London: Prince William has revealed he once dreamt of becoming a policeman or a DJ when he considered careers other than being heir to the throne.
The Prince of Wales said he came up with a disc jockey stage name, “DJ Xara”, but never managed to play a big event.
Asked by television host Graham Norton if he ever DJ’ed at school parties, William replied: “No, I didn’t, I never got that good.”
The talk about the prince’s early aspirations came up when he joined guests Cate Blanchett, Hannah Waddingham and Robert Irwin on Norton’s weekly BBC television show on Friday night (early on Saturday, AEDT).
Waddingham, one of the stars of the Ted Lasso television series, told the prince his “DJ Xara” name was “rubbish” – to which he did not disagree.
Irwin, the son of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin and a winner of the British version of Dancing with the Stars, suggested the prince might have dreamt about wrangling crocodiles.
“If I’d met you earlier, I might have,” the prince replied.
The appearance was a rare move for William to join a late-night talk show that usually features stage and screen stars speaking about their latest productions.
The prince, born in 1982, discussed his DJ career ideas when Norton asked whether he had ever wondered about doing a job other than the one he was assigned at birth.
“Being a policeman, I thought, was quite cool,” the prince replied.
“And then I went through a phase when I wanted to be a DJ, which didn’t go very well.”
Blanchett, who has gained rave reviews for her appearance in Elektra/Person at the National Theatre in London, joked with William about whether he had stage moves to go with his “DJ Xara” name.
The prince joined the talk show to promote the Earthshot Prize, a climate project he set up in 2020 and which is backed by Blanchett, Waddingham and Irwin.
The organisation raises funds from sponsors and selects 15 finalists each year with environmental projects around the world. It then chooses five winners and gives each one a £1 million ($1.9 million) grant. Two Australian projects have made the longlist in recent years: the Indigenous Desert Alliance and the Quay Quarter Tower in Sydney.
William has also announced an Earthshot Prize for children, ahead of the annual Earthshot Prize announcements at a ceremony in Mumbai, India on November 17.
“For many years I was hearing stories about environment issues and one thing that struck me was the negativity and doom, which got me down,” he told Norton.
“I thought we could do something more powerful and more optimistic, and the idea of an awards ceremony came about, and we could talk about urgency and optimism together. It’s all about getting excited.
“There are some amazing people out there doing things to protect the world. We could really highlight what is being done and scale them to the next level to have more impact around the world.”
The prince also discussed pop culture and film, including the films of director Christopher Nolan, when asked how he “switched off” from royal life.
“It is music and film. I love getting immersed in deep-thinking films,” he said.
“I like action films too, but I like something a bit different. I’m a big fan of everything Christopher Nolan does. His films are fantastic – The Dark Knight series is psychologically dark and deep, and I absolutely love that.