Angela Jain
- Commissioning Editor

So what new things can viewers expect from this year’s series?
There’ll be lots of surprises and twists. The house has been redesigned and some of the ex-housemates from this summer’s series will be acting as our roving reporters and our eyes and ears on the ground.

Is there pressure to find this year’s George Galloway and Pete Burns? Is there a winning formula used to cast housemates?
There is no formula to casting the house. The producers spend a lot of time meeting the celebrities. We make decisions based on those meetings, on instinct and on seeing how the house will work as a whole. We just hope we get it right and that some people will surprise us, because however much you know a celebrity’s public persona it’s impossible to second-guess how they will behave when they become a Big Brother housemate.

Do you think celebrities are getting wiser to Big Brother and worry about the risk of ridicule?
Most celebrities do think they totally understand the Big Brother house, but what most of them underestimate is that when they become a housemate Big Brother really does take over. Any celebrity who thinks they can sabotage the house is exciting: rule-breakers are entertaining.

What or who surprised you most about last year’s Celebrity series?
That George Galloway gave of himself so completely, that a ‘nobody’ walked into the house in January and left both a celebrity and a winner, Pete Burns - and that there was a true romance in the house.

Who would be in your dream Celebrity Big Brother line-up? Are there some celebrities who are out of bounds?
Nicole Kidman, Salman Rushdie, Michael Jackson, Kathy Burke, Whitney Houston and Marc Jacobs.

Arguments featured heavily in last year’s series. Will this year’s line-up make for potential confrontation?
Drama, tension, conflict and romance all make entertaining television and sometimes you create situations that may encourage that; sometimes a task in the house proves a catalyst for that, but sometimes situations happen in the house that just surprise you. Celebrity Big Brother works best when it’s entertaining, dramatic and revealing and when the housemates give something of themselves so that we see them change whilst they are in the house.

Big Brother enjoyed bending the rules during the summer series – what lies in store this time?
Let’s just say we have some big surprises in store…