Andrew Scott

Tá áthas ar Andrew Scott about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Andrew sits down with Conan to discuss his latest film Pressure, the over-academization of Shakespeare, playing every part in the one-man adaptation Vanya, and honing the craft of portraying characters who are good without being nice. Later, Conan reveals a wholesomely surefire way to put himself into an unbreakable trance. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Conan O'Brien?

  Now Sona, clearly I'm a very important person to you.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:05Conan O'Brien?

  Just accept the premise and we'll move ahead.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 0:08Conan O'Brien?

  I'm a very important person to you. What would you get me from Macy's for the holidays?

• 0:13Speaker 01

  A vase.

• 0:15Conan O'Brien?

  No, I don't want a vase. I want something better.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  A jacket.

• 0:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, nice jacket. I love a nice jacket.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that jacket, nice jacket.

• 0:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so now you have to do it, because you said you would.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Aw man, I didn't know you were doing that.

• 0:25Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I know the holidays, I know the holidays are months away, but it's never too early, Sona, to find gifts that I will love, gifts I will wear, and surprises that make the season unforgettable for me.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 0:37Conan O'Brien?

  Macy's Gift Guide makes holiday shopping easy with beauty favorites, stylish fashion, jewelry, cozy essentials, must-have toys, home upgrades, and picks for every person on your list. Coach handbags, Breville appliances, Lego UG, and more, all in one place so you can skip the scrolling and shop with confidence. Shop now in-store or online at macy's.com/giftguide.

• 1:02Conan O'Brien?

  Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype?

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, like all the time.

• 1:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I did that with an all-potato restaurant.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Oh no.

• 1:14Conan O'Brien?

  Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, like impressions, but then they don't see revenue. You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Sona?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, all the time.

• 1:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Bullspend.

• 1:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, instead you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn Ads.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32Conan O'Brien?

  Cut the bullspend. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/Conan. Terms apply.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  And taught all her serum about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

• 1:55Conan O'Brien?

  What?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 1:56Speaker 02

  That means I'm happy in Irish.

• 1:58Conan O'Brien?

  Oh! In Irish.

• 2:21Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Joined by Sona Mufesian. Hello, Sona.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 2:27Conan O'Brien?

  Matt Gourley, how are you, Matt? Hi, Doc.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Hi, Doc!

• 2:31Conan O'Brien?

  I'll just let it go. Do you guys ever see our videos come up when you're, you know? Oh, yeah. You see the videos come up of us doing the podcast? And I see too when they put out the photo of me with the guest. I'll be with Billie Eilish, I'll be with, you know, whoever the guest is. But I think Billie Eilish came to mind because I was looking at the photograph and my hair is insane. Yeah. And I realized that for years and years and years I would do a show and I'd, you know, run a comb through my hair and kind of, you know, make sure the coiff was working. And I don't do that at all with the podcast. And sometimes it's insanity. We have a wall out there of pictures of me with different guests

• 3:15Conan O'Brien?

  and my hair is all over the map.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  It really is!

• 3:18Conan O'Brien?

  It really, I mean, it's- It's mood hair. It's just insanity. And I don't know, I got self-conscious, I think the other day some, maybe it was the Billie Eilish photograph popped up on my screen. I, uh, I don't know what's going on up there. I look like Shemp from The Three Stooges.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:36Conan O'Brien?

  If he were a ginger. And then I started to think, you know, do I need to do something about this? Do I need to get it under control? Or is this just what it is now, man? It's you, it's- It's podcasts, man.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  I have to get, make sure my hair looks decent every time we do this.

• 3:51Conan O'Brien?

  No, you don't.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Conan!

• 3:55Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, what I'm saying, Sona, I wasn't saying your hair looks bad. It's just, I don't think you have any control over what's happening on top of your head.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  I certainly do, sir.

• 4:04Conan O'Brien?

  What do you mean?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  I put so much product in my hair and I have to make sure that it's, it's like, kind of normal.

• 4:12Conan O'Brien?

  So I'm seeing your hair after it's been treated and cared for. I'm just- And I'm saying this, Sonny, you know this is also a compliment because your hair is powerful. It is the source of your strength.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  I have the most iconic hair on this podcast.

• 4:28Conan O'Brien?

  That's saying something. Yeah, that's.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  I'm kidding.

• 4:31Conan O'Brien?

  But I mean, you have abundant luxurious, powerful hair.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  It is.

• 4:35Conan O'Brien?

  And but what do you, what do you do to it?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Okay, so I get out of the shower.

• 4:39Conan O'Brien?

  To make it so angry and crazy.

• 4:43Conan O'Brien?

  Do you taunt it?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  I start off, I put in argan oil to moisturize.

• 4:49Conan O'Brien?

  Is it argan oil? What is that?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  It's argan oil.

• 4:52Conan O'Brien?

  Argan. Isn't argan a gas? It's a gas.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  No, argan, A-R-G-A-N.

• 4:58Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, okay.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Not O-N. O-N is the gas.

• 5:01Conan O'Brien?

  What is argan oil?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  It's like from, uh, it's like Moroccan oil. It's like the, it's like really nice oil and it moisturizes. You can use it on your skin. And then after that, I put in like seven other products. Like I put in a leave-in conditioner. I put in a styling cream. I put in some gel and then I twirl it. Then I blow dry it and then.

• 5:22Conan O'Brien?

  Then you use a defibrillator.

• 5:26Conan O'Brien?

  Clear, bang, clear, bang.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I do so much stuff.

• 5:29Conan O'Brien?

  Hostage negotiator comes in.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  But it's been dry lately because I, I ran out of, I ran out of argan oil.

• 5:35Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, wait. Use all that.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 5:37Conan O'Brien?

  What would it be like if you didn't use all that?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Horrific.

• 5:39Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, so this stuff is expensive?

• 5:41Speaker 01

  It is expensive, yeah. It's because it's imported. It's expensive.

• 5:45Conan O'Brien?

  So you have to get it from Morocco?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  That's the best way to do it.

• 5:48Conan O'Brien?

  Have you been to Morocco to shop for argan oil?

• 5:50Speaker 01

  I have not, uh, but I would love to go and I would go just to shop for argan oil.

• 5:56Conan O'Brien?

  I think if they knew, if the people in Morocco knew you were coming to get more of their oil, I think they would try to keep you from showing up. Because it's just a massive drain on their oil supply.

• 6:09Conan O'Brien?

  I just picture huge reservoirs of argon oil being poured over your head just to tame your hair for two hours.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Well, maybe it'll help your hair, too.

• 6:19Conan O'Brien?

  You think I should put argon oil in my hair?

• 6:20Speaker 01

  I think, I think, yes.

• 6:22Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, and then slick it and part it down the middle and put on glasses and go, "Luh."

• 6:27Speaker 01

  It's a new look.

• 6:29Conan O'Brien?

  I'm a bibliophile.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I would, I would love to go to Morocco to just buy some more argon oil.

• 6:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, okay, not gonna happen.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 6:37Conan O'Brien?

  Not on my dime, that's for sure.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Hopefully.

• 6:39Conan O'Brien?

  Do you direct order it from Morocco?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  No, but it, you can only get it because they, they're, I guess they're just trees that only grow in Morocco. And then they, like, cultivate the oil.

• 6:50Conan O'Brien?

  They're cutting down trees in Morocco to tame your hair. No, they're cutting down forests to tame her hair.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Forests?

• 6:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's why there's a desert. It was beautiful. Yeah, no, it was like Ireland there once until Sona started to try and tame her hair. Oh, my God, it was like the Shire. There were monkeys going from tree to tree. And then Sona was born.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 7:15Conan O'Brien?

  We need these trees.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  You thought I'd been using it since I was born? Like, I was an infant putting on argon oil on my hair?

• 7:22Conan O'Brien?

  I think you were born with all that hair. I really do. I don't think you were a bald baby.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  I wasn't.

• 7:26Conan O'Brien?

  No, I didn't think so.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  I actually was not a bald baby.

• 7:28Conan O'Brien?

  I didn't think so. Your hair was born maybe two months before you came out.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Is that funny?

• 7:36Conan O'Brien?

  Your mom, your mom was braiding it. Well, she'll be here soon. Yeah, that's right. That's the image I want all of you to have. That's how you're actually born, with a handle. Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  They jerked me out.

• 7:50Conan O'Brien?

  A ripcord, yeah. And swoop, wah, wah, wah. Um, so anyway, that's insanity.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 7:58Conan O'Brien?

  So you're, it's dry now because you're, no argon oil.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've run out, so I gotta go get some.

• 8:04Conan O'Brien?

  All right, we gotta get you some. All right. Uh, insane, in just insanity. And one of the most disturbing images out of hundreds and hundreds of episodes we've done.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:13Conan O'Brien?

  Um, Sona's hair coming out, uh, months before she comes out, and then her mom combing it and braiding it before Sona's born is freaking me out.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  I feel like this is the second time he's done, you've done a whole bit about my birth. Where one time you were talking about my mom crushing me.

• 8:31Conan O'Brien?

  What?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Do you guys remember?

• 8:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, this sounds vaguely familiar.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  He just kept yelling, "I crush you."

• 8:35Conan O'Brien?

  "I crush you, I crush you."

• 8:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, with her strong pelvic muscles.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Don't say it. Don't talk about my mom's pelvic muscles.

• 8:43Conan O'Brien?

