Michael Parkinson admits regrets over THAT Meg Ryan interview

During an interview with Good Morning Britain, former talk show host Michael Parkinson admitted that he wishes he could redo his awkward 2003 interview with Meg Ryan and really try to do things better.

“I’d like to get the Meg Ryan one right,” he said. “I mean, we were both in a fairly grim mood, I think, for various reasons – her boyfriend had left her and all that. And the film she was promoting she knew wasn’t very good.”

“I don’t know what happened,” he added. “I just took against her. I mean, she wasn’t trying…”

Of course, Piers Morgan was quick to back him up, explaining that she was being ‘incredibly difficult’ during the now infamous interview.

“She was,” confirmed Parky. “But there’s another way to handle that, actually, and extract more fun from it than I got,” he admitted.

During the excruciating interview conducted in 2003 while Ryan was promoting ‘In The Cut’, the actress admitted that she wasn’t comfortable with being in the spotlight, and seemed to completely close down to Parkinson’s questioning. And while he continued to try prompting a conversation with the actress, the whole thing just kept going further and further downhill.

“I think I knew what was going to come,” he explained. “I went to her dressing room before where the thing started, just to say hello… and it was a star’s dressing room, a big one at the BBC, and her team were sitting [over one side] and she was sitting [over the other side] with her back to them, and I thought ‘Hmmm, this is not going to work’.”

Of course, Parky is renowned for his usually brilliant lines of questioning, managing to get the most out of his guests with his legendary talk show charisma… but that day, it looked as though Meg Ryan was having none of it.

And let’s be honest – if you watch the original interview, he comes off as a bit annoyed, too.

Perhaps both of them could have handled it better.

It’s just a shame Parky probably won’t get another shot at it.

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