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Stephen Merchant Graham Norton (1).png

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Crushes On Armie Hammer, And Stephen Merchant Talks About Dwayne Johnson's... Er, Johnson

By Tori Preston | TV | February 20, 2019 |

By Tori Preston | TV | February 20, 2019 |


Stephen Merchant Graham Norton (1).png

Hey, have you heard about Fighting With My Family? Maybe you saw the trailer in yesterday’s round-up. I’ll confess — I have basically only been aware of this feel-good, inspirational wrestling comedy for about 24 hours, despite the fact that it opens up in theaters this week. And I’m kind of obsessed? So imagine my delight when I was trolling YouTube for funny & distracting celebrity interviews and stumbled across Fighting’s writer and director, Stephen Merchant, talking to Graham Norton about the film!

You see, the movie is based on a real family, but the inspiration to make the movie came from producer Dwayne Johnson (who also appears in the film as, you know, “The Rock” — though Merchant jokes that he wanted to cast Vin Diesel to play him instead). And as I’m sure you’re no doubt already aware, Johnson and Merchant have been friends and not-gym-buddies since they starred together in 2010’s Tooth Fairy. You remember the one…

via GIPHY

So Merchant tells the story of how Johnson came up with the idea for Fighting With My Family — only he embellishes the retelling with lots of details that are, well, patently ridiculous. Including speculation on what Dwayne might call his, um, Johnson. And really, there are only two correct answers:

So if you see the film, just make sure you imagine The Rock wearing a skintight Travelodge robe (oh who am I kidding — don’t we ALL do that anyway?).

But it turns out that The Rock wasn’t the only one being admired on The Graham Norton Show. Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer were there to talk about On The Basis Of Sex, in which Jones plays a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Hammer portrays her husband. And when the pair went to meet RBG herself, it was pretty clear with star the Supreme Court Justice preferred:

Getting crushed on by RBG sounds great, but I’m with Armie on this one: Getting letters from the Supreme Court sounds MIGHTY unsettling.

You can catch this episode of The Graham Norton Show on BBC America next Friday, March 1 at 11pm EST (and if you’re in the UK you should be able to watch it on the iPlayer as I think it’s already aired).




Header Image Source: BBC America (via YouTube)