  I crush you. Yeah, it was... What? I don't know why she was crushing you. But I do remember the phrase, "I crush you, I crush you."

• 8:48Speaker 01

  You owe my mom an apology.

• 8:49Conan O'Brien?

  I don't think so. Uh, I love your mom. She's fantastic.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, because this is like a show expense, though, like, based on like the Blay way of doing things. Can I use my corporate card to buy argon oil?

• 9:02Conan O'Brien?

  Absolutely not. No, because that's just gonna encourage Blay to buy more, you know, whatever. Star Wars gloves and Iron Man assholes and then charge us for them, so no.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Why am I catching strays in this?

• 9:16Conan O'Brien?

  Because you know what you did and it was wrong. And your mother's been implicated as well.

• 9:21Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, you cannot buy argon oil on our dime. It's not gonna happen.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  All right.

• 9:25Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, I'll stop you. All right, we've got to get into this because we have an amazing show today. My guest today is a fantastic actor who has starred in Sherlock, Fleabag. I mean, so much more. I adore this fellow.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 9:40Conan O'Brien?

  I think he's one of the greatest actors alive. I'm serious about that. Now you can see him in the new movie, Pressure. I'm just on cloud nine that he's here today because I have not met the man.

• 9:54Conan O'Brien?

  Andrew Scott, welcome.

• 9:59Conan O'Brien?

  You may not be aware that there is an Irish television show that's in Irish language exclusively that they make in Ireland.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Yes, it's called Rosnaroon.

• 10:10Conan O'Brien?

  Rosnaroon. I was on Rosnaroon.

• 10:14Conan O'Brien?

  I was on Rosnaroon.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  And then it got canceled.

• 10:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, you were in the last season of Rosnaroon.

• 10:19Conan O'Brien?

  I was...

• 10:20Speaker 02

  You closed Rosnaroon.

• 10:21Conan O'Brien?

  I'm the one that ended it. It was flourishing. But no, I went, I did some taping in Dublin. We found out that there was a possibility I could be on Rosnaroon. I said yes. All my lines are in Irish.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 10:34Conan O'Brien?

  What we used to call Gaelic, but they're all in Irish.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  So did you have to learn it phonetically?

• 10:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, I had to learn it. They had cue cards that a horse could read. I mean, literally. It was, ha, boh, me, nah. It's the most insane language.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  It is completely crazy.

• 10:51Conan O'Brien?

  It's completely insane.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  It is completely crazy.

• 10:53Conan O'Brien?

  And I thought, well, this is gonna be cool. And I get there and I talked to this very cool woman who's the producer. Super efficient, super smart, wicked sense of humor. And I said to her, well, what's my part? You know, I'm, I'm coming in, am I the dashing? You know, and she went, no, you're, um, you're an idiot who delivers balloons to the bar. And, yeah. And I said to her, listen, as a joke, I said to her, listen, there's a, there's a good chance that before the day is out, you will fall in love with me. This is what happens when I, when I work with me. And she said, I'll fall in love with you if you get this done in half an hour.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  And don't burst the balloon.

• 11:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And don't touch the balloons. And it occurred to me that I've been to Ireland a number of times. And what always occurs to me is that my formative experience was performing. There was a show I did once with a bunch of other Irish comedians years and years and years ago. The show's over, we're at the American Ambassador's residence in Phoenix Park. Uh, we get into a cab. The cab driver's funnier than all of us.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 11:58Conan O'Brien?

  And it's just, you throw a stick and you will hit 75 of the funniest people you've ever met in your life and they'll tear, tear your face off.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  No, they're vicious.

• 12:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, vicious. But you grew up, you grew up in Dublin.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  I grew up in Dublin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my father, my father was from the west of Ireland. Very rural Ireland. My mother was from, from northern Ireland. So, but yeah, Irish, 100% Irish.

• 12:17Conan O'Brien?

  Have you confronted your Irishness?

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Oh, it's like, it, it, I think it increases. I think it increases. You know, I think if you get, well, because when you're in Ireland, you just, you don't think about it. But when you're outside, if you're an Irish person outside of Ireland, you're much more aware, I think, of your Irishness than you would be, of course, if you were just surrounded by everybody else who's Irish.

• 12:36Conan O'Brien?

  Other babbling.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Other babbling people.

• 12:38Conan O'Brien?

  Mildly depressed, but also euphoric people.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  People, euphoric people. And I think, and I do think there is a, there's a reliance on storytelling and, you know, babbling and being funny because it keeps the people alive. It completely keeps the people alive. So if everybody's emigrated.

• 12:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  The way you talk about them is you create. Create this stuff about them and you create, you keep them in the room.

• 12:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  So I do think, I, I was just back there filming actually, you know, for the first time in a long time, actually. And everybody's funny.

• 13:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Everybody's funny.

• 13:06Conan O'Brien?

  It's the way, it's the language.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:08Conan O'Brien?

  It's just the way.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Use of language.

• 13:10Conan O'Brien?

  So I need to say this right up front. I intended to say it right up front, but of course we started talking immediately.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  About Ross Naru.

• 13:17Conan O'Brien?

  About Ross Naru. By the way, every single podcast interview I do. Ross Naru.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Sorry to bring Ross Naru up again.

• 13:25Conan O'Brien?

  Cher was just here and we talked about Ross Naru. Well, she brought it up. Yeah, she brought it up. She said, have you ever done Ross Naru? And I said, shut up Cher.

• 13:35Conan O'Brien?

  I am a, Andrew, I am a mega fan, I, to a disturbing level. Uh, and I know exactly when it started, which is my, uh, my son really got into the remake of Sherlock Holmes. With Benedict Cumberbatch.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:54Conan O'Brien?

  Benedict, Ken, Benedict Cumberbatch. And by the way, in the States, that's the sobriety test. You don't even have to get out of the car now. They say, who's in the Sherlock Holmes? And if you go Benedict Cumberbatch.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  I can come with you, sir.

• 14:11Conan O'Brien?

  So Benedict Cumberbatch as, as, as Holmes, and then you are his nemesis Moriarty. And the second you walked on camera was a epic moment for me because, and jump in here if you know, if you.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:24Conan O'Brien?

  This, this performance you gave, which has been much discussed, and it really puts you on the map. You are frightening, terrifying and funny. And I've always thought all the best villains are charming and funny.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 14:38Conan O'Brien?

  It's important.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:40Conan O'Brien?

  And your Moriarty, there's this iconic scene where you walk into that, there's a pool, swimming pool. And you're being very clever and you have that beautiful lilt in your voice and you're very, and then at one point you say, I believe the line is. You, you be, you get enraged and you say to Holmes, I will burn your heart.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:00Conan O'Brien?

  Burn the heart out of you. Burn the heart out of you. But then you're kind of pleasant again and I. I think I've, I don't know how many times I've watched that scene, but you are so great in that role. And then these things just came one after another. Fleabag, the hot priest in Fleabag, was an iconic standout role. Um, and by the way, if there were five people you'd asked me a month ago, who would you, who would you like to meet that you haven't met? One would be you and the other would be Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 15:33Conan O'Brien?

  Who I've never met, who I absolutely adore. Um, she's keeping us at a distance, which.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Quite right. Did you mention Ross Naroon?

• 15:44Conan O'Brien?

  I did.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Just saying, staring you in the face.

• 15:47Conan O'Brien?

  You know what? She apparently was booked, then she saw me as the balloon boy in Ross Naroon.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  He popped those balloons.

• 15:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and she was out. But, how about you, Fleabag? I'm serious, you have to watch it.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  It's wild.

• 16:04Conan O'Brien?

  It's a fright.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  What are you like, did you arrive like this?

• 16:07Conan O'Brien?

  I had the balloons and the, the guy at the bar is, starts thinking I'm an idiot and calling me an idiot and we get into a dispute and I'm quickly ejected from the bar. Um, that was my big, and then, um, was it a year and a half ago? I hear, oh, they've, they've come out with a serialized version of Ripley. That, I have watched Ripley, which I believe is, how many episodes is it?

• 16:31Speaker 02

  I think it's eight, eight, is it eight episodes? Maybe seven or eight.

• 16:34Conan O'Brien?

  I think I've watched it three times all the way through. Your performance is stunning. All the performances are great. One of the things I also noticed is that you can freeze frame any second of those eight episodes and have that mounted on the wall. And it's a credible, black and white photograph. It's maybe, I don't, I'm not someone who walks away from a project and says, oh, the cinematography.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:58Conan O'Brien?

  That is one of the most spectacular pieces of television filmmaking. So that got me. Your Vanya, which, uh, is, you play every role.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Too, yeah.

• 17:10Conan O'Brien?

  Which I don't understand. There are times I watch people, usually it's in athletics where I say, well, I, that's a different species. Um, but I, I, I don't know how you did that. And then I'm delighted that one of my, my best friends in the world, one of my oldest and best friends, uh, Lisa Kudrow. Has done this brilliant

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:31Conan O'Brien?

  Third version of the comeback.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:33Conan O'Brien?

  And I don't even know you're in it. And then you walk in as her new, very mysterious, strange boss. And I thought, okay, all my favorite people are in one project. So Andrew, if I do nothing else but compliment you in this, in this, in this talk, it will be a very boring interview.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  You're forgetting he's a Bond villain, too.

