Graham Norton, the beloved chat show host, has revealed that he kept a significant secret from his close friend, Hollywood icon Carrie Fisher. The 63-year-old presenter met the Star Wars legend while filming Ruby Wax's BBC Two series, Ruby, where guests engaged in unscripted conversations around a dinner table.
During an episode of his Wanging On podcast, Norton explained that Ruby Wax admitted she felt too familiar with Fisher to ask her about Star Wars. However, Norton himself had little interest in the sci-fi franchise as a child. When asked to step in and quiz Fisher about George Lucas's creation, he agreed. "I didn't really care about Star Wars at all," Norton said. "But years later, Ruby Wax did this chat show where it was kind of a dinner table. I was doing one with Ruby, and it was the first time I ever met Carrie Fisher. 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. 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, when there was all the secrecy about the new Star Wars coming back, she told me the whole plot, she told me everything."
Norton joked that he wouldn't have "anyone to tell" because he "doesn't know anyone who would care" about the franchise. He believes that Star Wars was both the "making of" and "undoing" of Fisher. "Princess Leia, that's a big old thing to drag through life; it's hard. She was just generally funny and so well liked," he added.
In a 2015 interview with Time magazine, Fisher, who died at age 60 in 2016, admitted she had accepted "long ago" that she would always be seen as Princess Leia. "I long ago accepted that I am Princess Leia. I have that as a large part of the association with my identity," she said.
Having starred as Leia in the original trilogy, Fisher returned 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 her role as Leia, Fisher wrote a series of semi-autobiographical novels and appeared in numerous television shows and films, including When Harry Met Sally and The Blues Brothers. She was twice nominated for an Emmy for her role in the sitcom 30 Rock.
Fisher's 2016 appearance on The Graham Norton Show turned out to be her final interview. Discussing the star on ITV's This Morning, Norton said, "It transpired that was her final interview. If we had known, 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."
