Graham Norton has big-star guests on his couch next week
Graham Norton welcomes the original Terminator stars – Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton– as well as the iconic lead singer of Blondie, Debbie Harry, and TV chef Nadiya Hussain, with music from DJ Spoony’s Garage Classical alongside the Ignition Orchestra and featuring the Sugababes.
Schwarzenegger, talking about being reunited with Hamilton in their new movie, Terminator Dark Fate, 28 years after their last film, says: “It was really nice. Really fantastic after all those years.”
Talking about the first movie, he says: “Before Terminator,
I thought I would be stuck in muscle movies, like Conan, but it let me cross over into action movies.”
Asked about his political career, he says: “I hate politics. Even when I was governor [of California] I never considered myself a politician. I was a public servant who created policies to make things better for people.”
Is he disappointed that, because he is Austrian, he can’t run for president? “Of course. It would have been great to jump in and run. It’s the only thing I can’t do in America. Everything else I’ve done is because it is in America – it’s the land of opportunity.”
Hamilton, asked about getting in shape for the role of Sarah Connor, says: “It took a lot of good, hard work. But, I don’t have hormones anymore, so after a year of no carbs, they still had to add padding to my ass!”
Schwarzenegger interjects: “Linda set the bar high for all female action roles. She really is a bad ass!”
Asked how she was persuaded by James Cameron, her ex-husband and director of the new movie, to reprise the role, she says: “We don’t talk at all. He rang three times and it was only on the third call, when he mentioned it was about work, that I rang him back!
“It took me a little while to decide if I had something more to do with her character.”
Revealing that she’d had to be persuaded to do the very first
Terminator, she says: “I didn’t want to do it at all. I was a snotty New York actress and I didn’t want to go to California.
“It was only when I saw Arnie on set, and he was fantastic, that I thought, ‘I’m in’.”
Schwarzenegger, a little crestfallen, says: “You didn’t want to work with me? That’s the first time I’ve heard that story.”
Harry, talking about her autobiography Face It, says: “Many bits [of my life] are a blur but after writing it, so much has come back to me. It’s been good for me.”
Talking about the fame and success she achieved in a very short time at the start of her career with Blondie, she says: “It was very exciting. It was terrific, and we took full advantage of it!”
Hussain, talking about her memoir Finding My Voice and her son’s reaction to it, says: “After he’d read some of it, he said, ‘I like the book, but there are better writers!’ ”
When it came to her success and whether she has come to terms with being a role model, she says: “If you’d asked me four years ago I would have said I just wanted to cook and write, and being Muslim was incidental, but now I see how important the role is that I have.”
The Graham Norton Show, BBC
Brit, Tuesday at 8pm.