Danny McBride

Actor, producer, and screenwriter Danny McBride feels very righteous about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Danny sits down with Conan to discuss his first on-air appearance as black belt Fred Simmons, researching megachurches while creating The Righteous Gemstones, and writing larger-than-life characters that believe unquestioningly in themselves. Later, Conan reveals his latest act of unparalleled generosity. 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.

• 0:03Conan O'Brien?

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• 0:16Speaker 01

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• 0:17Conan O'Brien?

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• 0:23Speaker 01

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• 0:23Conan O'Brien?

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• 0:49Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:52Conan O'Brien?

  Just accept the premise and we'll move ahead.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 0:54Conan O'Brien?

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

• 1:00Speaker 01

  A vase.

• 1:01Conan O'Brien?

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

• 1:04Speaker 01

  A jacket.

• 1:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, nice jacket. I love a nice jacket.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that jacket. Nice jacket.

• 1:08Conan O'Brien?

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

• 1:09Speaker 01

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

• 1:12Conan 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.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24Conan 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. You can skip the scrolling and shop with confidence. Shop now in-store or online at macy's.com/giftguide.

• 1:49Conan O'Brien?

  Hi, my name is Dana McBride, and I feel...

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Very righteous about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

• 1:58Conan O'Brien?

  Nice, nice. And a little plug for the series, Righteous Gemstones. I like it. That's very well done.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Thought out.

• 2:28Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Joined here, customarily, by Sonam Obsessian and Matt Gourley. Good to see you both.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Good to see you.

• 2:37Conan O'Brien?

  Very excited about our guest today. Normally, we don't talk about the guest in this part of the segment, but we just taped with the guest, Danny McBride. And Danny McBride, I'm walking him out. We had a great time. It's a really fun interview. I love this interview, and we've been wanting to get him for a long time.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55Conan O'Brien?

  And we're walking out, and on the way out, he went, "Hey, man, I got a gift for you that I brought for you." And I didn't know what it was gonna be. And he's fishing around his pocket, and he takes out what looks at first like a very expensive pen, and then he said, "It's a dick light." And it's a light that shines a penis onto things. What? It shines a penis, I believe, onto...

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I see it.

• 3:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  It's a little guy.

• 3:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I've had girls say that to me. What? Oh, I see it.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  Do you want to try shining it on the wall?

• 3:27Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I don't think it's...

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Does it not turn off?

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, there it is.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Oh, a dick.

• 3:32Conan O'Brien?

  Where?

• 3:33Speaker 03

  Right on the door.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  I see it, it's right there.

• 3:34Conan O'Brien?

  I don't see it, I don't see the dick. Oh, there it is, yes!

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yay!

• 3:40Speaker 03

  There's never been more call for her, that's what she said, but I'll leave it at that. There you go.

• 3:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so anyway, this is what Danny McBride gave me. At first, I thought he was giving me a Mont Blanc pen, you know, and I thought, "Oh, I can't accept this." But this is what he brought me, and I can now shine a cartoon penis on anything at any time.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  What are you gonna do with that? What are your plans?

• 4:03Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I'm going to the opera tonight, downtown, and I'm gonna make sure that there's a penis head on.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  It's a cute little dick.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I thought it was a vape pen.

• 4:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect this.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  I thought it was a dick pen.

• 4:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Oh, that's cute.

• 4:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, not since Johnson biographer, Robert Carroll, have I been given a dick pen by a guest.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  This is nice. You can use it for drunken frat parties when you don't want to leave like permanent Sharpie on somebody's face.

• 4:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's nice. It's considerate.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:33Conan O'Brien?

  You don't want to draw, and also the time it goes into. Here, you play with it.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, you two at drunken frat parties.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Let me just ask. Seriously.

• 4:41Conan O'Brien?

  Who is that? Nice, a guest. Danny McBride brought a gift and it is the kind of gift that a lot of his characters would probably have in their pocket.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 05

  Sorry, this just recalled, and you can cut this part, but I just remember not too long ago Jamie Foxx got into a fight because I guess he was at a dinner somewhere publicly and somebody from upstairs was shining one of these pens.

• 4:59Conan O'Brien?

  Why would you edit that out?

• 5:01Speaker 05

  I don't know if we want to put that business out there, but.

• 5:04Conan O'Brien?

  What are you talking about? That's a fine.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Someone was shining and like, well, because it is like a laser pointer.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  The headline is, and this is from TMZ, it's Jamie Foxx, laser penis pointer sparked dinner altercation. Beef with Jackass crew.

• 5:19Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, so Jamie Foxx is somewhere and the Jackass crew is above him.

• 5:24Speaker 05

  Right.

• 5:25Conan O'Brien?

  In a separate area of the bar restaurant.

• 5:27Speaker 04

  Still at it.

• 5:27Conan O'Brien?

  And they're shining a penis light so that a penis shows up on Jamie Foxx. He becomes enraged.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  Mr. Chow's in Beverly Hills.

• 5:36Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's a, wow. You know, that's a fancy restaurant. And if I go to Mr. Chow's in Beverly Hills, which I don't, I'm not allowed in because of my own dick light incident several years ago. No, but if I went there and someone was doing that to me, I mean, that's the last place I would think that would happen. But anyway.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  It's a laser pointer though. It's not really a flashlight. It's a.

• 5:56Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, it's a laser pointer, but when deployed, it makes this, I guess, very cartoonish looking male genitalia.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:07Conan O'Brien?

  And then you can shine it on people.

• 6:08Speaker 05

  All that to say, be careful or else you're going to get your ass beat.

• 6:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. What's that? What do you say?

• 6:12Speaker 05

  All that to say, just be careful where you point that.

• 6:14Conan O'Brien?

  Because what happens? Is that considered an insult?

• 6:17Speaker 05

  To some people.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Depends. It depends.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  It could also be an invitation. You know, like, hey, see you from across the room. Click clack, you know, like.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  Or it's like you're going to be shot with a. Dick sniper gun, you know what I mean?

• 6:29Conan O'Brien?

  Right, there's a sniper who's, who's gonna fire a dildo at you.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, from like a skyscraper across the way.

• 6:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  It's the aiming mechanism for a dildo.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  A dildo gun.

• 6:39Conan O'Brien?

  A dildo gun, okay, sure. Uh, anyway, it's a gift. Uh, guests don't often bring a gift, and I, uh, I appreciate this.

• 6:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, we can count on one hand. Jimmy Kimmel brought barbecue.

• 6:51Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 6:52Speaker 04

  Randall Park brought like cheap liquor store whiskey.

