blonde highlights in his hair, Norton looks a lot younger than his 41-years. And although tired and wired, he’s in particularly good form. This is his second-last interview to promote his just-published autobiography So Me and the finishing line is well in sight. He’s heading back to London later tonight, before jetting off to a secret location on his holidays early next week. His future’s so bright, he’s gotta pack shades.
OLAF TYARANSEN: So Me opens with a message to your mother’s friends, neighbours, fellow bridge club members and hairdressers – indeed, anyone who has any dealings with her at all – warning them not to tell her anything about its contents. Has anybody disrespected that yet?
GRAHAM NORTON: So far, so good. I mean, of course, the person who has really disrespected it is me, because I’ve now gone on television and talked about some of the things that she didn’t know about in the book. But she’s rolling with the punches. In fact, she’s rolling with the punches so well now, that – we’re going away together at Christmas, so I might let her read it under supervision. You know, I’m there to answer questions. And also, maybe I’m very naïve. Maybe my mother does know everything in there. You know, the way...the way that they do. So anyway, we’ll find out.
Was it tough to write? Emotionally, I mean.
Oh yeah, lots of it is like cheap therapy. And also kind of surprising. You know, there were bits that I knew were going to be emotionally hard to write – the death of friends, the death of my father – but things like the stabbing, [Norton spent two weeks in hospital in his mid-twenties after being stabbed on a London street]. I mean, I’ve told that story a thousand times before but...[shudders].
Actually, I found that story quite chilling. It was certainly unexpected in the narrative.
It was very odd. Like I say, I’ve told that story so many times but I’ve obviously never dealt with it. Because I think when I was writing about it, it was the first time I was reliving it and actually really trying to imagine how I’d felt and exactly what had gone on. I was in floods of tears. Way too many! Like, way out of proportion. Like when I was reading it back I was going, ‘What was I crying about? This isn’t upsetting at all!’ But I’m glad because I’d obviously bottled it up for 15 or 16 years.
Have you had negative feedback from any of the friends or ex-lovers that you’ve written about – quite candidly, in many cases – in the book?
Made my peace with everybody – apart from Esther, the French lecturer [Norton’s first female lover before he came out of the closet]. I haven’t been in touch with her. But I hadn’t been in touch with her. Whereas most of the other people, I have been in touch with since before the book as well.
Any complaints from any of the numerous celebrities you’ve slagged off or taken the piss out of?
I haven’t heard from any celebrities who’ve read it – though it’s only just come out so I’m sure it’ll come back to bite me in the ass. Ha, ha!
As with any autobiography, there must have been a lot you had to leave out though...
Well, certainly there are big chunks of my life – you know, [pulls face and mimes typing at a keyboard] ‘Nothing happened today except that it was quite pleasant’ – that don’t get in there. So my kind of worry is that the overall feel of the book is kind of bleaker than I feel my life has actually been. But like I say, it’s hard to turn into a book rather ordinary blessed days. You know, ‘Woke up...didn’t have a pain’. Ha, ha!
I felt that you skipped through your childhood and teenage years quite quickly.
Yeah [shrugs]. Ha, ha!
You didn’t seem overly impressed with your Bandon grammar school.
Well, when I look back on my school, I do feel it was a very good education. It was a very kind of round education because they didn’t... It seemed like the Convent and the Brothers, their Leaving Certificate results were always so much better than our school’s because they would just have the answers drummed into them. Whereas they never did that to us. They would just let us think for ourselves – which is sort of disastrous in a Leaving Cert context but then very good when you went to university. Suddenly all the convent girls were going, ‘But what am I supposed to think about the book?’ Ha, ha! So it was a very good education. Certainly for life, it was a very good education.
You do write that, since they’ve never publicly recognised you or asked you back, you’d tell them to ‘Fuck off!’ if they asked now.
Ah, I don’t care. Like even my drama school – I mean, look at me, I’m not acting – but even my drama school claims me as one of their own. You know, [adopts luvvy tone] ‘You’re an alumni’, and all that sort of stuff. So it just makes me laugh that they have this famous past pupil, but they just don’t want to be associated with him at all. Ha, ha!
But acting is what first brought you to mainstream attention? Most people first encountered you playing the manic Father Noel in Father Ted.
I suppose so. Certainly over here, yeah. But things like my Edinburgh shows were more about comedy than acting, as such.