• 17:52Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, I know, I know, I know. I left that out just to humiliate you.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  I appreciate it.

• 17:57Conan O'Brien?

  He works Bond in every

• 17:59Speaker 02

  I try.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  You do? You're a big Bond guy?

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, you just can take it or leave it, but.

• 18:06Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, he's

• 18:07Speaker 03

  He's obsessed.

• 18:07Conan O'Brien?

  We will be talking to a historian about the Battle of Gettysburg. And he will say, how do you think James Bond would have done in that situation?

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Look, you were fantastic.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Excellent.

• 18:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. So you've had, you had this, um, well deserved run, but like all people, you have an origin story.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:26Conan O'Brien?

  And we got to go back to that because you apparently were a very shy kid.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, very shy. Yeah, shy.

• 18:33Conan O'Brien?

  And you had a pronounced lisp.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had a sort of really strong lisp. Which I think a lot of kids do. They sort of grow up, and it's kind of cute, but.

• 18:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  So I went to sort of elocution lessons, and you do like.

• 18:45Conan O'Brien?

  When I bring up lisp, is it just come back?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  What? What are you talking about? I have no idea what you're saying.

• 18:51Conan O'Brien?

  Say Benedict Cumberbatch right now.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Um, but yeah, I had a lisp. And, uh, so yeah, you had to do this terrible thing called elocution, which is, you know, all about your, but it's basically speech and drama. And so the speech part was sort of sort of fine, but the drama part was suddenly I was able to be uh, kind of not shy and do all these kind of weird things. And then I kind of love TV and all that kind of stuff. And so.

• 19:16Conan O'Brien?

  What were you watching on TV?

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Like, just like the Muppet Show. Was it nothing, you know, uh, not just exclusively the Muppet Show.

• 19:24Conan O'Brien?

  To this day. To this day, you've never seen anything. You did that, you watched all the Muppet Show and then you did Vanya.

• 19:31Conan O'Brien?

  All the parts.

• 19:34Conan O'Brien?

  But, uh.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  The Muppet Show is extraordinary though, right?

• 19:37Conan O'Brien?

  It is.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Have you seen the Jim Henson documentary?

• 19:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, cuz we had Ron Howard in here.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Oh, did you?

• 19:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, for that.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 19:44Conan O'Brien?

  I got to know the man a little bit.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  Did you really?

• 19:45Conan O'Brien?

  In another lifetime, yeah. I was, ran this, uh.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  He was a Muppet.

• 19:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I was a Muppet.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Back in the day.

• 19:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm related to the eagle.

• 20:00Conan O'Brien?

  No, a very good friend of mine from college was Lisa Henson and her dad used to come and visit us. And then, uh, we, he was very nice to me. And then, one day, cuz I, I ran the college humor magazine and he said, hey, Conan, do you want one of the chairs from the dark crystal for the, the Lampoon Building? And I said, well, sure. And he said, well, come down and pick it up. And so we rented a van and, uh, my friends Jessica Marshall and, uh, Mark Ganem and I jumped in a van and I'd never done anything like this. I drove from Boston to New York.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Oh, come on.

• 20:37Conan O'Brien?

  We went to this warehouse and they said, you hit, you know, a guy with a cigar was like, you here for the dark crystal throne?

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Yes, I am.

• 20:44Conan O'Brien?

  And it's still there to this day. Yeah, amazing.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Just an incredible man, just what he would have done. I, that's what I, watching this thing, I mean, just, I, I guess that's why, I guess that's why, like, even as a kid, you're sort of fully formed, I think, you know what I mean? So, you know, when you're, when you're, when you're doing all that stuff, when I was a kid, you just sort of know, you become maybe more accomplished, but all the stuff is there with, with you, with you, I think, when you're eight years old. I think it's something that he really recognizes being there because he understands that sort of, you know, something I talk about endlessly in, in acting, it's about playfulness, is that's what you're really required to be, is just to be a bit like, I'll, I'll do that with you.

• 21:16Conan O'Brien?

  Sure.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? And then you, you, you just slot yourself into different sort of scenarios and different sort of tones of, of, um, of drama or comedy, whatever it is.

• 21:24Conan O'Brien?

  And you were very artistic as a kid.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, artistic, yeah.

• 21:27Conan O'Brien?

  So you drawing, painting, what are you doing?

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Drawing, yeah, a lot, lots of life drawing. My mother was an art teacher and, yeah, just, just drawing all, all the time. It's, um, something that I, I'm still, still really interested in. Yeah, so that was kind of, kind of, um, you know that weird thing where you're, you, you get terrible party anxiety and once you're at the party, you're okay?

• 21:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so the drawing, the drawing is a way of, um, I don't know, it's practicing for human beings.

• 21:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Creepy.

• 21:59Conan O'Brien?

  I'll be there in a minute. I just have to draw all of you.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Stay still.

• 22:03Conan O'Brien?

  Everyone stay still.

• 22:13Conan O'Brien?

  You know, winning an award, that's a big achievement, right?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 22:16Conan O'Brien?

  Every now and then in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way. Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen, you know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 22:30Conan O'Brien?

  Hyundai has done just that, earning the title of America's best SUV brand for 2026 from US News and World Report. You are a very happy Hyundai driver.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  I drive a Hyundai Palisade and I love my car. I love it. I love driving it around.

• 22:43Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5N, which I love. Beautiful car. Well, listen, whether you need an SUV for everyday life, your next big adventure, or extra room for family and friends, Hyundai has an option for you. The Tucson Hybrid is loaded with technology and built for everyday life. The Santa Fe Hybrid is fully capable and ready for adventure. The Palisade, that's yours, right?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 23:03Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space. With available, I have this memorized, H-Track all-wheel drive, up to an EPA-estimated 619 miles of range on vehicles like the Palisade Hybrid and Hyundai's industry-leading warranty. It's easy to see why Hyundai continues to deliver the quality, innovation, technology, and value drivers expect from an award-winning brand. View US News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 23:37Conan O'Brien?

  Did you know that one in four Americans targeted by scams end up falling for them? You fell for one.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam?

• 23:44Conan O'Brien?

  Now, you didn't lose too much money, but you did lose.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I did lose, and it was very inconvenient, and now they put protections on my account like I'm, uh, dumb.

• 23:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I don't know where they got that impression. Criminals are now using AI to make scams look more realistic than ever. In 2025, Fraud spiked 1,210% and cost Americans $893 million. That's incredible. Well, with AI, it can get so smart now.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:13Conan O'Brien?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Maybe I should start scamming.

• 24:15Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's not the point.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  That's not the point of this.

• 24:17Conan O'Brien?

  That's not the point. One accidental click, Sona, can expose your information, putting you at risk of identity theft. Luckily, this is the point. Not that you should start scamming, but that everyone should get LifeLock.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right.

• 24:29Conan O'Brien?

  LifeLock has live US-based restoration specialists who will be with you every step of the way to fix your identity theft from first alert to full restoration. This is fantastic. How do you not have this?

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:41Conan O'Brien?

  If you have expenses or money stolen due to identity theft, you're backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million coverage in some plans. Join now and save up to 30% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 25:01Conan O'Brien?

  Earth can be a lot. There's gravity. There's mosquitoes.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:04Conan O'Brien?

  And a sun that will gulf us in about 5 billion years, give or take.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 25:08Conan O'Brien?

  It is going to eventually incinerate us, the sun, but we've got 5 billion years.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Okay, that's time.

• 25:13Conan O'Brien?

  Cosmically speaking, you earned a break, so escape to Pluto TV.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  That's where this was going.

• 25:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yep. I knew the second I saw, the minute I saw the sun exploding and incinerating us, I knew this was going to Pluto TV. Turn off your earthly problems and turn on the movies and shows you already love. From Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, to Dirty Dancing, from Alias to The X-Files, no subscription, no fees, $0. When that sun's pulsating and burning you up, you've got the best thing on TV. And the best things on TV are free. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.

• 25:51Conan O'Brien?

  You said something that really struck a nerve with me, which is, we come fully formed. And that's something that my father used to say to us. He used to say, "All of you are who you were when I brought you home from the hospital."

• 26:04Conan O'Brien?

  Meaning, when you, it's like buying a phone that already has the software.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:10Conan O'Brien?

  All that stuff, I know parents really like to think, I mold the child and I create the child and they get very egotistical about it and it's always been clear to me that they are who they are. They come, what you can do is you can, you can fuck it up.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:26Conan O'Brien?

  But, and you can also nurture and I'm still deciding which way to go.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:32Conan O'Brien?

  My kids, but they gotta earn it.

• 26:36Conan O'Brien?

  My time is precious.

• 26:39Conan O'Brien?

  But you know, that's.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  But you can fuck up the software completely, couldn't you? Like, you know, you go like, if you have this very sad idea of what something wants to be, you know, somebody, I think that's, I think that's what my parents were both very good at actually, but no, because the three, there's, I've got two sisters. My sisters, my older sister Sarah is very sporty and my younger sister, and is very artistic, but in a sort of slightly different way to the way, the way I was artistic. And they were both very good at going, okay, well you do that. And I think some of the real damage you can do is by going, I don't know, making your iPhone a Samsung phone.

• 27:14Conan O'Brien?

  Nicely done.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, it works.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  My child, child of capitalism.

• 27:19Conan O'Brien?

  Nicely done.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Right?

• 27:20Conan O'Brien?