• 6:55Conan O'Brien?

  No! Wait a minute, no! What the fuck was that?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  And he brought pirouette!

• 7:00Speaker 04

  Cool it.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  And he brought the chocolate.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  That was part of its charm, he went to the liquor store and got like snacks and cheap booze. I wasn't judging him.

• 7:08Conan O'Brien?

  Maybe presented a little better the next time. He also brought a drawing he did of me in a nice little frame.

• 7:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:13Conan O'Brien?

  Which is, uh, one of the worst drawings of me I've ever seen.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  It was terrible.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Beastie Boys brought fruit tarts.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Billie Eilish and Phineas sent a bunch of milks afterwards.

• 7:23Conan O'Brien?

  That's right!

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Different kinds of milks.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Every kind of milk.

• 7:25Conan O'Brien?

  Every kind of milk.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  Kali Foco sent us little equestrian mugs with candies in them.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  And she sent it to the two of us, like, why didn't I get a dick laser pointer?

• 7:34Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I think it's, uh, probably, you know, not PC for you get a dick.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  You get a vagina one.

• 7:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Oh!

• 7:39Conan O'Brien?

  Those are, yeah. Those are, and those are harder to find.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Cause they're hotter tickets.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Nobody wants that.

• 7:47Conan O'Brien?

  Nobody wants that. So, um, yeah. No, it's, uh, it happens every now and then, uh, a, uh, oh no, an Arnold Schwarzenegger. He brought, remember, he gave me, uh, sixty-five acres of land in Austria.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  What?

• 8:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 8:03Speaker 04

  What?

• 8:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  This is for you. It's some land in Austria that I hope you enjoy.

• 8:10Conan O'Brien?

  Remember that? And I've seen it, it's beautiful. Sixty-five acres up in the, the Alps, it's incredible. Yeah, it's amazing.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  Lucky.

• 8:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, well, it's, I mean, but you know what? I say that Danny McBride, uh, dick lighter, fifty-fifty.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  Oh, Chris Martin gave you a, a little guitar.

• 8:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, he did.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  And honey, and honey as well.

• 8:30Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Uh, for, for Liza, that Dakota, uh, that was for, for Liza.

• 8:34Conan O'Brien?

  That's right.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  Honey.

• 8:35Conan O'Brien?

  That's right, that's right. He gave me a, like, it's almost mandolin-sized tiny little guitar. And he wrote, he wrote on it, and I play that at home. It's really nice, it's got a nice, bright tone.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 8:45Conan O'Brien?

  And, um.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  You weren't there for that.

• 8:47Conan O'Brien?

  No. No, that's the one that I, where I went to, Chris Martin.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I know.

• 8:51Conan O'Brien?

  Lovely fellow, by the way.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  I bet.

• 8:53Conan O'Brien?

  He is!

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Real nice, yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  Wouldn't know.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  No, no idea. We didn't get anything.

• 8:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's kind of the way it should be.

• 8:58Speaker 04

  He also bought us lunch.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Oh, fuck you.

• 9:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Sorry, sorry.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  Was it just a big pot of honey?

• 9:05Speaker 03

  No, they're delicious sandwiches and cookies. We all ate there in the sunshine. And he gave us pins. He all gave us little love pins.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  So nice.

• 9:12Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's true.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  How's the cult going?

• 9:14Speaker 03

  He gave us a lot of cool stuff.

• 9:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and then he gave us robes to wear.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, he gives us those amazing things.

• 9:19Conan O'Brien?

  And then he told us that, yeah, we had to live in a certain compound for a while.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was amazing.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I would live in a Chris Martin compound.

• 9:25Conan O'Brien?

  Julia Louis-Dreyfus deviled eggs?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:28Conan O'Brien?

  I just made that up. Now I'm making them up. That's a funny make-up. I like those, make some up. Michelle, Michelle Obama gave me scrimshaw.

• 9:38Conan O'Brien?

  She gave me a scrimshaw that she had made of a three-masted schooner on a whale's tooth. Which is pretty cool.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:44Conan O'Brien?

  So that was fun. It was a really nice one to have.

• 9:47Speaker 04

  We've stopped talking in hopes that you'll move it along.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just gonna pretend I'm looking for something.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  I might need a tissue.

• 9:56Conan O'Brien?

  Al Pacino gave me a grill for my teeth. It says "Thug Life" on it. Remember that? And then he took me to the dentist and the dentist put it on.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  He went with you to the dentist? That's so nice.

• 10:09Conan O'Brien?

  He was like, "We gotta go to the dentist."

• 10:18Speaker 01

  What is this impression?

• 10:20Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, that was him. He was melting. He was, I didn't realize he was made of ice cream. My guest today, we should get into it, right? My guest today, as you know, is a hilarious writer, producer, and actor, also a very generous man. Uh, and he's, the force behind such shows is Eastbound and Down, Vice Principals, and The Righteous Gemstones, uh, which is currently airing its fourth season on Max. And this is a man we've wanted to talk to for a while.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:45Conan O'Brien?

  I've met him before, of course, because I travel in those waters, celebrity waters. But, um, you guys, everyone here has been so jazzed.

• 10:57Conan O'Brien?

  Danny McBride, welcome.

• 11:03Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I have to start, this is the most obvious place to start, but I have to start with How I Met You, which is one of my favorite things ever. Back in 2006, you're a complete unknown. And you make this movie called The Foot Fist Way. And I think I get a call from Will Ferrell, who's just saying like, this guy's really hilarious. You have to have him on the show. Because Adam McKay and Ferrell had seen the film and they were giving it a big boost. You gotta have Danny on the show. So, we booked you on the show and your concept was to come out as Fred, what's his last name?

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Fred Simmons.

• 11:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, Fred Simmons, that's right. And we used to love to do shit like this on late night. We didn't tell the audience anything. And they don't know, you couldn't do this now because you're Danny McBride, but they didn't know who you were. The movie was just about to come out. You're a complete unknown. So you come, I just announced you and you were, we talked about it and you said, I want this announced as like, this is just the real deal. We have a guy here and he's gonna give a karate-

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Karate demonstration.

• 12:05Conan O'Brien?

