Swift thinking is how Cork's Norton booked role in Taylor's video

Television presenter Graham Norton has said that pop superstar Taylor Swift came up with the idea of featuring her fellow guests on his show in a music video while she was being interviewed on the programme.

The Cork presenter of BBC One’s The Graham Norton Show featured alongside another Corkonian, actor Cillian Murphy, singer Lewis Capaldi, Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson, Past Lives actress Greta Lee, and British actress Jodie Turner-Smith in Swift’s video for Opalite, released on Friday.

Norton said: “The whole thing came to her in a blinding flash while she was on the sofa… and the next thing you know she’s written this whole treatment.”

Norton, 62, who has a home in Ahakista, West Cork, said he had worked on the video in November, and added that he was “in awe of myself” for having kept it a secret and for so long.

He added: “On New Year’s Eve, I was with a gaggle of gays and I just thought, ‘This is so good, surely I can tell them’, but I didn’t.”