Richard Hammond: 'I'd hide from Angelina'
Richard Hammond would love to have Angelina Jolie as a guest on Top Gear - but admitted he would turn into a gibbering wreck in front of her. The Hollywood star of movies like Wanted and Salt has never appeared on the BBC Two motoring show, and Richard - who presents the programme alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May - reckons she might be a good competitor in the Star In A Reasonably Priced Car challenge. "I'd like to see Angelina Jolie just because she's lovely - I'd be really embarrassed, I'd be terrible, I'd just be hiding all the time," he said. "I'd be sick with nerves because she's really beautiful and I'd be scared." Richard, who is hosting the Carphone Warehouse Appys in London on April 11, revealed he doesn't have much say with the celebrities that come on the show. "I'm not massively involved in that part of the show, to be brutally honest. It helped when Jonathan Ross came off air because all the big celebs came to us, hence Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz suddenly turned up," he added. His favourite guest is acclaimed actor Michael Gambon, who has appeared twice. "It's always lovely seeing Michael Gambon. Top bloke, genuine enthusiasm," he recalled. "He pitches up at the track before everyone else, standing around and looking at the cars, I think he's a real enthusiast. Really good company and a great actor."
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.