  Demonstration. And he works with these kids and you brought these kids out. And I'm sure you can see this on YouTube or wherever. And you come out and you, what you have to remember when you watch this clip is everyone in the audience thinks, I'm totally dead serious about it. I never give up that this is, and you come out and you start trying to get the kids to break boards and do stuff. And when it's not going your way, you start yelling at them. And getting really mad at them. And the kids look a little upset. And I'm looking at the crowd and the crowd is horrified. And it's great. It's one of my favorite things, one of my favorite memories of a almost 30-year late

• 12:49Conan O'Brien?

  night career is you out there going, come on, get over here. Where are you going? And you're shouting at them. It's not going well. And I think it ends with some of the kids getting upset and running away. And then you get mad and, and you- Run away, and I'll never forget, I'm standing there in Studio 6A, which is where Letterman had his late night show and I had my late night show. And you had just run away and everyone's run away. I say, I played the part of looking kind of like a confused, upset host. And I just went, uh, okay, I guess we'll figure this out and we'll be right back. Go to commercial and Max and the band start to play.

• 13:31Conan O'Brien?

  And these two guys who are about 19 or 20 years old are sitting right near the front row. And they go like, Conan, what the fuck?

• 13:41Conan O'Brien?

  And I went, guys, I don't know. I don't know. I didn't even tell them because I thought that's breaking the rule. I didn't say to them, yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Breaking the illusion.

• 13:49Conan O'Brien?

  So, um, we did that. And then you do Foot Fist Way and then you go on to all this crazy success. And well deserved, by the way, but Eastbound Down, Vice Principals, Righteous Gemstones, movies. Everybody knows and loves Danny McBride. And I'm thinking, there's something I really love about that moment in time when no one knew you. And you're being a total asshole.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  I often wish I could go back and do it again. That was, that was the first time I had ever even done press. Like I had never even had an interview before. I'd obviously never been on a late night show. And I remember I couldn't eat for like two days before we did it. I was so nervous about what we were doing. And it was so much fun and you're right, you played along. And it felt like we were, we were really offending people and upsetting people. I think after I was on, I, we looked online and there were people were mad about it. They were like, they should take his school away. He shouldn't be allowed to be around children.

• 14:49Conan O'Brien?

  He shouldn't be allowed to be around kids. And the kids were good. The kids didn't let on at all. And it was perfect because it was kind of this mini scandal. Like this guy lost it on kids on Conan's show. It just made me so happy and I remembered thinking like a lot of people. And then I saw Foot Fist Way and The Foot Fist Way and it's a really funny movie. You mine a similar area in all your different characters where you're not particularly good at something or legit, but you have this fervent belief in yourself.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:23Conan O'Brien?

  So you're not good, you're trying to build up this school, you're trying to teach martial arts. But there's one film, there's one part in the movie that set everything apart from me, which is that you're trying to show in the movie who this character is. At one point, I don't know if it's your, I think it's your wife comes home or your girlfriend, she comes home and you want to play a prank on her. And I'll never forget this, it's, and I have not gone back and looked at this since. So I'm probably misrepresenting a little bit, but your idea of a prank is you jump out with a knife and you go, "Ah!" Like that, and she goes, "Ah!" And then, and then you just go, "Ah, just a prank, fuck you."

• 16:03Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm like, "Who says?" And I remember watching it, and this is back in 2006, so I'm sure I had like a DVD that they gave me or something, you know, there was no, today they'd send me a link to watch the film, you know, but-

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Not as special.

• 16:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, but whatever, I got a brick of some kind and fed it into a machine that doesn't exist anymore. And when you jumped out and did this, it's not, it's not a prank, first of all, but then when your response, when the prank is, you do it and then you go, "Ah, fuck you."

• 16:33Conan O'Brien?

  And I was just, I, it blew my mind and I was like, "I gotta know, I've gotta know this Danny McBride, who is this Danny McBride?"

• 16:40Speaker 02

  I think it's funny to play characters who have terrible senses of humor.

• 16:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's, uh, that's why I was so jazzed about you coming on the podcast is I, I thought, "I've encountered you many times in life, uh, but we've never really had a chance to have a conversation and I'm such a big fan of yours and I just want to know, how does a Danny McBride happen?" You know, I mean, first of all, I know that you grew up in Georgia and rural Virginia and you've described yourself as kind of a latch- Key kid.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 17:14Conan O'Brien?

  So you're, what are you doing? You got a lot of alone time?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  You know, I was born in Georgia and then I actually like lived in Lompoc, California for a little bit. My, really young, my dad was a guard at the prison there. And so I lived on the prison reservation. Where all the other, all the other families of people who were working in the prison lived. We were there, I think for maybe about four years and it was kind of, it was crazy. It definitely was, was a, was a nutty place to live in the backyard of a federal prison.

• 17:42Conan O'Brien?

  You just.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  You know, the only time I ever really thought about it was, there was one night I can remember that there was, the, the sirens went off at the prison. And my dad came in and made my sister and I like go into their room and we had to shut the door. And I'm like looking out the window and he's getting his shotgun and like jumping into the back of a pickup truck with all my friends dads. Like there was, had been a jailbreak and they were like going out to go, go on him down, I guess. But uh, he had got uh, transferred to the federal bureau prisons in DC after that. So then we moved to Virginia and then kind of grew up there for the rest of it.

• 18:14Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And you say you've spent a lot of time in south, in the south. And you've sort of said that you didn't feel like you quite fit in with what some people would call redneck culture or whatever.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, you know, my mom was from Pennsylvania. And so even like when we moved to a place like Northern Virginia, it's like, that's everyone, you know? It's not necessarily just like only southern culture there. That was everybody moving there who worked in DC and.

• 18:38Conan O'Brien?

  It's a mix.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  It's a mix. Yeah. And so when you would meet, when I would meet kids with like really thick southern accents, I was always like just amazed and tickled and liked it. And would try to imitate them and try to act like I belong. But yeah, I just grew up, you know, living there, parents both working, that was like the, the beginning of cable TV and video stores. And so I just, I loved all that stuff. I was just like, uh, I wasn't into sports, I wasn't into anything like that. I just really loved movies and TV and, you know, and just was obsessed with it.

• 19:07Conan O'Brien?

  You would find friends that were into the same stuff, which is usually what happens.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then there, and it was very few, you know, I, I had only like a handful of buddies who were into that stuff. I would try to make movies in my backyard with kids and, and then I went to the North Carolina School of the Arts and um, for film school. And that's where I met, honestly, all the guys I still work with to this day.

• 19:26Conan O'Brien?

  Jody Hill.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Jody Hill, David Green, Richard Ryder, production designer, our music supervisor. There's like, you know, it's people who I met when I was 18 years old. And we're guys who couldn't afford to go to NYU or USC. We're going to like this little state like run school that is just beginning to have a film program. And I don't know, we always just felt like outsiders there, like we're learning to make movies in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There wasn't like, we were so far outside the bubble. I don't know, I think it instilled in us this idea that we should all like stick together and help each other out because we were kind of living on an island so far away from all the resources that other people had. And then we just kind of kept that up through our careers.

