Mark
28-05-2004, 12:25 PM
From C4 Big Brother Press
Interview with Big Brother presenter DAVINA McCALL
When you find out that there’s another series of Big Brother on the way does that inspire feelings of dread or excitement?
I would be so angry if someone else was presenting Big Brother.
Why’s that?
Because it’s mine. And no one else is allowed it! I love that programme - I was just talking to my husband and I said, “Oh darling, it’s nearly coming to that time when we can snuggle up at 10 o’clock every night and watch Big Brother together and then go to sleep discussing it. And he’s like, ‘I know!’” He said: ‘I’m really looking forward to this series of Big Brother because even when I don’t think it’s that good… it’s still bloody brilliant.’
Does he not feel a bit bereft as you have to work incredibly hard and you’re out all hours? Is it not all consuming?
No! No! I mean I watch it a lot at home but Dermot’s the one that’s really doing the hard slog over the summer because he’s there every single day and I waft in on the Friday – it’s like nothing. Work-wise all I do have to do is what I’d be doing every day as a viewer – because I’d be watching it every day. Oh my God – I watch them at breakfast and I watch them in the evening when I get in in case anything’s going on. E4’s on all the time in our house on one telly so I can just pop in and out and find out what’s happening.
What are your favourite moments from the last four years?
I’ve got lots of favourite. From the first series one of the big memories was when they first went in to the house and got naked and did imprints of themselves on the wall. The rumour went round that Craig was hung like a donkey. I thought that was quite funny and it was then that I realised this could be a really big programme - because they’d all gone bonkers. It was very exciting. Then obviously the Nick moment was really, really good.
There was another one-on-one moment from the first series that got me. It was when Anna was lying in bed and she was crying – she was just really weak and wanted to get out. And she was very quietly crying in to her pillow and then she sat up, she got her photos and she held them right to her face, so that the cameras couldn’t see what she was looking at and she was looking at her girlfriend – her girlfriend hadn’t come out, so she couldn’t show anybody and yet Tania was going to come out on the show – it was just amazing, so sweet.
Other moments – series two. Brian’s face when Josh walked in: that was a killer. Paul and Helen falling in love. Brian… just generally, with Narinder – very, very funny. And Brian winning made me cry. I had to go off and have a quick weep afterwards.
Then the third series – obviously Jade. That was a huge thing. I felt quite angry at some of the housemates some of the time because I thought she was being given a really hard time and no one would stick up for her. Even though they might not have been her best friends, somebody needed to champion her. Erm, Alex, behind the door? Obviously – a fabulous moment. Sandy – the great escape. Oh, and Adele and Alex – I really thought that was going to happen. And then Lee and Sophie – who got married!
Series four – which everybody said was a bit boring. I really enjoyed it, but I think maybe that’s because I was watching all of it. Jon Tickle was absolutely hysterical. The way he was heating up the water to go in to the swimming pool was very, very funny. All his moments were genius.
Do you keep in touch with any of the housemates?
I’m friends with Brian a little bit and I’m friends with Anna but I can’t stay friends with all of them – there’s not enough time in my life. I don’t mean that to sound like a cocky thing because I love them all and if they wanted to meet up I would.
If you were to invite one of them for a drink at the pub, who would it be?
Anna. ‘Cause I love her, she’s brilliant. She and I just got on really well. We’re still in touch. I don’t get to see her very often because I’m up to my eyes in it. I just really like her a lot. I also loved Cameron – I thought he was so funny.
But he didn’t have a great press – people thought he was a bit dull?
Yeah, well I thought he was brilliant, and I loved the fact that people thought he was faking it because he so wasn’t. When Jon Tickle came out he said, ‘that’s not the real Cameron - he’s a lech.’ But he’s not a lech, he’s just a man with strong Christian views who has normal male feelings like everybody else and does look at women’s bottoms and things like that…
Do you agree that the housemates were all dull last year?