  Because you just secured a deal with Apple.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Oh no, I've already secured it, that's why I had to.

• 27:27Conan O'Brien?

  Damn you!

• 27:27Speaker 03

  That's why you paused before you said that, you had to get it in the right order? Damn!

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Get it right, get it right.

• 27:34Conan O'Brien?

  There's a lot riding on this. Well, let me just say that Hanes underwear, I think, is the best underwear. Because that's the only deal I could get.

• 27:47Conan O'Brien?

  Mr. iPhone over here. I'm wearing six layer, oh, are you wearing Hanes?

• 27:54Conan O'Brien?

  Let's be honest, I would kill for a Hanes deal. I'd take anything at this point.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Hanes is American, right? Is Hanes a?

• 28:01Conan O'Brien?

  I only wear American underwear. Something, I'm very patriotic.

• 28:08Conan O'Brien?

  I check people's underwear constantly, just to make sure they're patriots.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  These colors don't run.

• 28:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Founded in North Carolina.

• 28:16Conan O'Brien?

  Um, that's thanks for that info.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  You got it.

• 28:19Conan O'Brien?

  North Carolina. Thank you. Thank you, Eduardo.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  We did it.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  Did you look it up on your iPhone?

• 28:28Conan O'Brien?

  So you grow up, you're working on the elocution.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say that.

• 28:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you never grew up. But also, I love that you said about play, because that's all any of this is.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 28:38Conan O'Brien?

  And I constantly remind people that I have, you know, take me at 12 years old, and I'm, what I'm doing now is certain things have been articulated and developed. It's the same thing.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 28:54Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just play, I love to play, and I will play with anybody.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:59Conan O'Brien?

  I, someone on the street will talk to me, and if they're funny, I'll spend 20 minutes with them.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:05Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, it's just the same thing, and it's a love of play.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:10Conan O'Brien?

  Which we then get very highfalutin, you are Vanya, you become, and it's extremely impressive, and it takes this amazing talent and discipline. You're still playing.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  You absolutely are. And I hate the idea of high art and low art. I really do. I think it's nonsense.

• 29:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  And actually, all the people who were, you know, like with Shakespeare, any of those people, like Shakespeare, I always feel has been sort of hijacked by academics, you know? And anybody, you know, I always find out, because the very first, because we used to do when I was a kid, we used to do these, we used to get to do Shakespeare in these little Irish competitions, you know? Like just extracts from Shakespeare. So, um, you do 10 minutes of it, and you'd sort of, I don't know, you just understood, you just, I kind of understood it in a way. Didn't understand all the words. Um, but then I think what happens with some of those big guys is if they're, if there are 250 books written about how to, um, speak the language of Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback, right? It would drown it, it would kill it. There isn't a way of doing it. There isn't a way of doing it. There's a, there, there. And so what, what I think happens with sort of some of those with theater particularly is there's this idea that it's

• 30:09Speaker 02

  that you're not, that not everybody is possessed of the thing that, that, that, that an actor needs to possess, which is just to my mind, just playfulness. And the stuff that I love to do is to be able to just do lots of all the different stuff because why wouldn't you?

• 30:23Conan O'Brien?

  Well, it's also, it's seeing that, yes, I love Shakespeare, but I also love The Muppet Show.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:28Conan O'Brien?

  That I love some of the more, you know, refined cinema, but I cut my teeth on Warner Brothers cartoons.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:38Conan O'Brien?

  The timing, the characters, the kinds of attitudes that people are playing. And I think there's no difference between a great Warner Brothers cartoon and a really good Shakespeare sonnet. It's, it's.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  It's exactly the same thing. And actually, he even says it in, in Hamlet. He's, he, he says, he literally has a thing about how you should speak the language. It's so extraordinary. He just says, just speak it trippingly in the tongue and stop shouting it out and stop doing all that kind of stuff. So I think because I started and I didn't train formally, I, I, you kind of have to put your, your dukes up a little bit about, about, um, not the way I'm talked about because, but the, the way I, the way I suppose not to let my access to whatever I do for a living to be, to be, um, influenced too much by, by the seriousness with which other people talk.

• 31:25Conan O'Brien?

  I always think the word calcify.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 31:27Conan O'Brien?

  Things, things harden. If someone starts using a bunch of fifty dollar words describing your process and what you do, they're not doing you any favors.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  No, it's absolutely right.

• 31:37Conan O'Brien?

  And it's nice that they see all that in your work, but it's best that you not know about it and that because you want access to anything that's going to make you enjoy, be spontaneous, see a possibility and not overthink it.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  I think it's so true. And you just keep that alive and the longer you work, you know, because I don't, you're not really supposed to play as an adult. Do you know what I mean?

• 32:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  You're supposed to know, which is like the opposite of playing, right?

• 32:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  You're supposed to, you're supposed to like have, you have, you're supposed to know the answer and like any of the, any of the, any of the great adults, I think are the ones who are like, I don't know, let's keep, keep, keep learning because it'll be really boring at this stage. I mean, I'm nearly thirty years acting, you know, sort of professionally. And I want, you want to keep being like. You know.

• 32:24Conan O'Brien?

  Isn't this cool?

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Isn't this cool?

• 32:25Conan O'Brien?

  Isn't this cool? I get to do this.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 32:28Conan O'Brien?

  This is fun.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Also, not to be sort of false in the sense that you go, I don't know anything. But you can still know things. You can still go, my instinct, you know, you definitely have instincts. But actually, it's having more confident in confidence in your instincts. Like, when you when you're doing like, when you're hanging out with kids and they're playing, watching them play is amazing. They're not they're not thinking, what are we gonna do? They just go, okay, you be the thing. You be the thing. You start with a.

• 32:51Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  My mom did this a moment because she was an art teacher. She was an incredible teacher, my mom. And she used to teach people how to draw. And she said, when you, when you, when you, um, people start to draw, they immediately start, you know, drawing like the most tentative line possible because they don't want to make a mistake.

• 33:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  And so the best thing you can always do when you're starting to draw is just, is to be sort of loud, confident and wrong. So start with a really strong line. And even if that line is completely wrong, and you've drawn over the line, you know, you've drawn over that. That line will actually still be there, but the people appreciate the mistake.

• 33:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Before. So you start with a bit of confidence, you know, the way kids do.

• 33:28Conan O'Brien?

  That.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  And you can, you can redraw. It just, but don't not draw.

• 33:33Conan O'Brien?

  But also, I mean, I did this kind of comedy for whatever, almost thirty years on television. You know, where people come on, I interview them and.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:42Conan O'Brien?

  Dun dun dun dun. There's a band and I would pray for mistakes.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:46Conan O'Brien?

  Because mistakes were such gifts.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:49Conan O'Brien?

  And then you get to a point where you're like, oh my, you know, here, someone will misspeak. I'll misspeak. I'll try to say Benedict Cumberbatch. It doesn't come out right. We then get off on a jag. If you acknowledge it, and then it becomes about drunk driving, and then it becomes.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:05Conan O'Brien?

  And then it gets called back when we're talking about it. That's the joy of it. And people know instinctively, as you know, from from doing theater so much of your life. There's something about audiences where they know the truth.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  I always think that about making mistakes in the theater, about people worrying about forgetting lines.

• 34:22Conan O'Brien?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  There's no better atmosphere, or there's no more attentive atmosphere than when you think somebody has made a mistake. The whole audience is like, oh my God, something is happening here, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 34:32Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  And the actor's fear is that, oh, my God, everybody's gonna think I'm a terrible person. But actually, what I think the audiences feel is, it reminds them that they've remembered all the other lines.

• 34:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Do you know what I mean?

• 34:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's really. Wait a minute. Hit rate is pretty good.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? So this is this is sort of live. So it's kind of all right. And once you get over that idea of making a mistake, if you know, like, other like, you know, the weird stuff that happens makes it, you know, makes the day the day, you know what I mean?

• 35:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  I always think it's weird as well. Do you like in comedy? Do you feel like you guys dissect the audience as much as we like we do in the theater?

• 35:13Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, I used to.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I mean, I would be, and we'll get to this because, you know, we'll be talking about this a little later in the interview, but it's like the way a meteorologist dissects a weather system. I used to, you know, tonight, it's pretty good. Now, I felt like they were, and then you get to be like someone who studied wine all their life and you've just sipped some wine instead of being like, oh, my God, I love this. This is a great, I'm here in Tuscany. I just had a great sip of, you know, of Pinot Noir. Instead, you're like, eh, eh. The audience, when I first came out, they were, yeah, no, you know, there was enthusiasm, but it's kind of a froth. It's not now. Then I would say on the upper right hand, I couldn't get them. There was sort of a tentativeness, but then I felt like they were a little judgmental,

• 35:58Conan O'Brien?

  you know, and you're like, shut up, shut up.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:03Conan O'Brien?

  Do the thing.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Just do the thing. It's like when you go and see somebody in a play. It's a lesson I learned really, really on. When I was really young, I started at the Abbey Theatre when I was about nineteen or twenty. And exactly that, someone come to see the, come to see the play and they were like, oh, my God, I love them. I was like, we just didn't get this laugh that we got. You know, the thing, you know, I wish you'd been in last night, but the audience was incredible. And this, I, brilliant, I said, don't do that. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't do that because they don't, they don't notice. I understand. It's not that it didn't happen. It probably was a greater show last night.