• 20:04Conan O'Brien?

  This caught my eye. One interview you said, I realized I didn't look good in a pickup truck or like a big four-wheel drive truck. Like, that wasn't you.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  It was, it wasn't me. But then it was funny, like, you know, you, just because we're, I'm from the South, then, you know, we lean in with something like Kenny Powers. I think it, that was the perception was that. But it was sort of like, that was sort of my love letter to all the assholes that I had grown up with.

• 20:31Conan O'Brien?

  You're so good at being an asshole.

• 20:35Conan O'Brien?

  You're so good at being an asshole. And this is something I want to connect with you on because, and this is going to get tricky because my team is going to weigh in on my part of this, but I think I love being a bad guy. I don't think I am. This is going to get tricky. I think in my core, I-

• 20:53Speaker 04

  When, when do we get to chime in?

• 20:55Conan O'Brien?

  I meant like, like a few episodes from now.

• 20:59Conan O'Brien?

  Like in six months, you get to chime in. But I love, I really enjoy it and, and I see a kindred spirit where Ike, you are a very nice guy. You seem like a very genuine, nice person, but you relish being a dick. You just relish it. And it's, it's fun. It's a release.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  It is. And you know, I feel like with some of these characters, I feel like, you know, they're the butt of the joke. So, you know, as opposed to just delivering like one-liners and stuff, it's just sort of like embodying a complete joke, you know? Like just making someone who- Is so silly and ridiculous in that, I don't know, I just find I have a good time doing that.

• 21:38Conan O'Brien?

  You also have the best dismissive laugh, like, ah, I mean, I'm not gonna do it, but you're just like, you laugh at people, make fun of them in your, in your characters and uh, I'm trying to think of like, there's a moment in the movie about the end of the world.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Oh, this is the end.

• 21:55Conan O'Brien?

  This is the end. And there's this great part where everyone's playing themselves and so you're Danny McBride and they come and tell you that all these different people, you know, like, all these different stars, real stars who are all playing themselves have died because it's the end of the world. And they come and tell you, they're telling you, and then they, they, they tell you that Michael Sarah is dead and you're like,

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Like, nobody wants Michael Sarah dead.

• 22:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah. No one, and people love Michael Sarah and you're like, ah, who fucking cares about Michael Sarah? And it was just making me, I remember that moment, like, you really popped in that movie, cause whose response to Michael Sarah is dead is a good laugh.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Really happy about it.

• 22:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Conan O'Brien?

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

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 22:48Conan 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.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 23:03Conan 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.

• 23:11Speaker 01

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

• 23:16Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5 N, 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?

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 23:36Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space.

• 23:43Conan O'Brien?

  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.

• 24:10Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, I want to try something different.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  What?

• 24:13Conan O'Brien?

  I like to change it up. I like to learn things, so I'm going to try and make apple cider.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 24:17Conan O'Brien?

  Every morning.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:18Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, just to see if I can do it.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, fall's the perfect season to try something new, like joining T-Mobile.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Oh, that's good.

• 24:25Conan O'Brien?

  See what I did?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, there are 250 reasons to join T-Mobile right now. You want to hear what they are?

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:30Conan O'Brien?

  They're America's best network.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:32Conan O'Brien?

  True story. Plus, T-Mobile has got off-grid satellite coverage. That comes in really handy. I like to just wander in the woods sometimes.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that's weird.

• 24:40Conan O'Brien?

  When I'm thinking about, like, making apple cider.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 24:42Conan O'Brien?

  And that's when it comes in handy. Here's another reason. High-speed data in over 215 countries and destinations. I travel a lot for the

• 24:49Speaker 01

  You travel a lot.

• 24:49Conan O'Brien?

  Travel show that I do.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:51Conan O'Brien?

  Stream this podcast while ignoring local landmarks. That's always fun to do. Like, oh, look, there's the Mona Lisa. Yeah, check it out. I'm in the Louvre. I should, but I'm listening to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  That doesn't seem like a good idea.

• 25:03Conan O'Brien?

  It's a great idea.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:04Conan O'Brien?

  You know, you can see art anytime. But how often can you listen to this podcast?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  My god.

• 25:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  What?

• 25:11Conan O'Brien?

  Now, all these reasons make T-Mobile a great choice.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 25:14Conan O'Brien?

  T-Mobile is stacking up reasons to join. Go to T-Mobile.com and find yours best, based on analysis by Ookla of Speed Test Intelligence data, first half of 2026. Can't believe I read that. T-Satellite with capable devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S., where you can see the sky. High-speed international data with qualifying plan. Visit T-Mobile.com, consult a physician. I just threw that in there.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 25:42Conan O'Brien?

  Sona, what are some of the things in life that really get you down?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Uh, driving?

• 25:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  That's the first thing that popped in my head.

• 25:48Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I've seen you drive, and it's true. I'm always picking mailboxes out of your grill.

• 25:53Conan O'Brien?

  You're a creative driver. Uh, look, let's face it. Just living on Earth can be a lot, right?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  It can.

• 25:59Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, oy vey, it's a lot.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:01Conan O'Brien?

  There's gravity, there's mosquitoes, there's this... You know that they say the sun is going to, at some point, go supernova and incinerate the Earth, probably in five billion years?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:11Conan O'Brien?

  But watch your diet, we might be sticking around for that.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 26:14Conan O'Brien?

  So, cosmically speaking, you've earned a break.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:16Conan O'Brien?

  And you know where this is going? I think you do.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:18Conan O'Brien?

  Pluto TV.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Oh, right, of course.

• 26:20Conan O'Brien?

  To escape all of these hassles in life, you gotta get Pluto TV. Turn off all your earthly problems and turn on the movies and shows you already love. You've seen them, but you wanna see them again. They're old friends.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:31Conan O'Brien?

  Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Dirty Dancing, Alias, X-Files. Pluto TV is completely free.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 26:38Conan O'Brien?

  These streamers, all these things cost so much money these days. And I won't mention that when I do an ad for them, but...

• 26:44Conan O'Brien?

  No subscription, no fees, zero dollars. And as any mathematician will tell you, zero is one of the most profound numbers ever conceived. I was thinking about that this morning.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Wow, that's profound.

• 26:54Conan O'Brien?

  I really wasn't. The best thing on TV are free. Escape to Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.

• 27:05Conan O'Brien?