No! I loved Ray. I think he was absolutely fantastic. My advice for future housemates is just stop worrying about what people are going to think of you. The thing that makes the public love you more than anything is when you are yourself – I mean Jade, jeepers! If she’d have thought about what the public thought of her she wouldn’t have done anything that she did. She was just herself, and that’s why she came full circle. Whereas the people that hold back – Jonny the fireman was the perfect example – he was such a funny, lovely guy but he was so worried about public opinion of him that he tortured himself. He almost drove himself to the point of madness by the fact that he couldn’t be himself - because he didn’t want people to think that he was performing. But that’s what he does in his life – he’s a performer, he’s always joking, just doing what he does. That’s the rule – Be. Your. Self!
Do you get any chance to talk to them when the series is on?
No. never. Nobody talks to them: not the producers, not anybody. Nobody can go in and say, ‘hey guys, could you just jolly it up a bit?’ You’d love to sometimes but you can’t because that would change the dynamic.
Do you get told any of the upcoming surprises?
I don’t want to know about them because I can’t keep secrets. I’d be telling you all the goss right now and I’m not allowed to do that. I’m not great at keeping secrets. That’s the bottom line. They’ll tell me about the house and tasks but they wont tell me about the housemates until about three days before.
Have you had any year that you thought worked better than the others?
My favourite year to date has probably been year two, because of Brian, and Helen and Paul. I was just beside myself watching Helen and Paul fall in love – it was like the best soap opera I’ve seen in my life.
So what would you want most out of Big Brother 5?
I’d love a love affair, but I’m not interested in sex or snogging or even necessarily romance. I’m desperately interested in friendships and how they work – I love watching people relating to each other. That’s why one of my favourite shows is the opening show. Just watching people walk clock each other for the first time and thinking, ‘oh, do they like each other?’ or, ‘oh, she definitely doesn’t like him,’ and then they end up falling in love – all that kind of stuff, the immediate judgements that I make on people, because I don’t meet any of them before they go in to the house. The only time I meet them is when they exit. And them then proving me wrong two or three weeks later – I love it. Last year, I went ‘Cameron’s going to win’, the minute he walked in the house – and he did.
Do you bet on the outcome?
No, but we do a sweepstake on the show so we don’t get to choose who we pick.
Favourite eviction?
I always like the ones where there’s lots of things to talk about – like PJ, because he just was not having it – no, nothing happened, nothing happened. But we got a half-admission out of him in the end. Adele I always thought was quite heavy because it was the first time a housemate had come out of the house to a big booing.
People really turn against some housemates. Do you feel it’s your job to calm things down?
What I always do with a housemate is I give them a chance to redeem themselves. So when they get booed I will say in the ad break before we talk, ‘listen, they’re booing you because of this. I’m going to ask you some questions about it and you’ve got plenty of time and a good chance to redeem yourself – that’s what we’re going talk about so I want you to know that.’
Will your new family be watching the show?
No. Not at 2 and 6 months old!
Do they get what Mummy does?
All they think is Mummy’s on the telly. To them it’s just normal – it’s quite funny really, thinking that Mummy on the telly is normal.
Will Matthew be watching it?
Oh, Matthew and I will be watching – Matthew’s addicted because he has to be, because I force him.
Does he ever grill you for insider goss?
I give him the insider goss, basically!
When you were first asked to do Big Brother five years ago what were your feelings?
It’s a lottery whether you take a show on or not, but you have to ask yourself, ‘would I be interested in seeing the show?’ I saw a copy of the show from Holland and I loved it -fascinating viewing.
Last year you said ‘I want to make room for ponies, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, donkeys and swings and have children tugging on my apron strings as I cook a fantastic fish pie.” How are you progressing?
Well I’ve got swings.
No donkeys?