• 36:34Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  But like, who cares? And when you're in the audience and you're laughing at something, you're not thinking, God, I wish that person on the balcony was laughing as much. You don't really care.

• 36:42Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  You don't even notice.

• 36:43Conan O'Brien?

  The biggest mistake of thousands and thousands and thousands of interviews in front of audiences that I've done was a guest would come out and they would start, you know, talking and saying some of their stories. And then they would say, I'm sorry. And this is boring. I'm sorry.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:00Conan O'Brien?

  And you could feel the audience leave.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:03Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I always think to myself, that's such a rookie mistake. Don't tell them they're getting a bad show.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:08Conan O'Brien?

  And also, in terms of etiquette, after someone's seen you do a show, they don't want to hear you go, "I know, I just felt like today."

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:16Conan O'Brien?

  No, they saw you do what you had today.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 37:19Conan O'Brien?

  And sometimes, they love it, they're just not demonstrative. I mean, we have this, we have this culture now of everybody.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Everybody standing up? Everybody stands for it's too much. Sorry, sorry.

• 37:30Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no standing ovations.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Standing ovations.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  You cannot go to anything without being standing. It was the worst thing you've ever seen, everybody standing.

• 37:40Conan O'Brien?

  And also, you go to any daytime, and also, late night show, and everybody stands up for everything, like, you're gonna watch a cooking segment.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:50Conan O'Brien?

  At one of the, and everyone stands, and I think, huh. Well, you know, it used to be that an actor could be in the theater, or performer could perform most of their life and get one standing ovation, and boy, did that mean something.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it meant something.

• 38:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Because it's a thing, because now, because it's completely without meaning. When you're on, when you're on the stage, though, I say this, and then you're like, "Who's that fucker in the fucking fourth row is not standing?"

• 38:17Conan O'Brien?

  Because, when everyone's standing, and one person isn't, yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Exactly, you're like, but I sort of admire it, I sort of admire it, because it doesn't mean they hated it.

• 38:27Conan O'Brien?

  No.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  It just means, it just means something, they just didn't want to stand up.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Or they're tired.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, just tired. They're tired. They're drunk.

• 38:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  Arthritic.

• 38:37Conan O'Brien?

  I have got so used to standing ovations, I'm sorry, I just have. That when someone's not standing, sometimes I berate them.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:45Conan O'Brien?

  And they're like, "Sir, I have no legs."

• 38:49Conan O'Brien?

  Well, that's awkward.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Well.

• 38:51Conan O'Brien?

  Well, you could still, lift him, someone!

• 38:54Speaker 02

  So he could be like, could have asked me to lift it.

• 38:57Conan O'Brien?

  You could have come with a lifter.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Exactly, if you enjoyed it.

• 39:03Conan O'Brien?

  But you didn't care enough to hire someone.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  So messed up.

• 39:08Conan O'Brien?

  I know, it's so messed up. Um, so you're struggling all these things when you're a kid because I'm always interested in this part because it's fascinating to me. I do think that turbulence and anxiety and some level of, some of that stuff just has to be part of the stew, whether you like it or not growing up.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely, I don't think you kind of really have the other stuff with the other stuff.

• 39:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  You know, you gotta be, it's, it's not, it's not, you know, it's, it's supposed to sensitivity is the word, like, you gotta be, you gotta be, gotta be, you can't have one without the other. So I suppose I'm pretty, um, what is it, thin skinned? And I, I do think Irish people are pretty sensitive as well.

• 39:49Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 39:50Conan O'Brien?

  I think so. Soft hearted.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  I think it's in the culture, um, which I think it allows the people to be so brutal because you know.

• 39:58Conan O'Brien?

  It's both.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:59Conan O'Brien?

  That's the, it's always, all the thing, all the things are both.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:03Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, and I always think it's, um, I mean, speaking for myself, I'm incredibly thin skinned and then I can be a Viking. I have both in me.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:15Conan O'Brien?

  But, and it's hard to reconcile them both, but that's what, that's what it is.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  It's exactly what it is. And it's, it's sort of, it's like what you were saying about, I think there's something when you're become well known, and it's interesting that you say about talking to people on the street, which is still incredibly important to me. And it's, uh, one of the things that I think would frighten me is not having that access to, to just talking to people every day. I think it just seems like an awful thing to just be so sort of successful or so recognizable that you have to be in this sort of prison the whole time.

• 40:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  So not to be able to get out and go have a laugh with people. And that's why I sort of hate, it's funny that you were saying that as well, about when people say, oh, this is boring. Like, when you talk to people and they say, oh, I don't have as interesting a job as you, you think, I bet you do.

• 40:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  And then, you know, but, or, or maybe not as interesting a job, so to speak, but people always have a story that they kind of want to tell. And so being able to have the access to those people and to, for them to feel like, so what do you do? And then people tell you incredible things. And that's the stuff that I. That I I love and I don't know if that's about being Irish or whether that's just being interested in people or whatever, but um or if it's to do with being artistic, I don't know what it is. But you know, that that that's the that I think is the the thing that you want to I would be very, very lost without.

• 41:33Conan O'Brien?

  Well, that's why, I mean, you've you've had all this success, movies and television and I read that you make a real point of doing theater regularly. You love, I mean, this is something we have in common. I love being in a theater.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  I also love sort of nothing in an old theater, if you know what I'm saying. There's this extraordinary moment. I went to see um the amazing Mark Rylance in Oh, yeah. in Jerusalem. And there's this extraordinary theatrical sort of trick he did. Trying to think if there's something here to. So he had a fight for it.

• 42:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  A cigarette lighter and he was he was um he was playing a he was playing a giant. It was about giants. It was sort of all about folklore.

• 42:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  in the English countryside. And um somebody had a lighter and he was telling this story about a giant talking to a child. And to make this sort of um this theatrical sort of gesture, he put this cigarette lighter down on the ground, like like here.

• 42:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Put it down here, like on the ground. And he sort of stood it up. He spoke down to this um.

• 42:34Conan O'Brien?

  A cigarette lighter.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  The cigarette lighter. And so you immediately in this in the it was in the at the Royal Court Theater, you immediately had this sense of scale.

• 42:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  That's just that's got nothing to do with CGI or, you know, it's so much um.

• 42:49Conan O'Brien?

  I'll never wash this pen cap again. And he's a real pen washer, so.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  I know you love to wash the pens.

• 42:56Conan O'Brien?

  He has. He is. Every time I see him, he's scrubbing away.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  But um but yeah, that it's just that sort of stuff and the audience go.

• 43:09Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's amazing how when you see someone come up with something like that in a moment and you realize it's all. The tools change, but the task doesn't.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  It's a great thing to say.

• 43:19Conan O'Brien?

  But you know what, you've got, now we have AI and CGI and supercomputers and you can create all these effects and you can put it in the round. You can do all these things, but basically you're getting the same effect as Mark Rylance putting a pen cap on the floor or a lighter. And standing there in that moment, you know, you can delight the human brain with the old ways as well as with the new.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  It's exactly true because the audience are going, that's what I find so moving. I never don't find it moving, which I think is why I love the theater, is that adults are going into a theater willfully and their people are turning off the lights and somebody is telling them a sort of lie that they know is a lie, a story, and they're saying, tell me, tell me a story. So the liveliness, the mistakes and the humanity of it is the thing that really, really delights the audience. And of course, visual effects, I mean, all that stuff is amazing too, but it separates the audience a little bit from the performer, whereas if someone said, I could, I could do that with a pen if I just had access to my imagination.

• 44:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  So actually it bonds the performer and the audience member, whereas if you've got too much, you know, stuff, they think, well, that's, that's not, that's not something anything to do with me. That's just something that I can be impressed by, but not necessarily connected to. I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's a, so the grand scheme of a big theater juxtaposed with just a one tiny human performer is sort of beautiful to me as well. You know what I mean?

• 44:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I, you will keep getting these opportunities to do, you know, movies and all kinds of projects you want, but I love that you're saying, yeah, this is what I need.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:03Conan O'Brien?

  I need this. I need to be in these live productions because that's just, it's like touching home base. You've just got to touch it.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Exactly what it is. And that's when we did Vanya, you know, that, that one of the beautiful things about that was because that's, you know, Chekhov and very serious, high art and Chekhov is so funny, like genuinely so funny. It's a kind of ridiculous idea that. That you that that and it started as a mistake was this. We thought there's eight characters in the show and I was reading with the director and the and the the um. The writer and we sort of allocated the parts and we were just reading to because I was just gonna play one part and we were like, oh, which part might might it be? And we were sort of playing, the three of us were playing all the roles and we sort of misallocated the roles. So I ended up sort of going, wait, are you? And I was like, okay, I'll just, I'll just act just to get just to hear that. I'll just act with myself.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  And it was so weird because it was two, the two characters in the play that were proclaimed that they were the most opposite to each other. And so it seemed completely absurd that they were, this person was, anyway, that was kind of interesting. And then. We were like, oh, maybe we could do it with two people and maybe actually, why don't you try with one person? Anyway, the whole thing sort of, I was a bit reluctant because I thought, does that just seem like? Let me do it.

• 46:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 46:15Conan O'Brien?

  I think the exact quote, the exact quote, because I talked to someone who was there was, I got this.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Yes, that's, I know, that's what I said.

