Greg Davies spills the beans on the new series of The Cleaner on The Graham Norton show this week.

Talking about the new series, he says, “The third series is a bit sillier than the first two. The character is more together than me, so I’ve started picking him apart.”

Asked if he does much preparation for the role he jokes, “I only act in things I have written and as I play losers my research is me getting out of bed and standing in front of the mirror in my pants and I’m in character!”

Also on this week’s show (4th October), Graham welcomes the one and only Hugh Grant, iconic singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry, Hollywood star Sebastian Stan, funny man Greg Davies, and Little Mix-er, turned solo star Perrie.

Hugh, talking about playing the villain in his new horror movie Heretic, says, “I decided to play him as a trendy academic.  The film goes darker and darker so I thought everything that is creepy would be doubly creepy if I made jokes at the same time.  I didn’t want him to be the moustache twirling baddie, so I prepared by reading a lot about serial killers and cult leaders and even borrowed their look.”

Asked about appearing in Bridget Jones; Mad About the Boy, the fourth in the film series, he says, “It is a good and moving script – it is extremely funny but very sad.  There was no obvious role for me, but I was crammed in.  So we didn’t have a 60-year-old Daniel Clever wandering around looking at young girls I made up a good interim story for him.”

Talking about his parents and their view of his acting career, Hugh says, “They were not at all supportive.  My mother was a churchgoer and wanted me to be the Archbishop of Canterbury!  In their world showbusiness meant nothing.  I remember when Four Weddings and a Funeral came out my mother went to a dinner party with likeminded people and when asked about her two sons she said ‘One is an investment banker and the other is a film star.’  Another guest said, ‘How very interesting, which bank?’  That’s the world I grew up in.”

Neneh, taking about her new memoir A Thousand Threads, and asked why she has written it at this point in her life, says, “I hate nostalgia, and I’m revolted by the concept, but I wanted to reflect on the journey.  I have never over analysed my life too much, but I still feel unfinished so felt the need at this point to sit with the story.  I also wanted to honour where I came from.”

Asked if she is creating new music, she says, “This book has taken four years, and I feel like I have been in a weird birth canal.  It’s a wonderful relief that it is going out of my hands and into the world, so the next thing I need to do will be to make some music.”

Reminiscing about her appearance on Top of the Pops in 1988, she says, “It definitely changed my life, but at the time I just got on with it.  I was seen by the world then, but I’d had a whole other life before that.  I am thankful I had that when all the crazy stuff started happening.”

Sebastian, talking about his role in A Different Man, says, “It is very hard to describe because it is a paranoid thriller, it is scary and it is tragic, but it is also incredibly funny.  Everyone who has seen it thinks they have never seen anything like it before.” 

On playing a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice, he says, “Naturally there were a lot of people asking, ‘why do this’ but every time I was told not to do it, all I could think about was doing it.”

Asked about his approach to playing Trump, he says, “I tried not to do an impersonation.  It is bizarre but I didn’t know if I was going to get it right and I still don’t really know.  It’s just my take on the situation.  I also had to put on weight to play him so for a month and a half I just ate ramen with soy sauce, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Coca-Cola.  It was a very interesting experience.”

Perrie performs her new single You Go Your Way, before joining Graham for a chat.

The Graham Norton Show, BBC One, Friday 4th October 10.40pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer.

Next week (11th October) Graham’s guests include Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Miranda Hart, Ncuti Gatwa, and Rag 'n' Bone Man.

Graham Norton Picture credit: BBC/So Television/Christopher Baines