You were almost interviewed on BBC Scotland for Dana’s radio show because one of her researchers thought that your Mother Teresa stage character at the Edinburgh Festival was actually her.
Oh yeah. I’ve never met Dana, but isn’t that just the maddest story? That somebody actually believed that it was the real Mother Teresa? I mean, like I say in the book, they must’ve had a university degree. And they seriously thought that Mother Teresa was going to abandon the poor children of Calcutta to spend a month playing the Edinburgh Festival in a 100-seater venue? But they did [aghast].
There’s some fairly graphic stories about your bodily mis-functions in the book – like the one about you shitting yourself on a Turkish bus while on holidays.
There are a lot of bodily functions in the book. . . [nods] Ha, ha!
Is this your recompense to all of those audience members who’ve made your show so successful by telling their own tales of bodily shame?
Exactly. I mean, seriously, that is why those stories are in there. That’s why there’s so much vomit and poo in the book. Ha, ha! I’ve made a living out of people telling me those stories about themselves so It would have been dishonest not to put those bits in.
Though you wrote about other people’s embarrassing little accidents as well – including your own sister!
I did get permission from my sister to tell the one about her vomiting over Mo Mowlam in a cab, because I really wanted to put that in. And my sister gave me permission. I didn’t do it without asking.
You write in your acknowledgements – ‘K, if you are still part of my life by the time this hits the shelves, I’m so glad!’ So are you still in a relationship with ‘K’ at the moment?
Em. . . [ doubtfully] I ammmmm. . .
K for ‘Kind of’?
Yeah, K for ‘Kind of’. K for you want to ask him! You know. He’ll let you know [smiles].
How’s life going at the moment generally?
Yeah. It’s good. It’s an...uncertain time [pulls face]. Which is kind of one of the reasons I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should write a book now. Because now does seem like a kind of big punctuation mark in my life’ – in that there were no certainties. You know, it was all new. New series in America, new series here. Even down to, like, I got a new house in London for no reason really.
Yeah, you collect new houses because you can’t be bothered moving from the old ones! [Norton owns homes in Cork, Cape Town, London and New York]
Well, I did sell the other one in London. I didn’t keep it. Ha, ha! But what was I rambling on about? Eh . .. new?...relationships?...Oh, how’s life at the moment? Yes. The nice thing about what I do is that the point of it is that it’s pointless. None of it matters. It’s light entertainment. And I think so long as you hold onto that when you’re having these incredibly serious meetings with kind of people at the BBC and all of that. . . You know, ‘It’ll be a show with a dog in a wig!’ Who cares?
Is there a tortured artist screaming deep down within you, do you think?
Oh, I suppose everyone wants to be taken seriously. But I think it would bore me rigid. I think it’s one of those things where you think you’d like it but, if that was me, that’s what I’d be doing. Silly person in shiny suit [points at himself] – that’s me! And that’s why I do that. I mean, it’s not like I have to...You know, you read about people – people in comedy – who are also tortured artists. They’re backstage puking into a bucket. I’m absolutely not that person.
I’m quite happy to be wandering around in a shiny suit, drinking a glass of wine beforehand and then running through some velvet curtains. Cos I sort of think if it’s that hard, if you’re backstage vomiting into a bucket or just gripped with fear or whatever, get another job. It shouldn’t be that hard!
There’s a lot of drinking in the book...
There’s a lot of drinking in my life. Ha, ha!
Do you think you have an alcohol problem?
Probably! I probably am...[pauses]. It doesn’t stop me working. And it doesn’t make me ill. So is that a problem? I mean, occasionally I’ll wake up and think, ‘Riiiight...that wasn’t a good thing. That all went a bit pear-shaped. I should cut down now’. But then you forget! Cos you’re drunk! It’s like having a baby. Ha, ha!
Did you ever go bush-drinking when you were in school?
No, no, no. I wasn’t hanging out with the lads, really. Shandy made me feel slightly sick. I think the first thing I was ever able to drink was Bacardi and Coke. I must’ve liked it.
You’ve never smoked any dope then?