• 46:22Speaker 03

  Well, remember, you tried to dismiss us all today and do this alone. That's true.

• 46:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, I did. I did try to, and I still think I could do it all. I'm learning about the electronics. Electronics.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  Electronics.

• 46:35Conan O'Brien?

  I know you have your electronical systems.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  The electronics over there.

• 46:39Conan O'Brien?

  I think that's proof I know what I'm talking about.

• 46:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, but.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  But yeah, like all that stuff. So you see, so um, you know, to do that. Anyway, so why am I telling you this?

• 46:51Conan O'Brien?

  No, because you're you're talking about how it all be expanded to you playing all these roles.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. So then you do, you do all the, you do those things. So anyway, I did all the, ended up playing all the parts and like, how do you do it to? How do you, how do you make the audience feel? Number one, that they understand it, but also how do you teach an audience about? We had this really fun moment at the beginning because I really wanted the audience to sort of not feel like, okay, we're watching Chekhov like this. What, what do we need to?

• 47:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Because people are like, what do we, what do I need to know? I mean, I, I don't, is it, it's Russian?

• 47:21Conan O'Brien?

  Am I worthy of this?

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's the thing? So we did this thing where I came out and I came out and the audience were like, why the fuck is this gonna, what's this gonna be like? He's gonna play all the parts. So we did this sort of fun thing. It was such a good thing to do where I sort of turned off the house, I came out and I turned off. The house, that's a little trick.

• 47:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  We turn off the house lights. So they go, okay, we're all in darkness now. And then I just turn them back on.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  And I looked at them and they were like, oh gee, I was like, I can see you, you can see me. This is a bit weird. And they're already laughing before they.

• 47:50Conan O'Brien?

  Sure.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Before they know.

• 47:52Conan O'Brien?

  You've told them, let's.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  Don't worry, don't worry.

• 47:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, chill.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, chill.

• 47:56Conan O'Brien?

  We're gonna have fun, yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  It's fun. And I can see you, you can see me, and I love fucking that up alongside something which is like a great masterpiece.

• 48:02Conan O'Brien?

  Here's what would fascinate me is if you, if you're playing that many roles and you go up on a line, can you ask one of your other selves?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  I can apologize.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Can I apologize?

• 48:17Speaker 04

  Or do you ever say, I can't work with this guy?

• 48:20Speaker 02

  I say that a lot.

• 48:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Do you know what's so, one of the great, it was actually nearly the best thing about it is if you do, do go up on a line, it was bliss. You could just make it all up. You could just, you just go, okay, I fucked that bit up. Okay, well, I'm just gonna keep talking. Because I'm not, I'm not, I haven't messed anybody up. And then I'll ask a question that isn't in the script and I'll make that person answer it in order to go back to that person.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  It's kind of great.

• 48:45Conan O'Brien?

  That's right. You don't have other actors around you going, what?

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 48:48Conan O'Brien?

  What's he doing?

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's he doing? Yeah, yeah.

• 48:51Conan O'Brien?

  I want to talk about this, again, interesting process now where you're, you've made a movie. And I was told I could access this movie. I could watch it yesterday. Uh, and they said, you know, it's this whole system now. It used to be they just give you a DVD or something, or a screener. Um, and they said, here's this system and this code, and then you're gonna get this number. And, you know, you're calling different people, because I don't know much about electronics. But I know nothing about the movie.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, right, yeah.

• 49:23Conan O'Brien?

  I just know it's called pressure.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:25Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, I will watch you read the dictionary. So it's like Andrew Scott, pressure, I'm in. So, uh, finally the movie starts. I don't know anything about it. And I realize, oh, it's, it's about World War II. And it's about the buildup to D-Day. And then I realize your character's on screen and he's being called to this very important job. And I realized, wait a minute, uh, because I'm a history buff, I think I know about this.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 49:50Conan O'Brien?

  I knew about it, which is, you know, the Allies are gonna launch the D-Day invasion to try and save Europe. They've got the largest armada in the history of civilization.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Wait, are you just saying you know about D-Day?

• 50:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  I think most people do.

• 50:05Conan O'Brien?

  I do. And that's the end of the interview. I know two things, electronics and D-Day. No, but I know that. What I was aware of was that what's the thing that's perilous that they really need to know, which is invasions over water are almost impossible. They usually fail. They only work when the conditions are right. But it's 1944. You know, meteorology is still kind of in its infancy. They need to know the weather's going to be okay. And Churchill says there's this one guy who I think is a genius who could do it. And they bring Captain James Stagg in. And I'm like, I actually know this story, not as, I didn't know enough about it. I kind of knew about it.

• 50:50Conan O'Brien?

  And that's what this movie's about, which is a great story to tell.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:54Conan O'Brien?

  It's really a great story to tell.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  It's a really interesting story. It's, it's, it sounds kind of weird because it's a movie about the weather.

• 50:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Coming soon with here to you. Guys talking about the weather in a room.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Whoa, I'm trying to sell it.

• 51:10Conan O'Brien?

  Sell, baby, sell.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  But yeah, it is, it is a quite weird thing, but the weather comes into our lives. Like it's sort of, it's, people think, oh, it's a, what a preposterous thing to, you know, have a movie about.

• 51:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Because it's sort of like a movie about the weather. But it's also kind of preposterous to sort of not have a movie about the weather. Do you know what I mean? Like, because it influences our, our, influences every day, you know, like what we're, you know, what we wear, where we go, where we're going to have our kids' birthday party, where are we going to go on our holidays, like what, our mood, like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's something that it's sort of, it's sort of changed my attitude towards the weather, about how, of course, they would be thinking, okay, well, if we have to, if we have to land on the, on the beaches in Normandy, we need to know that these kids are not going to be drowned immediately, the conditions are going to, are they going to be able to land safely? So they need somebody to say, this is what it's going to be like. Don't go on that day, because then you'll surprise them. Or that would be a good day to go, that's, they'll see it coming, blah, blah, blah.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  So they had this very particular day that they wanted to do it. And this guy, very, very resolute kind of man, stood up, he was a real hero. And he was like, no, no, you're not going on that day. And they were like, we are going on that day.

• 52:19Conan O'Brien?

  Well, that's the thing that the movie gets really, I think, right. The enormous pressure.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, the huge.

• 52:24Conan O'Brien?

  Meaning this isn't just, should we do the podcast today or should we move it to tomorrow?

• 52:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:30Conan O'Brien?

  It's close to that. Second.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  The pressure is similar.

• 52:34Conan O'Brien?

  You don't, you have, Andrew, you have no idea what I deal with day in and day out. I am Eisenhower.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Oh my god. Oh Jesus.

• 52:41Conan O'Brien?

  And I made the decision today, let's proceed with Andrew Scott and the 40 minute chat.

• 52:48Conan O'Brien?

  And that took balls and go and failed. Bodies everywhere. Um, no, but, uh, you know, it was, it's this huge decision and it really does come down to the entire unified allied command, looking at this one guy and saying, well, we need to go and we need to go now and it's all set and just all we need is you're okay. And he says, can't give it to you.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I won't give it to you. I can't and I won't. And so who's this extraordinary, he's sort of, he's not, not a particularly affable person. And I love those kinds of cinematic characters that aren't necessarily nice, but are good.

• 53:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 53:25Conan O'Brien?

  No, he's a very good man and he's doing the right thing, but he is not a people pleaser.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  No, it's not.

• 53:31Conan O'Brien?

  And, um, I'm fast, cause I'm, I just, um, I spend so much of my life making, trying to make sure everyone in the room is okay, it was okay. And so I'm fascinated by people who just don't give a shit.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:43Conan O'Brien?

  Just don't. He's here. Uh, what are you doing?

• 53:46Speaker 02

  No pleasantries.

• 53:46Conan O'Brien?

  Stop that. No pleasantries. People go to shake your hand. There's not time for that.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it's great. It's, I mean, I think because I'm a little bit similar to you as well. I think that's again, part of the Irish.

• 53:55Conan O'Brien?

  We're both great actors.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  I didn't catch that he was saying.

• 53:58Conan O'Brien?

  Have you seen My Vanya? Did you see Andrew Scott just said, we're very similar? Hello, is this, what's wrong with this?

• 54:05Speaker 02

  They've turned it on.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. You got a lying down ovation.

• 54:10Conan O'Brien?

  People try to actually find lower ground when I finish a play.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  They went to Death Valley.

• 54:16Conan O'Brien?

  Is there a basement here?

• 54:20Conan O'Brien?

  I hear drilling often when I. But no, but I, I, what I loved about it was it's historically, it's a true story. It really happened. It's something no one's gonna talk about. And people know the One D Day story, which I understand you were a very small part of Saving Private Ryan.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Tiny.

• 54:38Conan O'Brien?

  Wasn't that like a blown of your early things?

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, they shot that in the south of, south of Ireland on Curliclou Beach, yeah. So basically it's nothing. Tom Hanks rolled over me and I'm like, "Mufasa, please help!"

• 54:50Conan O'Brien?

  Did you get killed?

• 54:51Speaker 02

  My line was, "Nobody's where they're supposed to be."

• 54:54Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. I know that movie very well. I know that line. That's crazy. That's you.

• 54:59Conan O'Brien?

  Nobody's where they're supposed to be, but you, your head gets blown off?

• 55:02Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't think people cared enough to, to, to know if my hair got, my head got blown off. I would just, I was just, I'd always say I was the guy in green.