Our garden’s not really big enough for donkeys but yesterday we did go down the road and feed the horses – so we’re near enough. Pigs? My husband just won’t let me and I have tried – I’m going to keep going – Chinese water torture, drip, drip, drip, drip. I won’t have them indoors – too much poo, but it’s a big enough garden for the pigs. Just not the donkeys.
You look amazing. Tell us about your new exercise regime.
I’m working out with a couple and I work out with the wife two days a week and the husband – an ex-marine – one day a week.
A marine and his wife? Is it like good cop, bad cop?
They’re both relatively bad cops but they both do very different kinds of exercises. Wife does a lot of toning and cardiovascular. She has me doing lots of squats, jogging, stair and cycling and rowing, that kind of stuff. Whereas the marine has me doing bench-pressing (I did 30 kgs the other day!), boxing, push-ups and pull-ups.
Does he shout at you a lot?
Well if I go, ‘oh God this is really hurting’, he goes, ‘Oh dear. Bless.’ And puts it up two levels, so he does have that kind of marine quality. But they balance each other out perfectly. They’re local to me, I was pregnant and I was ballooning like I always do when I’m pregnant and I thought I’ve got to try and stay fit, so I started working out with the wife once a week – just to keep going but obviously being careful with my heart rate to make sure the baby was getting enough oxygen. Seven weeks after I’d had Tilly we started gently getting back in to the regime and then at three months we started the hardcore, pushing it – and I’ve been doing it for three months now. And just eating three good meals a day. I’ve cut out chocolate in the last six to seven weeks – really hard - and I’ve stopped taking sugar in my tea. The biggest thing is Coca-cola – I drank gallons of it when I was pregnant, there’s about eight teaspoons of sugar in a Coke and I was having at least two cans a day. Even cutting that out has made a huge difference.
Will you keep it up?
Well I just feel really good. I still eat naughtiness – I don’t beat myself up about it. But if I do I just try and be good for the next couple of days. Otherwise you go mad – I can’t keep up a diet with no carbs or whatever. But if I have pasta or bread at lunch I’ll try and not have carbs in the evening – just sensible eating.
Interview with Big Brother presenter DAVINA McCALL
When you find out that there’s another series of Big Brother on the way does that inspire feelings of dread or excitement?
I would be so angry if someone else was presenting Big Brother.
Why’s that?
Because it’s mine. And no one else is allowed it! I love that programme - I was just talking to my husband and I said, “Oh darling, it’s nearly coming to that time when we can snuggle up at 10 o’clock every night and watch Big Brother together and then go to sleep discussing it. And he’s like, ‘I know!’” He said: ‘I’m really looking forward to this series of Big Brother because even when I don’t think it’s that good… it’s still bloody brilliant.’
Does he not feel a bit bereft as you have to work incredibly hard and you’re out all hours? Is it not all consuming?
No! No! I mean I watch it a lot at home but Dermot’s the one that’s really doing the hard slog over the summer because he’s there every single day and I waft in on the Friday – it’s like nothing. Work-wise all I do have to do is what I’d be doing every day as a viewer – because I’d be watching it every day. Oh my God – I watch them at breakfast and I watch them in the evening when I get in in case anything’s going on. E4’s on all the time in our house on one telly so I can just pop in and out and find out what’s happening.
What are your favourite moments from the last four years?
I’ve got lots of favourite. From the first series one of the big memories was when they first went in to the house and got naked and did imprints of themselves on the wall. The rumour went round that Craig was hung like a donkey. I thought that was quite funny and it was then that I realised this could be a really big programme - because they’d all gone bonkers. It was very exciting. Then obviously the Nick moment was really, really good.
There was another one-on-one moment from the first series that got me. It was when Anna was lying in bed and she was crying – she was just really weak and wanted to get out. And she was very quietly crying in to her pillow and then she sat up, she got her photos and she held them right to her face, so that the cameras couldn’t see what she was looking at and she was looking at her girlfriend – her girlfriend hadn’t come out, so she couldn’t show anybody and yet Tania was going to come out on the show – it was just amazing, so sweet.