No. I mean, I’ve tried but, you know, I am very Clinton-esque in that I just can’t. I swear I really have put the work in trying to smoke cigarettes but I just can’t. Actually, I’ve only been stoned once. Oh, I don’t think I put this in the book – where my friend Stephan got so frustrated that I couldn’t smoke joints that...I kept saying, ‘I don’t get anything out of it’. So I came home one night just really wrecked. And he said, ‘Oh, I’ll make you some hash tea’. So he made this tea. I downed it. Oh my God! It was horrible! I hated it! He was going out with his boyfriend and I was saying, ‘I have to go out with you – I cannot be left alone, I can’t!’
And I was in this club and I had a leather jacket on and I zipped it up to here [indicates chin]. And I was doing this thing where I’d be talking to you and you’d be right in front of me and then I’d turn my head around and you’d still be right in front of me. You’d be there! And I was going, ‘Oh my God, how did that happen?’ And of course it had taken me half an hour to turn my head. You’d just walked there, that’s how it happened! Ha, ha! So it didn’t make me think, ‘Oh, I should get stoned all the time’. I didn’t like it.
Did you ever try anything else?
Drugs? I suppose I’ve tried a lot over the years. Well, not a lot – there aren’t that many! Opium, heroin...Ha, ha!
Coke and Ecstasy are very commonly used drugs on the gay clubbing scene.
Well, I suppose there is a big gay clubbing thing, and that’s when those things come into play. You know, I’m not somebody who has a drug dealer – though sometimes it would be quite nice. Ha, ha! But again, that actually is the reason why I don’t do drugs, because they’re quite hard to get. And also, you tend to have to buy them off assholes.
And if the tabloids got wind of it you’d be in trouble.
Actually, I don’t think the tabloids would care particularly. You know, ‘GAY MAN TAKES DRUGS SHOCK!’? I don’t think so.
Well, look at what they did to Michael Barrymore.
Well, in his case, I think somebody died. Ha ha! Yeah, I think, in the end, drink is easy to get and it seems to do the business. You know, it’s a very social thing. Whereas friends of mine who are more into drugs seem to spend a lot of time with people I really don’t like.
Do you burn through friends quickly?
There’s kind of a core group of friends that I’ve had for about twenty years, really since I first moved to London and was going to drama school and working in restaurants.
But I’ve made some new friends, I was in New York for most of the year and I don’t really know many people there, so really I had to make some new friends. Some good friends, some slightly below-the-bar friends. You know, it’s like your first day at university. And at the end of university you look back and think, ‘Jesus, I can’t believe I hung out with them during that first week!’ So yeah, I’ve a few of those friends in New York, who now won’t go away. They’re always the persistent ones. That’s how you got to know them in the beginning.
Having worked in restaurants, now that you’re wealthy, would you not consider opening one yourself?
No, I’d consider opening a bar. Because the profit margins are very good on alcohol and all you need are some fridges and somebody to go like that [mimes pulling a pint]. Whereas it’s really hard to make money in a restaurant.
What do you think is your greatest flaw as a person?
Greatest flaw? Hmmm... [long pause]. I mean... Well, there’s an awful lot of them, so my greatest flaw? I suppose laziness would be my greatest flaw.
You can’t be that lazy if you’re presenting a TV show five nights a week!
I’m always aware of how shows could’ve been better. You know, if I had put some more work in or thought about it a bit more or even read a book before I interviewed someone. You know, [whispers conspiratorially] that kind of thing. Cos I’m sort of mortified that so many people who’ve interviewed me have read my book. Ha, ha! I didn’t think anyone bothered to read them. I thought that was the gig. You just pretended to have read them. Ha, ha! So I’ve been truly shamed by this book tour and from now on I will endeavour to read books when I interview people.
Is there anything in the book that you now regret putting in?
There’s kind of a dumb story about me seeing a ghost, and I don’t know why that ended up in there. You know what I mean? Cos it takes up a few pages and...I dunno, it’s just a bit weird.
Do you get back to Ireland often?
More and more actually. Very rarely Dublin or Belfast, but I get back to Cork a lot.
Do you find that the country has become a less homophobic place?
Well, I don’t know how homophobic it was. It didn’t really affect me because I wasn’t an out gay man there. But it must be a less homophobic place. I mean, this book is an historical document. I’m talking about growing up there in the late ’70s so it would be sort of freakish if it hadn’t been affected by the rest of the world in any way at all over the last 25 years.
Are the people of Bandon happy with your success?