• 55:12Speaker 03

  My god.

• 55:13Conan O'Brien?

  But your character, you did manage to shout, and it actually made it into the, into Saving Private Ryan. The weather is key. More on that later.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  You'll see. You'll all be sorry. You'll see.

• 55:25Conan O'Brien?

  You'll see. Hanks comes back and he shoots you, and you're an American.

• 55:34Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's, it's, uh, I'm, I was thrilled. It was like, I had, I knew nothing.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's an interesting story, isn't it?

• 55:39Conan O'Brien?

  And then I'm like, oh, this is great. This is really great. And a terrific cast also.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, really good. Yeah, Brendan Fraser and Chris Bessina and Kerry Connolly, Damien Lewis, great people.

• 55:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah. I, Damien Lewis is, he's Henry VIII, I believe.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  He's Henry VIII.

• 55:55Conan O'Brien?

  He's Henry VIII in, um...

• 55:58Speaker 02

  Wolf Hall.

• 55:58Conan O'Brien?

  Wolf Hall. He's so good in that because he's genial.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:03Conan O'Brien?

  The same thing we were talking about. He's genial, but he'll cut your head off.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:06Conan O'Brien?

  And, and, and smile.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like all those characters that, it's, I always think that's what you want as an actor, is you want whatever you're presenting to be the opposite of what you're feeling sometimes, you know what I mean? They're the ones that, you know, whether it's somebody who's cold-hearted and is incredibly benign, or the opposite.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  Do you have people expect you to kind of walk into a room sometimes and be a little bit more sinister? Because you're so happy and friendly. Yeah.

• 56:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  That's interesting.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  I don't mind that.

• 56:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:37Conan O'Brien?

  Your waiter comes right away.

• 56:40Conan O'Brien?

  My waiters don't. They're like, that idiot can, he can...

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love him.

• 56:45Conan O'Brien?

  Well, this has been an absolute thrill for me. And like I say, if you bump into Phoebe Waller-Bridge anytime soon, please tell her.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Of course I will, it will be my pleasure.

• 56:57Conan O'Brien?

  My, my list is almost down to no one at this point, but she's on it.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 57:02Conan O'Brien?

  But up to today, it was the two of you. And so this is a bucket list moment for me. I hope you'll come back anytime.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  I'd love to come back.

• 57:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, just, and, and trust me, I am gonna get you my clip from not, from Ross Naroon. Maybe we can, oh, we can find it? You found it?

• 57:19Speaker 02

  You don't, you're...

• 57:21Speaker 03

  Oh my god!

• 57:23Conan O'Brien?

  There we go!

• 57:26Speaker 05

  This is just a photo.

• 57:27Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's just a photo.

• 57:28Speaker 05

  Well, we'll dial up the YouTube here for a sec.

• 57:29Conan O'Brien?

  Look, that's how they dressed me. That's what happens when a hero returns to his country.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  You came in off the street with that and the balloons.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 57:38Speaker 05

  We have the clip if you want to put on your headphones.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll put my headphones on.

• 57:41Speaker 05

  You'll be able to, you'll be able to listen to it.

• 57:43Conan O'Brien?

  He thought he was an actor until he saw this.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Always learning.

• 57:47Conan O'Brien?

  Here we go.

• 57:48Speaker 05

  Here we go.

• 57:48Conan O'Brien?

  Lots of balloons, small doorway.

• 57:52Speaker 05

  Oh, dear, wait. Dear witch!

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Oh my god!

• 57:57Speaker 05

  It's a doll, yeah, chin.

• 57:59Conan O'Brien?

  Balloons!

• 58:00Speaker 05

  Just a witch. How do you do? Going to the scale? Who you got, Euro? Did a fad in. How could I measure a COD, cash on delivery? Ni are suckling, Tade, Lumsa. So, uh, PMT, Pog Mahoon. Suck under there. Can I do a ginnah, me a walla le balloon, abeh? What are we? Ni are order me a Tade, gun trashin. Nishma fair crockla, na balloon, sinir ish, agus gara. Gara, eh, mundoon, lekki, brickin, eh, no? No, ma, go hard, no, let, kick you.

• 58:35Speaker 05

  You're on God, it's a yachomass.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  That is incredible.

• 58:49Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, is there no Irish word for balloon? No, they just told me to say balloon, but they also, they just went out of their way and God bless them.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:01Conan O'Brien?

  Because no one deserves it more than I do, but.

• 59:05Conan O'Brien?

  There was no way to be cool in that scene.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  No. With that hat, too.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  The hats of balloons.

• 59:11Conan O'Brien?

  And, yeah, I remember saying like, what if, you know, Colin Farrell showed up? She'd be like, well, we'd, you know, we'd make him the love interest.

• 59:22Conan O'Brien?

  We're not giving him some fecking balloons. You know, but yeah, I was.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  How was his Irish?

• 59:27Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 59:28Speaker 01

  How was his?

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Absolutely beautiful.

• 59:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, well, there you go.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  All of us, as we say in the Irish.

• 59:31Conan O'Brien?

  There you go. Hey, standing ovation. Mom.

• 59:40Conan O'Brien?

  Andrew, I can't thank you enough. Just a joy to be with you today.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  Joy to be with you guys, too. Thank you so much for having me.

• 59:45Conan O'Brien?

  Take care.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 59:46Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my God.

• 59:54Conan O'Brien?

  You know, winning an award, that's a big achievement, right?

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 59:57Conan O'Brien?

  Every now and then in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way. Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen, you know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:00:12Conan O'Brien?

  Hyundai has done just that, earning the title of America's best SUV brand for 2026 from U.S. News and World Report. You are a very happy Hyundai driver.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  I drive a Hyundai Palisade and I love my car. I love it. I love driving it around.

• 1:00:25Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5N, which I love. Beautiful car. Well, listen, whether you need an SUV for everyday life, your next big adventure, or extra room for family and friends, Hyundai has an option for you. The Tucson Hybrid is loaded with technology and built for everyday life. The Santa Fe Hybrid's fully capable and ready for adventure. The Palisade, that's yours, right?

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 1:00:45Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space. With available, I have this memorized, H-Track all-wheel drive, up to an EPA estimated 619. Miles of range on vehicles like the Palisade Hybrid and Hyundai's industry-leading warranty. It's easy to see why Hyundai continues to deliver the quality, innovation, technology, and value drivers expect from an award-winning brand. View U.S. News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 1:01:19Conan O'Brien?

  Did you know that one in four Americans targeted by scams end up falling for them?

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Conan O'Brien?

  You fell for one.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam.

• 1:01:25Conan O'Brien?

  Now, you didn't lose too much money, but you did lose.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  I did lose, and it was very inconvenient, and now they put protections on my account like I'm, uh, dumb.

• 1:01:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I don't know where they got that impression.

• 1:01:38Conan O'Brien?

  Criminals are now using AI to make scams look more realistic than ever. In 2025, AI fraud spiked 1,210% and cost Americans $893 million. That's incredible. Well, with AI, it can get so smart now.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Conan O'Brien?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Maybe I should start scamming.

• 1:01:56Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's not the point.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  Oh, no, that's not the point of this.

• 1:01:59Conan O'Brien?

  That's not the point.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  It's so much money.

• 1:02:00Conan O'Brien?

  One accidental click, Sona, can expose your information, putting you at risk of identity theft. Luckily, this is the point. Not that you should start scamming, but that everyone should get LifeLock.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:02:11Conan O'Brien?

  LifeLock has live, U.S.-based restoration specialists who will be with you every step of the way to fix your identity theft from first alert to full restoration. This is fantastic. How do you not have this?

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:22Conan O'Brien?

  If you have expenses or money stolen due to identity theft, you're backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million coverage in some plans. Join now and save up to 30% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 1:02:41Conan O'Brien?

  Owning a car or home comes with responsibilities. Sure, it's fun, but sometimes it makes you wonder why you ever longed for adulthood in the first place. I do that all the time. I'm like, oh, these bills, these bills. What am I gonna do?

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Conan O'Brien?

  You know, when you own a house, you gotta fix it yourself. Sona, you see this to be true, right?

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, your garage door breaks, and you're like, well, I have to fix it.

• 1:03:01Conan O'Brien?

  Probably at first you said, hey, I'll get the super to fix it. It's your house, dude.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  It's mine, dude.

• 1:03:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Liberty Mutual customizes your car. Home insurance to save you money. In fact, they work overtime to tell your insurance policy around what you actually need. The only thing they can't do is get that liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty jingle out of your head.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Liberty, liberty, liberty.

• 1:03:20Conan O'Brien?

  It's in my head all the time.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:03:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Start your quote at libertymutual.com.

• 1:03:31Speaker 06

  Hey, let's start a segment. I thought that I knew everything about you, Conan. I discovered back in December that there's a way to distract you from anything.

• 1:03:40Conan O'Brien?

  Is that true?

• 1:03:40Speaker 06

  It's true.

• 1:03:41Conan O'Brien?

  This is, you're being real now.

• 1:03:42Speaker 06

  I'm being real. This is real. This is the real me.

• 1:03:45Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 1:03:45Speaker 06

  Um, and that is to put you in front of a TV and turn on the Hallmark Channel.

• 1:03:50Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, wait, where were we when this happened?

• 1:03:51Speaker 06

  In New York.

