Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - MINI: Graham Norton Joins Us!

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

British talk show host Graham Norton caught up with Jono and Ben to give us all the goss.He dished on his collaboration with Kiwi-owned Invivo Wine, the celebrities he’s interviewed that he still gets star-struck by, and of course how so many Kiwis end up on The Graham Norton Show’s iconic big red chair.He also took a quick quiz and revealed what he really thinks of some of New Zealand’s famous faces.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a special podcast with Jono and Ben, Breakfast on the Hits and Friends of Skinny. Graeme Norton, you'll know him from the Graeme Norton Show, such a great show. He is the king, he's one of the kings of chat, you know, and interviews as far as anyone goes in the world. Yeah, and it was an honour to actually, thanks to Envivo Wines, he was blending some wine with Envivo Wines yesterday and we were honoured to sit in the middle of Eden Park for some reason and talk to Graeme via Zoom while he was on the giant Samsung big screen in the stadium.

40 feet screen. It seemed very excessive but very necessary. I loved it. So we got to talk to Graeme Norton in his only New Zealand interview. How are you Graeme? How are you mate? I'm really good. You guys were so weird, because I didn't

know who you were, and so they say, oh, special guests, people, and you're like, God, this is going to be awful. It is, yeah. And I said to my friend, that was very funny. That was actually funny.

So really, what a nice surprise to meet you. Lovely to meet you. Lovely to meet you too, Graham. Now, I don't know if you realise where you are right now, but you are on a giant screen in the middle of a 50,000 seat stadium. And it's New Zealand's only screen, so we've booked it out for five minutes. Do my eye bags look big? You look great.

You look enormous on the screen. Now, you've been blending wine all great. You look enormous on the screen. Now, you've been blending wine all morning. You've been trying the new wine. How's it been going? I mean, too well. I've got Sauvignon Blanc. I've got Rosé.

And now we're just trying the vodka. So, I mean, the good thing is here, it's quarter to 11 at night. So, I feel the way I should feel at a quarter to 11 at night. So I feel the way I should feel at a quarter to 11 at night. It's not often we get a guest who preloads for an interview, but we are loving it. You're in an ideal state right now. You've got a bottle of it too. We've got a bottle. We're good to go.

Last time you blended Elbeth and Vivo, they flew grapes to the UK. You stomped on the grapes. Is there a little bit of Graham Norton's feet in the new bottle? I really hope not. I was so embarrassed about that because I totally forgot it was happening. They were sending grapes to Britain. On the day, I remember thinking, what should I do? And then, oh, I must moisturise my feet. Like, you look at your feet, you're kind of like, there's not enough moisturiser in the world to make these feet camera ready. So hopefully no one actually drank anything that came out of that pressing.

Yeah, no, well, a little bit of athlete's foot in there. It was wonderful. You've got to keep up your foot moisturising. Yeah, I'm getting cocoa butter. 10 million bottles of wine sold so far. I mean, that is amazing. I mean, how many of those were drunk by you during lockdown? About 6 million. Now, obviously, you have this great partnership with Avivo Wines

and a great relationship with New Zealand, not just with the wine, but on your TV show. I mean, it seems like your audience is always full of New Zealanders. Listen, I don't know what's going on. I mean, I feel like if I actually went to New Zealand, there'd be nobody there. Like everyone at any given moment, about two thirds of the population is in my audience waiting to go on that red chair. It's hard to get tickets to the show.

It's not like you just come to London and at Heathrow they give you some tickets to the show. They're hard to get. Now, Graeme, on the show you've spoken to every famous person you could possibly think of. Is there one that stands out? I mean, the ones that are still amazing are those big, big, big stars. So, you know, when tom hanks come on or tom cruise or you know jennifer lopez or you know any of those big stars because i mean sure you guys know what it's like you meet somebody famous and it's interesting for a nanosecond and then

they're just a person they're just like oh that's that bloke who was in that thing, or that's that woman who was... Yeah. But then there's a handful of people, and it's rare I think now, who are still film stars, and you never quite get past it. Like when Tom Cruise comes on, I never quite get over the fact that it's Tom Cruise. I'm still, at the end of it, I'm not talking to some bloke. I'm still talking to Tom Cruise. Whereas most actors become some bloke after about, you know, three sentences. Yeah, saying that Tom Cruise actually remembers everyone's name of the whole crew. Goes around and remembers everyone's name. And will go and say on the way out, go, hey, nice to meet you.