Oh, I don’t know. I sort of jokingly always say that they’re glad to have somebody from Bandon on the television but, you know, did it have to be me? And I don’t know whether that’s true or not. No-one’s ever said an unkind word to me in Bandon so it’s quite churlish of me to say that. And in the end it’s just a joke. Though if you live in Bandon you probably take it kind of seriously. Ha, ha! But I’m fond of Bandon.
Do you ever get harassed on the street?
Do you know, no. Touch wood, I haven’t had any of that. I suppose also I’m lucky in that people come up to me and they say, ‘Hello Graham!’ and they think they know me – and, of course, on a level they do. Whereas it must be really hard if you’re someone like Robbie Coltrane. People come up and they either think that you’re Cracker or that big thing out of Harry Potter or whatever because, of course, he’s Robbie – he’s Robbie Coltrane. And I do think I’m in a nicer position than that, in that at least I can not feel that I’m having my identity kidnapped because of my job.
Did you know that people like George Michael were gay long before it became public knowledge?
Em...I had heard that. But you know, you hear everyone is gay. So law of averages. By the time somebody comes out. . . Ha, ha! You know, most people will come out and everyone will go, [whispers] ‘Oh, I’d heard that’.
Would you be quite respectful of other people’s privacy or would you encourage secretly gay people in the public eye to come out of the closet?
No, I’ve never asked anybody to come out. I mean, there are certain actors that I know are gay. And some of them I do think are just stupid not to come out. You know, they’re never going to be a leading man. They’re always going to play the quirky weird one. So why not just stop trying to hide stuff?
Are we talking about one of the usual suspects here?
Emmm...Ha, ha! But you know what I mean? I do think ‘Why are you bothered?’ I do think he will come out very soon. Yeah, I’d be very surprised if he didn’t. But then there are other actors that you hear all these rumours about and you kind of think, ‘Well, I do understand why you’re not coming out. Because I wouldn’t buy you – and I’m a gay man – I wouldn’t buy you playing that role, if I knew you were gay’. Maybe that’s wrong of me as a gay man to say that, but I get it. If I was you and if I had that career, I wouldn’t come out. Because it would be the end of it. That’s not homophobia, it’s just credibility. Mind you, for me, I’d choose being gay without a career over the career. Because it must be hell to have to live a lie, to have to keep all that stuff in secret all the time. I mean, the pressure! That’s like having an animal living inside you all the time. It’s horrible.
Have you ever felt that your privacy had been seriously violated by the media?
Oh, I’ve had tabloid headlines and stuff like that.
Any of them shock you when you saw them?
They’re all shocking in that they’re so stupid, badly written and untrue. I mean, an interview is different. I say this, you typy-type it up and you can either say, ‘He’s a stupid fucker, what the hell was he rambling on about here?’ or you can kind of go, ‘And then he astutely de-de-de-de-de-de’. That’s up to you. But any article that’s been written about me, it’s always shocking. It’s always full of just...not true. Often not even a bit untrue, just a made-up thing. And you suddenly realise, ‘Hang on – if every single thing I’ve ever read about myself is inaccurate or not true, then everything in the papers must be fairly inaccurate and untrue’. And that’s kind of shocking. That it’s that rife in journalism.
You’ve been spending a lot of time in America recently. What’s your view on the war in Iraq?
Oh God, I feel so sorry for Americans. In that, they’re on a really steep learning curve right now. Ever since 9/11. Em...Iraq? Iraq is a mystery to me. I think it’s a mystery to most people. And for a long time I think, particularly in Britain, Labour supporters kept saying, ‘Oh, there must be something they’re not telling us’. Because if there’s no other reason why this is going ahead... you know, there must be something else. And now it’s becoming apparent that, no, they weren’t hiding anything, it was as dumb as they said.
It just seems pathetic. It just seems like Bush wants to have a war like his Daddy did have. Down to the same one! It just seems really extraordinary that world politics can be played out in such a kind of domestic family way.
What’s your opinion of Tony Blair’s role?
Michael Moore was saying that he’d like to make a film about Blair. And you do think that’s a much more interesting prospect. Because Fahrenheit 9/11, whatever you think about it, in the end did it really take two hours to point out that Bush is an idiot? We sort of knew that going in! Whereas Blair is not an idiot. How did that happen?
Maybe he wanted a war to cement his place in history?
