On this week's show (3rd December), Graham welcomes Hollywood stars Henry Cavill, Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and British girl group Little Mix 

Henry, talking about the return of hit series The Witcher, and the success of the first, says, “It did pretty well.”  

On his character’s lack of dialogue, he says, “This time round he says a lot more and they have popped in some of my expletives from the last series.”

Asked if he is in the running to be the next James Bond, he says, “I would definitely have a conversation.  From what I understand there are very early conversations happening at the top but there is no list as such.”

Revealing that growing up with four brothers prepared him for his action films, he jokes, “Growing up was intense – we were living on the edge of survival most of the time.  To give you an example my dad came home from work one day and asked my mother why the wallpaper had changed, and she simply said, ‘It is easier to clean the blood off this one!’  There was a lot of rough and tumble!”

Tom and Zendaya chat about about their new movie Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Tom, reflecting on his Spider Man suit says, “It doesn’t keep you warm at all and, it makes you look small in all the areas you don’t want to look small!  It is the same as last time and once again I asked for a zip and there isn’t one!”

Asked to explain the plot line, Tom says, “It’s tough to tell you much.  Marvel and Sony have done such a good job of putting trailers together without giving anything away, but just enough to get everyone excited.  What’s cool about the film is that it picks up right after the end of the second one and for the first time in Peter Parker’s history his identity has been revealed to the world.  Everyone thinks he is a crazy villain, and it all goes horribly wrong for him.” 

Zendaya, talking about figuring out the various timelines in the film, says, “It’s extremely confusing to work out what is going on.  There would be a lot of times when we had no idea.  Because of Covid, we had a lack of locations and a lot of blue screens.  A lot of the time we would just ask the director, ‘Where are we?  What are we doing?’  There were days when Tom and I would look at each other and say, ‘What on earth is this?’’

Tom interjects, “We’ve worked with John (Watts) for so long so he knows he can tell us what to do and we will do as we are told, but during filming he would say, ‘Stand here, look there and do this,’ and we were like, ‘Stand where, look at who, and do what?’”

Gugu, talking about her new BBC series The Girl Before, and asked about being exec producer for the first time, says, “It has been an incredible learning curve and the interesting thing for me was being on the other side of it having auditioned for years having been an actor, and then being part of the casting process.  It was so exciting and cool to be on that side of things.”

Asked how she gets into character, she says, “I have different scents for every role – for example when I played Nell Gwyn, I had an orange citrus scent.  I love it and it gets your brain into a different place.”

Henry interjects, “I think I speak for Tom and me when I say our scent is sweat and latex!”

Little Mix perform Between Us live in the studio before joining Graham for a chat.

Talking about their recently announced break, Jade says, “It’s been terribly emotional. We’ve still got the tour next year and a few other bits, but it’s been 10 incredible years and we always said if we’re going to take a little break it would be on an incredible high, at our peak so it seems like the right time.  

“We are family and love each other to bits so what’s lovely is that whatever we go off and do we can support each other through it and celebrate each other – it’s a lovely way to do it.” 

Leigh-Anne adds, “It’s time to spread our wings a little bit and do our individual things.”

Perrie, talking about their Brit award, says, “It was about time a girl group won.”

The Graham Norton Show, BBC One, Friday 3rd December and available on BBC iPlayer.

Next week (10th December) Graham’s guests include Keanu Reeves, Olivia Colman, Jack Whitehall, and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man

Graham Norton picture: BBC/So Television/Christopher Baines