• 1:03:52Conan O'Brien?

  That's right.

• 1:03:53Speaker 06

  It was December, so it was like the Christmas Hallmark movies.

• 1:03:57Conan O'Brien?

  I have to say, I am powerless around a Hallmark movie. I don't know what it is, but I start watching them and then I love to call out what people are gonna say.

• 1:04:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:04:07Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm right a bunch of the time.

• 1:04:09Speaker 06

  You got it like 90% of the time.

• 1:04:10Conan O'Brien?

  I call out lines like, now get back here, young man. And then the person will say, now get back here, young man. And it's, it's thrilling. And it's the same high that a gambler in Vegas would get on.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:04:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. I get very excited.

• 1:04:23Speaker 06

  And we were going somewhere, like there was a car picking us up, but we couldn't leave until we found out if this woman quit her job as a lawyer to go up, build ice sculptures.

• 1:04:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. Well, first of all, we didn't wait to find out what was going to happen.

• 1:04:39Speaker 06

  That's true.

• 1:04:39Conan O'Brien?

  We knew what was going to happen. The uptight lawyer is gonna realize that the most exciting thing in her life is making ice sculptures with this guy. Uh, at Christmas time in their little Christmas village.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:04:51Conan O'Brien?

  And, um, I knew that was going to happen, but I had to see it happen.

• 1:04:55Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Conan O'Brien?

  It's one of those things where you, no, I have to see that happen.

• 1:04:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:04:59Conan O'Brien?

  And, um, and I love how there's no jeopardy. She, her mom runs the law firm. I love how this is coming back to me instantly.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:05:07Conan O'Brien?

  I'm not kidding. Like, I didn't know you were gonna bring this up. Her mom runs the law firm and she's dreading telling her mother. Her mother keeps saying, of course, and you're gonna take over the law firm because that's what. And then she's loving making this ice sculpture with this guy, which I think is a loser thing to do. And anyway, I'm sorry.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  You just burned a lot of ice sculpture.

• 1:05:27Conan O'Brien?

  This isn't like Timmy Chalamet with the ballet.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:05:29Conan O'Brien?

  I went very specific with ice sculpture. And if you've got a problem with that ice sculpture, people.

• 1:05:33Speaker 06

  You're doubling down?

• 1:05:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  I said ice sculpturists, by the way. That was really embarrassing. Can we edit that?

• 1:05:38Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, I want it in. I want it.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Sculptors.

• 1:05:41Conan O'Brien?

  Ice sculptors-isms. Anyway, um, she has to go to her mom and you think, oh, this is gonna be the real tension in the show. She goes to her mom and says, I just wanna make ice sculpture. I don't really. And she said, this is the line I called out. She said, but it was always your dream to be a lawyer. And I shouted out, no, mom, it was your dream. And she went, no, mom, it was your dream. And I, it was an erotic high for me.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:06:06Conan O'Brien?

  I swear to God. I had to go and shower myself off after that.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:06:11Conan O'Brien?

  I was, I needed.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  And David was in the room with you?

• 1:06:13Conan O'Brien?

  David was in the room and he saw me go, uh.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Ew, Conan.

• 1:06:17Speaker 06

  I tried to call HR, but it was just.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Off a Hallmark. We're the only person who does that off a Hallmark movie.

• 1:06:22Conan O'Brien?

  It was, um, she said, but that was always your dream, honey. And I shouted, no, mom, it was your dream. And she said, no, mom, it was your dream. Uh. Uh, scrub, scrub, scrub. Um.

• 1:06:34Speaker 06

  Scrub, scrub, scrub.

• 1:06:36Conan O'Brien?

  And then we were off to our obligation.

• 1:06:38Speaker 06

  Uh huh.

• 1:06:39Conan O'Brien?

  But I needed to see that happen.

• 1:06:40Speaker 06

  Yeah. Um, that, and you've texted Sona and I before. I can't remember what movie it was, but you were like, I saw a commercial for a movie on Lifetime. I need the Lifetime app. And do you remember this?

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  I do remember that.

• 1:06:51Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, I needed my fix. So I'm just, I find it to be endlessly fascinating. I really enjoy it. Uh, it calms me down. It, it, I just, I'm so happy.

• 1:07:04Speaker 06

  They have a formula and it's clearly working.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Oh, it is very formula.

• 1:07:08Conan O'Brien?

  The formula is so precise and they never vary from it. Someone's uptight, someone's in touch with themselves, uptight person, they don't get along. I mean, whatever, we've seen it a million times.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Speaker 06

  Someone from Santa.

• 1:07:21Conan O'Brien?

  They always live in Christmas town, USA.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  I know, it's a little too G rated for me. I've evolved.

• 1:07:27Conan O'Brien?

  Now, what about this? What if they could make, and this is something, we have a production company, maybe we could get into this.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:32Conan O'Brien?

  A Hallmark show that has all of those, hits all of those points and is very much like that, but the sex is really down and dirty.

• 1:07:41Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, you see everything, a slam it, a slam it, a slam it, a thwab it, a thwab it, you see it all. So it's like, I didn't know you liked making ice sculptures. I do make liking ice sculptures. You seemed kinda uptight before. Well, I'm not uptight now. A thwab it, a thwab it, a thwab it. A houbba da, da ba da, da ba da. A shumba, shumba, shumba.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's all like double entendre titles, like Christmas came early, and then her name.

• 1:08:05Conan O'Brien?

  Jesus Christ, Sona.

• 1:08:07Speaker 06

  She was ready to go.

• 1:08:08Conan O'Brien?

  You had that right away.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  It was in there. It was already in there.

• 1:08:11Conan O'Brien?

  I do think these would do well. Ball mark.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:14Speaker 06

  Jingle balls.

• 1:08:15Conan O'Brien?

  Ball mark.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Ball ma-?

• 1:08:16Conan O'Brien?

  What?

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Like balls?

• 1:08:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, like, yeah, ball, you get bald? Ball mark? Ball? No, no, no. Please, blade. Can I tell you something? This is really Sona's area. This is not something, you jumped in. I'm sorry. Literally, you were just watching, you were just watching Venus Williams play tennis and you jumped in with a racket.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  I am honored.

• 1:08:37Conan O'Brien?

  Sona does this.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Well, sometimes it's not so, like, instead of ball mark, I just say bone mark, but it's not that good.

• 1:08:44Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  But you get the point.

• 1:08:46Conan O'Brien?

  No, the thing is, but what about this idea? Be serious for a second. An idea where you, it is very G rated, very, it's the same thing, the people are all, and then, but when it comes to the moment where they start to kiss and you just cut to a curtain blowing. You, you cut to the curtain blowing, but then you pan back and they are both naked, and I mean, it's the-

• 1:09:08Speaker 06

  It comes back?

• 1:09:08Conan O'Brien?

  Just a hot pound sesh. It pans over, stops, and then pans back, all clothes gone, oiled up, sham it, a bam it, a lam it, a ham it.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:18Conan O'Brien?

  And it just goes on for like fifteen, twenty minutes.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 1:09:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and then they're back to, well, uh, I think, you know, we got a new, someone helping us out at the cuckoo clock store. I thought you were an uptight corporate lawyer. I was, but man, we just went at it. And then you pan to the curtain, or you can to the cuckoo clock, but then you pan back, and everyone in the store is doing it.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  Oh my god!

• 1:09:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, nineteen people.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  The whole store?

• 1:09:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. The guy that runs the cuckoo clock store, the people buying cuckoo clocks, the guys that make them, they're all naked, bangin' a hangin' a wangin' a bangin' a.

• 1:09:51Speaker 06

  What channel will this go?

• 1:09:53Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, it'll go on any channel that wants to make money!

• 1:09:58Conan O'Brien?

  Any channel would want this.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  It's like pay-per-view.

• 1:10:00Conan O'Brien?

  Netflix would take this, wouldn't they?

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  No, Netflix actually, I don't think.

• 1:10:03Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, they don't do porn?

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  It's like, straight up pornography.

• 1:10:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  What do you, what do you mean?

• 1:10:07Speaker 06

  Lay's very...

• 1:10:07Conan O'Brien?

  I would say Netflix would definitely do this.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Are we talking softcore? Cause I've seen everything softcore on Netflix.

• 1:10:13Conan O'Brien?

  You want this to be like, full penetration?

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  We want it...

• 1:10:15Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, don't be gross!

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  No, no, it's a valid question. It is a valid question.

• 1:10:19Conan O'Brien?

  I'm not some animal. What? No, I mean, I want it to be very, very, uh, you know, um...

• 1:10:25Speaker 06

  Like, you just want butts?

• 1:10:26Conan O'Brien?

  No! What are you talking about?

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  It gets into a gray area when we start showing things.

• 1:10:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. Well, that's what I'm saying. Well, I, Son and I were just wondering because that's kind of... Well, they could be covered up with, things could be covered up with Christmas snow. What I'm saying is, I wanna see... No, seriously, I want people going at it hardcore, and then, oh, look, some icicles formed near where the penis would be. Or, there's some snow, or, oh, a reindeer wandered in, and it's, it's feeding off some acorns right near their crotches! This is a show, this is a format, this is a lot of money! Get on it! Get on it! This is our idea, don't try and steal it. Peace out, Tupac.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Oh, we're just done!

• 1:11:28Speaker 03

  Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm.com/conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

• 1:12:17Speaker 03

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