Yeah, but that war? It was so stupid. That war just made enemies. It was like putting a stick in a hive. Why we got involved, I just don’t know.
You mention a brief meeting with Blair in the book but give the impression that you didn’t get on.
Ha, ha! A very brief meeting. Yeah, I said [cups hands to mouth and hisses] ‘Bomb Iraq!’, ‘Finish Iraq off!’ ‘What about Saddam?’ So it’s all my fault!
Who’s left that you’d really like to have as a guest on your show?
My answer to that question is invariably Madonna. But, actually, I’ve been saying that for so long now that it’s become a lie. Because really I want Madonna from about six years ago – when she was fun! Now she’s kind of a tweedy, working-mother of two. Bette Midler I’ve never had. I’d love to have her on. Meryl Streep I’ve now met – in life, I’ve met – so I don’t really require her to be on the show. I’ve done that, thanks, yeah. Cheers Meryl! Em... Glenn Close. I hope there are some...
They’re all women.
Yeah. I’m kind of more interested in women. As guests. Ha, ha!
Has Maurice Gibb from the Bee-Gee’s forgiven you for making that tasteless joke about ‘Staying Alive’ the day after his brother died?
I doubt it. He doesn’t really seem the forgiving sort. I can’t be sure. Perhaps he has.
Were you worried about that at the time?
I felt awful. We went to great pains at the time to say that we were sorry. And I understand why nobody’s going to report an apology, because how dull is that? But we did realise that we fucked up majorly. It was stupid of us.
Who has been your worst ever guest?
Harvey Keitel was terrible, but I don’t blame him. He didn’t know the show, we didn’t know him, and it was all a disaster. The only person I blame for being a bad guest was Lindsey Wagner – the Bionic Woman – who was just a bitch! We sent her tapes, she saw the show, she knew what she was getting into, she accepted that airfare. I took her out for lunch, did all the arm-stroking. And then she just sat there like I’d farted in her face for the show. You just think, ‘No, it requires more than that. You made a deal. We didn’t trick you here. You said you’d do this and now you’re just sitting there.’
You didn’t seem too impressed by Brendan Grace serenading Maureen O’Hara on the Late Late Show last week.
Em, the only bit that I found freakish was the singing at the end. That was a slightly...Gay Byrne [also a guest on the night] did a very good staring into the middle distance thing. Ha, ha! But I was right beside him so I didn’t know quite what to do. It was slightly awkward. I think even Brendan Grace, while he was doing it, was thinking, ‘Whhhhhyyyy did I agree to do this?’
What do you think of Pat Kenny on television?
He’s got an impossible job. I think the Late Late Show will always be not as good as it used to be. When Gay Byrne hosted it, it wasn’t as good as it used to be. So I think it’s just one of those shows. If it was that bad, people wouldn’t watch it. I mean, it was extraordinary the next day. Because in Britain, we don’t have any shows like that. There are no shows where the next day, everyone says to you, ‘Oh, I saw you on the telly last night’. In Dublin, everyone from the man on reception at the hotel to the woman at the check-in at the airport went, ‘Saw you on the Late Late!’ That’s extraordinary.
Who do you look up to as a TV host?
I think Letterman is really fantastic. He’s going through a slightly bad phase at the moment. But the man’s been doing it for thirty-odd years. He’s allowed. There’s going to be good shows and bad shows. I think Conan O’Brien has gotten very good. I’d love to see his earlier shows because everyone hated him to begin with.
Have you ever had a panic attack before a show?
I did. Before the first series I had a panic attack. And I just thought, ‘Wait a minute – this is supposed to be a good thing. I’ve got my own show, that’s supposed to be a nice thing happening to me’. And working in restaurants, I never got woken up by a panic attack. So I just kind of talked myself down. The worst thing that could happen would be that the show bombs, everyone hates it, and it’s off the telly and I’m back working in restaurants. I’ve done it before. I may have to do it again.
It’s rather unlikely you’re going to wind up waiting tables again, Graham!
Well, hopefully now, if telly all fails, I can do something else in the media. Some other kind of nice non-job. Ha, ha! But, like I say, it’s just light entertainment. It’s all nonsense.
Do you have a motto in life?
This too will pass.

* So Me by Graham Norton [Hodder & Stoughton, 23.99]

Photography by Cathal Dawson