Other moments – series two. Brian’s face when Josh walked in: that was a killer. Paul and Helen falling in love. Brian… just generally, with Narinder – very, very funny. And Brian winning made me cry. I had to go off and have a quick weep afterwards.
Then the third series – obviously Jade. That was a huge thing. I felt quite angry at some of the housemates some of the time because I thought she was being given a really hard time and no one would stick up for her. Even though they might not have been her best friends, somebody needed to champion her. Erm, Alex, behind the door? Obviously – a fabulous moment. Sandy – the great escape. Oh, and Adele and Alex – I really thought that was going to happen. And then Lee and Sophie – who got married!
Series four – which everybody said was a bit boring. I really enjoyed it, but I think maybe that’s because I was watching all of it. Jon Tickle was absolutely hysterical. The way he was heating up the water to go in to the swimming pool was very, very funny. All his moments were genius.
Do you keep in touch with any of the housemates?
I’m friends with Brian a little bit and I’m friends with Anna but I can’t stay friends with all of them – there’s not enough time in my life. I don’t mean that to sound like a cocky thing because I love them all and if they wanted to meet up I would.
If you were to invite one of them for a drink at the pub, who would it be?
Anna. ‘Cause I love her, she’s brilliant. She and I just got on really well. We’re still in touch. I don’t get to see her very often because I’m up to my eyes in it. I just really like her a lot. I also loved Cameron – I thought he was so funny.
But he didn’t have a great press – people thought he was a bit dull?
Yeah, well I thought he was brilliant, and I loved the fact that people thought he was faking it because he so wasn’t. When Jon Tickle came out he said, ‘that’s not the real Cameron - he’s a lech.’ But he’s not a lech, he’s just a man with strong Christian views who has normal male feelings like everybody else and does look at women’s bottoms and things like that…
Do you agree that the housemates were all dull last year?
No! I loved Ray. I think he was absolutely fantastic. My advice for future housemates is just stop worrying about what people are going to think of you. The thing that makes the public love you more than anything is when you are yourself – I mean Jade, jeepers! If she’d have thought about what the public thought of her she wouldn’t have done anything that she did. She was just herself, and that’s why she came full circle. Whereas the people that hold back – Jonny the fireman was the perfect example – he was such a funny, lovely guy but he was so worried about public opinion of him that he tortured himself. He almost drove himself to the point of madness by the fact that he couldn’t be himself - because he didn’t want people to think that he was performing. But that’s what he does in his life – he’s a performer, he’s always joking, just doing what he does. That’s the rule – Be. Your. Self!
Do you get any chance to talk to them when the series is on?
No. never. Nobody talks to them: not the producers, not anybody. Nobody can go in and say, ‘hey guys, could you just jolly it up a bit?’ You’d love to sometimes but you can’t because that would change the dynamic.
Do you get told any of the upcoming surprises?
I don’t want to know about them because I can’t keep secrets. I’d be telling you all the goss right now and I’m not allowed to do that. I’m not great at keeping secrets. That’s the bottom line. They’ll tell me about the house and tasks but they wont tell me about the housemates until about three days before.
Have you had any year that you thought worked better than the others?
My favourite year to date has probably been year two, because of Brian, and Helen and Paul. I was just beside myself watching Helen and Paul fall in love – it was like the best soap opera I’ve seen in my life.
So what would you want most out of Big Brother 5?
I’d love a love affair, but I’m not interested in sex or snogging or even necessarily romance. I’m desperately interested in friendships and how they work – I love watching people relating to each other. That’s why one of my favourite shows is the opening show. Just watching people walk clock each other for the first time and thinking, ‘oh, do they like each other?’ or, ‘oh, she definitely doesn’t like him,’ and then they end up falling in love – all that kind of stuff, the immediate judgements that I make on people, because I don’t meet any of them before they go in to the house. The only time I meet them is when they exit. And them then proving me wrong two or three weeks later – I love it. Last year, I went ‘Cameron’s going to win’, the minute he walked in the house – and he did.
