I'm very lucky that in my personal and professional life I have met all sorts of interesting people - some famous, most not so much. I have had one on one lunches with people I would never have dreamed of meeting let alone breaking bread with. The older I get, the less intimidated I am by celebrity. After all, famous people are just like the rest of us. They have the same motivations, life-goals, feelings and relationships as all of us do.
Many celebrities are in fact quite shy, and not natural conversationalists. People tend to assume that anyone in the public eye is by definition an extrovert. Not so. I am sure that most people, given what I do for a living, think of me as someone who is outgoing without a shy bone in his body. The very opposite is true. The thought of going into a room of people I don't know and having to make polite small talk is something I dread and loathe, yet I am sure people think it's something I enjoy doing.
In this list of people I'd like to have a one on one lunch with are a couple of people who I have actually met, and a couple more I have been in the same room with. I wonder if you can guess which ones...
Tea Leoni
Bjorn Ulvaeus
Paolo Di Canio
HM The Queen
Barbara Walters
David Letterman
Davina McCall
Dolly Parton
Sir Cliff Richard
Linda Gray