  I gotta bring this up, cuz you and Sona have a, uh, similar fascination, which is The Goonies. And this is one, I'm older than you guys, so it skipped my generation. When I saw The Goonies, I didn't get it. And then I know that, like, it's... Sona has built a small religion around The Goonies.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  I love The Goonies. So does Matt.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I like it too.

• 27:23Conan O'Brien?

  And you like The Goonies.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  I love The Goonies. I took my... Before we left California and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, I took the kids up to Astoria to go see The Goonies House, to go see The Rock, to go see The Jailhouse.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  I've been wanting to go.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  It was awesome.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I loved that movie. I thought it was cool. I mean, I think it was just, you know, of the age, seeing a bunch of kids that are your age on TV, and they're cursing.

• 27:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Instantly appealed to me.

• 27:53Conan O'Brien?

  I think when that movie came out, I was 22.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:56Conan O'Brien?

  And I thought, these kids should be in school.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:59Conan O'Brien?

  I was like, I was like, sitting in the theater, like, why aren't they? Why are they running around? A ship wouldn't be underground?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 28:07Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I just was, I shouldn't have been seeing that movie.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  I remember my grandfather's take on it was that it was pornographic and it confused me about what pornographic meant. I'm like, is it? Is this pornographic? Is this? But I guess it was the language that he didn't like.

• 28:19Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, he thought the language was pornographic.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  The kids were banging each other.

• 28:22Conan O'Brien?

  I was gonna say. I was gonna say.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  It's a generational thing.

• 28:26Conan O'Brien?

  There must be a director's cut that I haven't seen.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  He had the LaserDisc.

• 28:31Conan O'Brien?

  All the kids are just going at it.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Oh, go on.

• 28:34Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, come on. Like you haven't thought about it.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  No, I haven't.

• 28:40Conan O'Brien?

  Fuck you. I'm channeling McBride now.

• 28:45Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, yeah. It's funny though, I've seen the effect because I was in, I was shooting in another country and ran into Martha Plimpton.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:55Conan O'Brien?

  And the people on my crew who are, again, 10, 15 years younger than me, their hands were shaking.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:02Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm, I love Martha Plimpton and I was like, hey Martha, how are you? And she'd been on the show a bunch, and good to see you, but I, but I thought, you know, it's not Prince, you know? I mean, it's, do you know what I mean? Like, it's, no, but they were all Goonies.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Goonies fans, I did this really small movie with Jody called Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter. That was like a Netflix movie and Josh Brolin's in it.

• 29:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  I was like wanting to say something about Goonies like the entire time and I just like felt like, oh, I gotta play it cool. And there's like one scene where I'm like almost dying in the scene. And he's like, you know, trying to help me out and he's like, you know, don't die. And then in the take, I was like, Goonies never say die. And he just looked at me, he's like, that's the worst delivery you've given in the whole movie. I was like, I know, I got scared.

• 29:50Conan O'Brien?

  I could see him too, being not too happy. He's like, you know, I've gone on to all this other amazing work.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter.

• 29:58Conan O'Brien?

  Can't keep bringing me back there. You know, there's this thread that runs through, like whether it's Eastbound Down, Vice Principals, Righteous Gemstones. They're kind of screwed up Don Quixote's. They're, they're on this quest and I think one of the things that makes- Don Quixote and that kind of comedy or character so compelling to me is that the character fully believes it. The character is completely invested in what they're doing. And I thought it was really interesting that you made the decision that in The Righteous Gemstones, the gemstones are not con men. They are making a ton of money off of this and it's a great business and they'll do what they have to do to grow this, but at their core, they believe.

• 30:43Conan O'Brien?

  And I think that's essential. It has to be that way.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  It has to be. I think it's what allows you to still make them feel like no matter how far in outer space the comedy might go, that there's somewhere you can kind of get back down to planet earth by the end and kind of like have a chance to make it touching or to make somebody feel something real in it. We kind of learned that when we were writing Eastbound. I remember when we pitched it, we were so enamored with just Kenny Powers being such a shithead and treating everyone so terribly and that was making us laugh. And then there became this moment where we were like, what would make him more interesting is if he was actually good at this. And it's not like he's just a joke. Like if he actually had talent and part of the tragedy is he squandered it.

• 31:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  I remember that being like a breakthrough because that wasn't part of our initial pitch. It was like, yeah, he flamed out, but the idea that he was really talented and that he had something there that that's part of why he's overstretching so much is that he's like squandered something that that was in him that he kind of abused. And I don't know, it just was a eye opener that like, you know, you can make jokes to these characters, but if you can kind of like actually give them something real under there to struggle with, it just ends up giving you more room to play.

• 31:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And it enhance, it actually makes the jokes.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, better.

• 31:56Conan O'Brien?

  Funnier. I, when I was at The Simpsons, I remembered all I was interested in was coming up with really funny ideas for stories and really funny lines for characters. That's all I cared about and good visuals. And I thought of myself as, I don't really care about story arc and stuff like that. I just want to be the, the hot gun in the room. I want to be, you know, I want to be, I want to come up with the stuff that's really going to be great and cutting edge, whatever. And I remember getting Thing talked to about was explained to me by Mike Reese and Al Jean. They said, you know, that it's it's really important to James L. Brooks and to Matt Graining and to Sam Simon. The thing that makes this work is that it's a family and they all love each other.

• 32:40Conan O'Brien?

  And I remember at the time being, whatever I was, 24, thinking, what? That's so lame. What, did they just watch The Goonies? Yeah.

• 32:53Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, but I I remembered. It's pornographic. Yeah, it's awesome. It's completely pornographic. Yeah. I I just didn't. I didn't understand that at all, but I went with it. And then later on realized that you don't have a show if Homer doesn't care if Bart dies. Yeah. If he's that level of, yes, Homer does lots of incredibly stupid things, but he does care about his family. If he's a sociopath, you don't have a show. Yep. And if and if none of them, if they're all sociopaths, you don't have a show. And that's the kind of stuff that my old writing partner, Greg Daniels, who's done a million great shows, Office, Parks and Recreation, and just to name a few.

• 33:36Conan O'Brien?

  But his, he was so good at, he's funny. He can come up with really funny stuff, but he also knows that you have to care about these people as people. And I think that was one of the revelations of that Steve Carell was so brilliant at. Totally. Which is, he's being such an asshole. He's so misreading the room. He's so not doing his job, but you know that he's a good person at heart. Totally. And that is such a hard thing to do. And I think that that's, that was one of those things that resonates with me when I watch your work is, I care about you. I care about the characters you're playing because you've invested them with that, even if they're pretty.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Pretty terrible.