Do you bet on the outcome?
No, but we do a sweepstake on the show so we don’t get to choose who we pick.
Favourite eviction?
I always like the ones where there’s lots of things to talk about – like PJ, because he just was not having it – no, nothing happened, nothing happened. But we got a half-admission out of him in the end. Adele I always thought was quite heavy because it was the first time a housemate had come out of the house to a big booing.
People really turn against some housemates. Do you feel it’s your job to calm things down?
What I always do with a housemate is I give them a chance to redeem themselves. So when they get booed I will say in the ad break before we talk, ‘listen, they’re booing you because of this. I’m going to ask you some questions about it and you’ve got plenty of time and a good chance to redeem yourself – that’s what we’re going talk about so I want you to know that.’
Will your new family be watching the show?
No. Not at 2 and 6 months old!
Do they get what Mummy does?
All they think is Mummy’s on the telly. To them it’s just normal – it’s quite funny really, thinking that Mummy on the telly is normal.
Will Matthew be watching it?
Oh, Matthew and I will be watching – Matthew’s addicted because he has to be, because I force him.
Does he ever grill you for insider goss?
I give him the insider goss, basically!
When you were first asked to do Big Brother five years ago what were your feelings?
It’s a lottery whether you take a show on or not, but you have to ask yourself, ‘would I be interested in seeing the show?’ I saw a copy of the show from Holland and I loved it -fascinating viewing.
Last year you said ‘I want to make room for ponies, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, donkeys and swings and have children tugging on my apron strings as I cook a fantastic fish pie.” How are you progressing?
Well I’ve got swings.
No donkeys?
Our garden’s not really big enough for donkeys but yesterday we did go down the road and feed the horses – so we’re near enough. Pigs? My husband just won’t let me and I have tried – I’m going to keep going – Chinese water torture, drip, drip, drip, drip. I won’t have them indoors – too much poo, but it’s a big enough garden for the pigs. Just not the donkeys.
You look amazing. Tell us about your new exercise regime.
I’m working out with a couple and I work out with the wife two days a week and the husband – an ex-marine – one day a week.
A marine and his wife? Is it like good cop, bad cop?
They’re both relatively bad cops but they both do very different kinds of exercises. Wife does a lot of toning and cardiovascular. She has me doing lots of squats, jogging, stair and cycling and rowing, that kind of stuff. Whereas the marine has me doing bench-pressing (I did 30 kgs the other day!), boxing, push-ups and pull-ups.
Does he shout at you a lot?
Well if I go, ‘oh God this is really hurting’, he goes, ‘Oh dear. Bless.’ And puts it up two levels, so he does have that kind of marine quality. But they balance each other out perfectly. They’re local to me, I was pregnant and I was ballooning like I always do when I’m pregnant and I thought I’ve got to try and stay fit, so I started working out with the wife once a week – just to keep going but obviously being careful with my heart rate to make sure the baby was getting enough oxygen. Seven weeks after I’d had Tilly we started gently getting back in to the regime and then at three months we started the hardcore, pushing it – and I’ve been doing it for three months now. And just eating three good meals a day. I’ve cut out chocolate in the last six to seven weeks – really hard - and I’ve stopped taking sugar in my tea. The biggest thing is Coca-cola – I drank gallons of it when I was pregnant, there’s about eight teaspoons of sugar in a Coke and I was having at least two cans a day. Even cutting that out has made a huge difference.
Will you keep it up?
Well I just feel really good. I still eat naughtiness – I don’t beat myself up about it. But if I do I just try and be good for the next couple of days. Otherwise you go mad – I can’t keep up a diet with no carbs or whatever. But if I have pasta or bread at lunch I’ll try and not have carbs in the evening – just sensible eating.