On this week's show Graham Norton welcomes Hollywood great Sylvester Stallone, Oscar-winning Welsh actor Catherine Zeta-Jones, British actor Andrew Garfield, and rock band Blossoms.
Sylvester, talking about his new memoir The Steps, says , “A performer’s journey is always different and original, and I wanted to pass on the experience of what I went through. That’s why I wanted to put it on the page. As actors we all crave expressing ourselves.”
Asked about playing Rocky, he says, “I wrote the screenplay and I only had one condition – that I play the lead. Everyone wanted it, but they didn’t want me – they said, ‘Over our dead bodies,’ which I understood because I wasn’t a leading man.
“The money kept going up for the screenplay without me. I held out because I knew I would never find something like it again and without it, I would never make it in Hollywood.”
Talking about Rambo, he reveals, “When we first saw it in the edit my agent threw up. That’s how horrible it was. I think I was the eleventh actor to be offered the part – no one wanted to play it because it wasn’t very politically correct. It was so bad I tried to buy it back so I could torch it. In the end I cut it from over three hours to 89 minutes. What I cut out was mostly me!”
Asked about his legendary rivalry with Arnold Schwarzenegger, he says, “We are good friends now but the competition between us started as soon as I saw him. It was a different era. We were both in the same genre and I needed a rival. We pushed each other like two prize fighters – everything had to be bigger and better than what the other one had.”
Catherine, chatting about her kick-ass role in revenge-thriller Kill Jackie, says, “It is a gift of a part. The show is crazy and high octane and she is really crazy. It is one of those parts, and at 57, the kind of role that is very satisfying to say the least.”
Talking about filming it in her hometown of Swansea, Catherine got emotional: “Going home was just so incredibly wonderful. It was very fulfilling and to be able to use my own Welsh voice for the very first time in a film was wonderful.”
Asked if there will be more of Kill Jackie, she says, “I’d love to do more – I am not done with her yet.”
Talking about her early career, and the first episode of The Darling Buds of May, she says, “That one hour of television changed my life. I became a celebrity overnight and people sort of forgot I was an actor. Then, when I went to LA literally nobody knew me which was a huge ego jolt at first but then extremely humbling, and ultimately very good for me to start afresh.”
Andrew talking about taking the lead in the Paul Greengrass film The Uprising, says, “It is complicated and inspiring – a big sweeping story with epic feelings at the centre of it. It feels like a political reflection for the disparate and divided times we are in and a cry of the soul. I am very excited to share it with people.”
Explaining the concept of his latest movie Artificial, he says, “It is about open AI and the drama within the company that created of it. It is an exciting film, and I hope it sparks debate.”
Blossoms perform Husband live in the studio before Tom and Joe join Graham for a chat.
The Graham Norton Show, BBC One, Friday 2nd October, 10.40pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer.
Next week (8th October) Graham’s guests include Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, John Malkovich, and Orville Peck.