• 34:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  I, I, I love that and I love like working with actors that get that, you know, like Edie Patterson, who plays my sister on the show. You know, I met her on Vice Principals and instantly saw that with her that like, not only can she just deliver insane punchlines, you know, that are completely lunacy, but like she has the chops to like make you care too and to make, to hurt your feelings or to make you kind of want more for her. And I think the moment we started messing around with that kind of stuff, it just like that became what a little bit of the pool was with all the comedy. It's like, how can we surprise people by being so foul and then weirdly underneath it all, there's like something that might resonate with people.

• 34:59Conan O'Brien?

  It's a family and they are, they do care about each other. They live in this insane situation.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Exactly. They're gangsters.

• 35:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:09Conan O'Brien?

  They're, they're gangsters who believe that what they're doing is righteous.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. That was what was kind of crazy even starting the show is that, you know, I moved down to Charleston, South Carolina with my family about almost like eight years from ago. And I wasn't really sure what I was going to write next. And once I was there, I saw a lot of the churches there and I was like on the, every other radio station is like a religious station. And, you know, I went to church when I was a kid. My family was pretty religious and it just got me thinking like, what is church like now? And so I started like kind of doing research on these mega churches and it just kind of instantly seemed like it was something that would be in one of our worlds. Like the idea of like these people kind of seeing themselves as a celebrity and, and being, you know, big shots and, and just the idea of saying one thing meaning another. It just felt like it was right for what we wanted to do. But then I would look at stuff that tackles religion and I always

• 35:57Speaker 02

  kind of never, I couldn't think of anything that I really liked that had done that. We were like, oh, it's, you know, there's something about it that is usually too cynical or it's just bashing on people's faith. And I don't know, it just didn't seem like it was, uh, like it was something that I wanted to do. And so, yeah, we started writing that show. It was sort of like one of our mantras was like, you know, yeah, these guys believe and the butt of the joke is never what their belief is. It's just them. They're the butt of the joke. Their hypocrisy is what's funny and not like what they believe in. And, and everybody on board the show got down with that. They were all, that, that was sort Like what everyone kind of followed and it'd be interesting because you oftentimes would see stuff. People would come with things, whether it's production design or anything that might push things too much. Like, oh, I think the joke here is that it's Jesus and maybe that's like not where we should get the joke from.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  It should get the the thought process behind someone, you know, is more funny than just cheap shots, I guess.

• 36:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you don't want to be punching down. You don't be making fun of the faith. You want to be looking at these people, which it is a family. They live on this ridiculous compound.

• 36:59Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I mean, I'm a big Walton Goggins fan and I'm curious how you two came together. I know you're on Vice Principals.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, Walton, you know, Walton, I had seen Walton in the Shield and Walton came in and read for Eastbound. It was the, I think it was the third season and we ended up casting Sidakis in that role. He was like Kenny Power's best friend, but I mean, I always, I mean, it was just, you know, not because Walton didn't do a good job reading, but it was just like, I think we already had our mindset on Sidakis. And but Walton just stuck in my brain at forever after that. When he came in, I was like, God damn, that guy was so funny when, you know, and so unexpected. And I had bumped into him a few other times through the years. And then when I wrote Vice Principals, he just came to my mind that he was, you know, that I would like to spend some time with him. And I felt like this was a side that he hadn't really shown people.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  And in all of his work, there's a comedic undertone to all of it, you know? He's he's just naturally funny. And so, yeah, it was just kind of awesome. I sent him that script, the pilot, and he called me back later on that afternoon. And was just like doing the Lee Russell voice, which is the character he played in Vice Principals. It was like, this is gonna be fun.

• 38:14Conan O'Brien?

  He was here. He did the podcast and do you remember this? He came and he was, I think he was flying back and forth a lot to Thailand for White Lotus.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:25Conan O'Brien?

  At the time, and so he was tired. I came in and his people said, Walton just needs to sleep for 25 minutes and then he'll be okay to do the podcast. So he was in that room that I just saw you in and there's a couch there and he just lay down like a vampire.

• 38:42Conan O'Brien?

  And like put his hands over his chest and instantly went out and slept for exactly 25 minutes.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  It was back.

• 38:49Conan O'Brien?

  And then came and then they like reactivated the, you know, re- reactivate Goggins and he like sat up. And he came in and he was great in the podcast and then probably said, now I need 17 minutes. There's something I've always thought about in comedy, which is one of my favorite characters, I always go back to him all the time. Is Peter Sellers, Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies. And those movies were a huge deal to me because my dad would take me to see those films. And I never saw my dad laugh that hard and I would be laughing, but also noticed clocking my dad laughing so hard. And I thought they were fantastic. So I introduced him to my son and we watched these movies and it took me a long time to realize.

• 39:31Conan O'Brien?

  What makes it work is that Clouseau, he is deadly serious.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Totally. Yeah, we never, weirdly, we'd never approach any of it like it is a comedy. Like we, even when we talked to the, you know, the production designers and all this stuff, we, we, we approach it as if it's like so serious. And then that just makes it so much funnier. I remember even when we sold Eastbound, you know, they were trying to talk to us about shooting it all digitally and everything. And for us, it was like, no, we, we like fought really hard to shoot on like super 16. And then even the other seasons were on 35 millimeter film. And it was like, there was no real reason to, to do that. But for us, it was all part of the aesthetic of like, we can't treat this like it's just something cheap, you know? It needs to be approached as if it has scope and grandeur. And then all of these jokes and all this ridiculousness will, will play then, you know?

• 40:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you're shooting it, you wanna, it's like you, you have to go in with the intent that we're making, I'm David Lean and I'm making Lawrence of Arabia.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 40:27Conan O'Brien?

  You know, wait a minute, what's the topic again? Don't worry about that.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 40:32Conan O'Brien?

  And I think that that comes through. It's funny how you talk about the way people want things shot. I've heard that some, some producers, some executives want things to be bright and colorful if it's a comedy. They actually want it to be brighter because they want to let you know. Know that it's a comedy.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:52Conan O'Brien?

  As opposed to trusting that you'll figure out that, that, that what's happening is very funny.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:58Conan O'Brien?

