Graham Norton is revealing behind-the-scenes details of his time filming Taylor Swift’s “Opalite” music video.
“I filmed it in Croydon — they filmed most of it in London, and bits of it in America,” Norton, 62, said on the Monday, February 9, episode of the “Wanging On” podcast.
Norton went on to notice that he met the photographer who shot Swift’s engagement photos with Travis Kelce. (Swift and Kelce, each 36, announced that the NFL player popped the query in 2025.)
“Sadly, no Travis there, but her mum, dad and brother [were] on the video shoot,” he said.
Norton admitted he was “somewhat bit” nervous in regards to the experience. “We filmed the video within the back end of November, and I’m like, ‘Please release the video so I can tell someone I’m in it!’” Norton said. “I’m so in awe of myself [for keeping the video shoot secret]. … On Latest 12 months’s Eve, I used to be with a gaggle of gays, and I just thought, ‘That is so good, surely I can tell them’ … but I didn’t.”
On Friday, February 6, Swift released her “Opalite” music video — the third track from her twelfth studio album, The Lifetime of a Showgirl. Norton appeared within the video alongside celebs Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith and Lewis Capaldi. The group previously appeared on The Graham Norton Show in October 2025, which sparked the concept for Swift.
“The entire thing got here to her in a blinding flash while she was on the [Graham Norton Show] sofa … and the following thing you realize she’s written this whole treatment,” Norton explained. “Taylor properly wrote this; it’s all storyboarded, and he or she properly directs it.”
Norton gushed that Swift is a “marvelous director,” explaining that her ability to not get stressed is “extraordinary.”
“It was like a movie shoot, a large, massive deal,” he said. “Everyone was lovely on set. It was a extremely, really fun experience.”
After the music video was released, Swift explained that she was doing promo for her Lifetime of a Showgirl album on The Graham Norton Show when the concept hit her.
“I remember pondering I got ridiculously lucky with the group I used to be paired with. Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, @JodieSmith, and @LewisCapaldi,” she wrote via Instagram on Friday. “All people whose work I’ve admired from afar. Once we were all talking in the course of the broadcast, Domhnall made a lightweight hearted joke about wanting to be in one in all my music videos. He’s Irish! He was joking! Except that in that moment in the course of the interview, I used to be immediately struck with an *idea*. And so every week later he received an email script I’d written for the Opalite video, where he was playing the starring role.”
She continued, “I had this thought that it will be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, might be an element of it too. Like a faculty group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory. To my delight, everyone from the show made the hassle to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video. You would possibly even recognize some friendly faces from The Eras Tour.”