Or the crew as well. Nice to see you again. He remembers everyone's name. Or the crew as well. Nice to see you again. He remembers everyone's name. Oh, the crew. Yeah. I barely remember your name every morning. It's pretty awesome. He'll go around and say hi to everyone

and then on the way out with the crew, he'll remember everyone's name. That's thanks to Scientology. He's got information on every single one of them. He's got dirt on them. It's incredible. What a lovely thing. We talked about wine

because wine seems to play a big part in the Graham Norton show. You often see the guests sitting there. They've got wine in front of them. Yeah, and Mark Wahlberg, a famous Hollywood actor, he obviously enjoyed the free wine. You know, anything free.

You've got to make use of it, don't you? And this was him on the Graham Norton Show last year. Nice to see you all. How are you? I'm really well. Are you all well? I feel really good. Why would you allow people to drink alcohol

and come on a show? What's going on here? That's social. That's a social. I feel really good. Why would you allow people to drink alcohol and come on a show in the evening? What's going on here? That's not social, that's a social thing. I don't drink. It's a recipe for disaster. He was having a good time that one week. Alcohol becomes the most difficult word to say when you've had alcohol, doesn't it?

So we got talking to Graham about this, you know, what happens with the wine on the show? We will top somebody's drink up. If somebody finishes their drink and then there's a VT, we're showing a clip of a film, then the floor manager will come in with a replacement drink. But tops, you'll get through two or three drinks on the show. That's the maximum.

So to get to kind of Mark Wahlberg or... Did he fall asleep? Happily, he did. We were all so relieved when he fell asleep. Like, it was me, Sarah Silverman, Michael Fassbender. At one point, Michael Fassbender was telling a story, and I was saying, oh, this is going well. He's managing to tell a story. I wonder why.

And then I looked at Mark Wahlberg and he was asleep. He was. He was in that wonderful zone where in his head he was like, everyone's on the same page as me. Yeah. And listen, and that's the thing. I mean, what amazed me about that night was that like as a young boy, I remember seeing,

there was a picture in Vanity Fair, I think it was Annie Leibovitz took it, and it's Mark Wahlberg in his Calvin Kleins, and there's a dog trying to pull his Calvin Kleins off. And it was like, as a young guy in Ireland, it was the sexiest picture I'd ever seen. I'd never seen anything so sexy. And if anyone had told me then, one day, that man will be sitting on your lap, pinching your nipple, and you'll find it annoying. I would have lost my mind. But yeah.

Now, Graham Norton, we want to play a game. You've met many famous faces, and we've got some famous New Zealand faces that we want to hold up and get your first thoughts on. Jesus, I recognise you guys. What more do you want? Zealand faces that we want to hold up and get your first thoughts on. Jesus I recognize you guys what more do you want? Okay here we go Sir Peter Jackson. Sir Peter Jackson what pops into your head? Peter Jackson what pops into my head is I auditioned for Lord of the Rings for the part that... Was Sam, wasn't it? Was it Sam? That's probably why you didn't get it.

What character am I auditioning for again tonight? Sam? Was it Sam, the Lord of the Rings? It was awful. But apparently, Peter Jackson has a reel of all the auditions. So I don't know if I'm important enough to be in there, but I hear, and I can't swear to this, but I hear there's a Kylie Minogue audition tape.

I hear there's a really good Vin Diesel one. Really? The Vin Diesel one is the one you want to get. I live my life a Vin Diesel turns up and says, I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Well, there's no cars in this. Okay, we'll do a couple more just quickly because we know we need to go. Sam Neill. Oh, Sam.

He's the loveliest man and he owns, I think, is it, am I a bull? You're a bull. I think you're a bull. Am I a bull? He has a bull named Graham Norton. Down in the bottom car to my daughter. Here's the next one.

Jacinda Ardern. Oh, Jacinda. I mean, you know, she's a global hero now. She's the boss. She's the reason why every country wants a female prime minister. You probably all hate her now, but globally, we still like her. And New Zealand's most famous butcher. The mad butcher. He's most famous butcher. The Mad Butcher.

He's the Mad Butcher. And his jingle says, you just can't beat the Mad Butcher's meat. Is that really his jingle? It's true. We're not making that up. People in his family are cruel to him. Someone should have told him,

no, don't go with that jingle. Graeme Norton, congratulations on the wine. And thank you so much for talking to us. We really do appreciate it. Take care, guys. Jono and Ben, Breakfast on the Hits and Friends of Skinny.