  And more so if some, I think if things are a little dark or if there's a grayness to it.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  It's so true. I remember us hearing that, that like, you know, oh, you need to get a comedy DP. And we were just like, what, what the hell is that, you know? And to me it was like, no, it seems that, you know, we don't want to like play into any of this stuff. There's not like a way to shoot it. And, you know, yeah, for us that always it felt like if you're filming something, you should use all the tools that come with filming something. You should be able to know when to make it dark or when to make it light. You should know when to make it beautiful or when to make it ominous and scary. And why would you strip all of those things away just to kind of light something bland? So that you, the jokes play better. I just, it felt like it was missing out on what the advantages are of doing something filmed.

• 41:40Conan O'Brien?

  So I'm curious, you live, you don't live here, you don't live here and we're, we're in Los Angeles right now.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  In your office. No, I've never lived here.

• 41:49Conan O'Brien?

  There was, there was a year. There was a year where you were going through a little bit of a rough patch. Okay, 2022.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  I remember.

• 41:59Conan O'Brien?

  You lived here.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  You found me in the bottom of the pool that you took out.

• 42:06Conan O'Brien?

  When we bought this podcast duty, there was a little pool out there and the first thing I said was that pool goes.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  And so does that guy.

• 42:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, if you have to jackhammer it. Yeah, exactly. And that guy McBride, get him out of here. But, uh, yeah, I just, it's, it's interesting because I know there are people I really admire. Zach Galifianakis is another one who, he doesn't live here in LA and he, he's very resolute about, no, I'm going to live with my people, my life. It's not a rejection of LA. It's just, no, I'm, I'll do the work here, but I want to go. And in your case, it's Charleston, South Carolina.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:46Conan O'Brien?

  Which is, by the way, I've been there several times and I'm a history buff. I was telling you before we started the podcast that I've been there and taken the tours and absolutely, I think it'd be a dream to live there.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  It's, it's, it's insane. You know, I'd never even been there until we shot Vice Principals and really just fell in love with the place. And I had small, I had small kids at the time. Uh, they're still small. Uh, they'll never grow. I won't let them. You know, my, my.

• 43:10Conan O'Brien?

  You know, it helps if you feed them. We'll see.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  But my wife was from Los Angeles. I loved living out here. I mean, I was here for almost 20 years and, uh, you know, I, I loved it here. But I definitely kind of saw that my kids, if I kept them here, it wasn't like they would have a bad life, but it was like there would just be elements of my life that I feel like they wouldn't be able to experience. Like there was something free about being able to get on your bike and just like cruise through your neighborhood and stay gone until the, you know, the sun went down. And I knew, like, when we're living up on Mulholland, I wasn't exactly trusting my six-year-old son to go on a bike and just come back when the sun comes down.

• 43:47Conan O'Brien?

  Go down Mulholland at 60 miles an hour.

• 43:51Speaker 04

  Nothing bad ever happened on Mulholland.

• 43:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, there's the old Manson house.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  But I just wanted, I wanted them to have a little taste of that. When we went to shoot Vice Principals there, I was seeing it in real time. They were getting it. They were having more independence than I had ever had with them here. Like, they were able to hang out with friends and it wasn't like we were overseeing it or like coordinating a playdate. It was like just kind of naturally happening. And so I just kind of wanted that. I thought it was, it'd be cool for them. And, um, yeah, and so that kind of motivated us moving there. And then luckily, a lot of the guys I work with, they all were kind of at the same point in their lives where they had young kids and were kind of a little like helpless about how to raise kids here. That everyone had come from small towns. And so it was, uh, an adjustment and everyone just kind of decided to go down together. It was like, I think we went down.

• 44:39Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, so you live in like a community with your friends?

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:42Conan O'Brien?

  Some people call that a cult.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. We allow others in, you know, there is no, but as I, we moved there with like, honestly, like Jody Hill, David Green, he's got a place there. Like, uh, yeah, John Kachuri, Jeff Frally, all these other writers from the show. We all moved there the same summer and, uh, set up shop and yeah, it's been almost eight years now.

• 45:01Conan O'Brien?

  That's amazing.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. We didn't have to make new friends. We were able just to keep the ones that we've always known.

• 45:07Conan O'Brien?

  You can't, at a certain point, you can't make new friends.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  It's too much effort.

• 45:12Speaker 04

  Which is great for this podcast and its title.

• 45:17Conan O'Brien?

  Have I really made friends with any of them? I reject, the minute the podcast is over, I tell them, "Get out of here."

• 45:25Conan O'Brien?

  I'll say, "I won't see you again."

• 45:29Conan O'Brien?

  It's all a scam. You know, I have to ask you about working with John Goodman, because he's one of my, he's one of my favorite people. I mean, I'm just thinking of all of the iconic roles he's played. So much great work with the Conan Brothers, and he was the first guest on my late night show.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 45:48Conan O'Brien?

  September 13th, 1993, and I ran into him recently on an elevator. I hadn't seen him in years. I was like, "Hello, John." He was like, "Hello." And I said, "Remember, you were my first guest." And he said, "Yes, you, I believe," you know, the way he can talk, he's very serious. He said, "I, you, George Wendt canceled, so you, I was your second choice." And that was not the case. He was misremembering.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  He remembered that.

• 46:14Conan O'Brien?

  But the problem is, he misremembered it. Yeah, he misremembered it, which was, no, he was our first choice. And we wanted someone who we knew would be really fun and friendly and go along with all the weird stuff we wanted to do. And that we put George Wendt in the audience to challenge him to leg wrestling. And that was just to show people how weird our show was gonna be. We wanted to do that right off the bat. So that was always the plan, and now somehow he's got it switched in his mind that, and I remember, then he got off the elevator, and I never got a chance to straighten him out that like, "No, no, no, you were the first choice. George Wendt was the plant in the audience, but it's lost to time now."

• 46:54Speaker 02

  He, you know, and maybe it's good for him, but he, I feel like he underestimates how much influence and how great he is. You know, I would like be surprised when, you know, I would sense that he was nervous or worried that he wasn't doing good. You're like, "Are you kidding me?" It's like, "You're John Goodman." Blowing everyone here out of the water.

• 47:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  He, he's incredible. I mean, I always, I've always loved him, and you know, he, he was like making, he was in TV when TV wasn't really that cool, and you know, he's like, you know, on your TV, and then he still can go do the Conan Brothers, and he can, you know, and he's everything. Thing is so funny and he's lasted for so long and he still can make you laugh and can still do stuff that's challenging. I mean, I never thought in a million years we would get him on this show. It was like completely like a lark.

• 47:37Conan O'Brien?

  Also, because he's such a good actor, he his, he can, I mean, his menace.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:43Conan O'Brien?

  You know, on the gemstones, his sense of purpose and drive and I've, he's built this, this thing and you get the sense that he really has and then it comes from something real.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 47:56Conan O'Brien?

