John Cleese has revealed he has been struggling to get celebrity guests to appear on his new GB News show.
The Monty Python man announced he would be joining the channel as a presenter in 2022, taking a regular spot on the channel to speak out against “woke culture”.
A trailer for the talk show, dubbed ‘The Dinosaur Hour’, has been released showing a number of famous faces.
But according to Cleese, it hasn’t been easy filling the slots.
Speaking to GB News, he explained why he’s found it harder than he thought to get celebrity guests in front of the camera on his brand-new show.
“Most people are frightened of getting fired and the people who employ them are frightened of getting fired and that end of woke is not very nice.”
Cleese has said he chose to put The Dinosaur Hour on GB News because they gave him “the most extraordinary offer in the history of television”.
It comes after he actually had six pitches rejected by Netflix bosses, which left him feeling disillusioned.
“I went to Netflix and I gave them six ideas and I thought two were really good and they never even called my agent back,” he revealed.
He continued: “I’ve no idea what they are looking for. The main thing, as you get older, is you realize that very few people have any idea what they’re doing.”
Cleese also opened up about the nature of his latest venture, revealing that the show is “aimed at dinosaurs” who are “out of touch”, either by choice or by accident, and feel alienated from the rest of modern TV.
“The show is for all those who are out of touch,” he explained. “All the dinosaurs who are out of touch. You can be out of touch for two reasons.”
“You can be voluntarily out of touch because you’ve given up – which is a very sensible point of view – or you could be out of touch without knowing.”
Related: Israel ‘has a right’ to withhold power and water from citizens in Gaza – Starmer