  You need a real actor to do that.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  You do. And if we wouldn't have had someone like him, I don't think the show would have worked. I think you needed that legitimacy, even for us, like.

• 48:05Conan O'Brien?

  I think I could have done it.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  There was thoughts that maybe you could, yeah, you could have done it.

• 48:09Conan O'Brien?

  No, I, I, I'm.

• 48:11Speaker 04

  George went.

• 48:12Conan O'Brien?

  No, no.

• 48:15Conan O'Brien?

  George went for sure. No, I, I, I, in all fairness, I think, yeah, you got a Goodman or a Conan, you like.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Often brought up at the same time, yeah.

• 48:25Conan O'Brien?

  Often in the same sentence.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 48:27Conan O'Brien?

  Cohen Brothers. Just don't have my number. They don't know how to get a hold of me.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the problem.

• 48:34Conan O'Brien?

  I'm very hard to get a hold of.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, real hard.

• 48:37Conan O'Brien?

  I have a flip phone. Not everyone has the number.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  That's what it is.

• 48:45Conan O'Brien?

  You said that you like these guys, these characters, they see themselves as something they are not, which is, I think, also, it's part of the same line of what we've been talking about, but people who don't see themselves as what they really are, but it's a, but their belief in themselves is is genuine.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, their egos are just unchecked. Yeah, they, I just feel like that, you know, when you want to make the character the butt of the joke, that's like the most, uh, I don't know, that's like the richest ground of just, you know, the tragedy of like seeing someone telegraphing how they want you to see them and then knowing that they're not that. It just always makes me laugh.

• 49:19Conan O'Brien?

  So you're in South Carolina now. Is it weird to come into LA and like, okay, now I'm driving around the 405 freeway and I'm going to do press and things like that?

• 49:27Speaker 02

  You're, you're, uh, I mean, it's funny. I mean, I would, I lived here 20 years, drive everywhere and then instantly I feel like I'm an old person who's never been around a, a, a moving car before. Like, there's so many cars. It's, it's everything's so fast.

• 49:39Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  You do slow down. I mean, everything is so slow there that you, uh, it, it does. It kind of, I'm like, wow, it's wild that I was used to this pace. It's nuts.

• 49:47Conan O'Brien?

  One of the things I love about Charleston is when you go downtown, they have the old gas lamps. It's, it's like you've gone back in time. You know, they've done a really good job of preserving. And so I would think it's about as not LA as you can get to me is gas lanterns.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Burning in the middle of the day, just burning propane.

• 50:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:10Conan O'Brien?

  Someone over there has a butter churn. So, um, I'm curious, like, when something like Gemstones is done, you've wrapped it and you're gonna unveil this new season. Are you on to the next thing already? Are you?

• 50:22Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, after I leave here, I go sound mix the very last episode. So after today, I will be officially unemployed. I'm done. I don't, I mean, I have ideas what I want to do, but I really just kind of want to just chill out for a little bit and catch a breath. I mean, I've been on Gemstones full time now for like seven years. I mean, it doesn't seem like that because there was COVID and there was a strike, but it's, uh, I'm so monogamous when I get on something like this. I like live and breathe it. I mean, when we're not in between seasons, I'm literally just like reading the Bible, watching sermons, just trying to find material and find inspiration. And so, I think after a while, you kind of do have to just shut it off because even in my head, if I were to think of ideas now, they all would feel similar to Gemstones.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Cause my brain is so trained on finding humor and finding comedy that like fits that mold. So I think, in a way, you kind of have to just like let it go and kind of stop thinking about it for a while and then kind of.

• 51:15Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, so what, what do you do to relax? What are your, what are your fun things? What's your happy place?

• 51:21Speaker 02

  I need to get hobbies. I don't have hobbies, unfortunately. I've tried a few different ones in Charleston and none of them have really stuck.

• 51:28Conan O'Brien?

  What did you try?

• 51:28Speaker 02

  When I first got there, I was like, maybe I'm gonna be somebody who's like into grilling. I'll be into big green eggs and like, and like learning how to like master the big green egg. And I had that for a while and then I was like, I'm gonna have a heart attack with all these fucking steaks.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  Trying to dial the temperature just right. It's like, my wife's like, yeah, big deal. You kept it at 250 degrees for 12 hours. Like, you've mastered it. But this pork, it falls right on.

• 51:56Conan O'Brien?

  My heart feels tight, my chest.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  I got a, I got a, like a little bo-, you know, I have a dock and so I got a Boston whale, like everybody in, uh, in that area like is out of water.

• 52:09Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta have a boat, right?

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Well, I thought I did and then I realized I'm not a, I'm not a boat person. I don't like owning it. I, uh, I would be responsible for everybody's like safety. I would get out there and I would just have the worst time because I'm just sort of like so worried that I'm gonna kill someone. And I was like, this feels like someone else should be driving this thing. I should be able just to drink and like let the wind blow my hair back and so. And it's also boats are so much maintenance. It's like you finish going out and everyone gets to go home and then you gotta sit around for like an hour and a half hosing the fucking thing down and like flushing the, the engine out of like, I don't need nude chores. I don't, I don't like this. So I, I like let the boat rot for like an hour and a, like a year and a half at the end of my dock. I would just look at it and just,

• 52:49Speaker 02

  it'd make me feel terrible. So I'm like, I have no desire to use that thing I've spent money on and I would watch it fill with rainwater and particles grow on it and it was just a constant reminder of like, you know, you don't have hobbies. You don't even like going out on boats. So I sold that and got rid of that. And, uh, yeah, now that's what I'll do. I'll try to find what the next.

• 53:10Conan O'Brien?

  I love that you have a camouflage shirt and anyone who sees this on video, you're wearing a, a total camouflage hunting shirt, but I doubt you need it. I doubt that you do anything that requires you to wear camouflage.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  I, I, I want to, but yeah, I don't have it in me. Even, even, even honestly, even fishing to an extent, like everyone fishes down there. It's like, all right, I'll get into fishing. We have this koi pond in our front yard and there was like, we inherited when I bought the place, like koi fish there. And then this like fucking heron, this bird, started coming every day, would be on our roof, would come down and it would pick up the koi fish, but the koi fish are too big for it to eat. So they would just drop them on the, on the, leave them on the side of the ground. I would come home and there'd always be dead fish like leading up there and. I uh.

• 53:56Conan O'Brien?

  And birds just laughing at you.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  I started a straight up war with this bird where it was, it was the same one would come every day. And my wife and I had all these tricks, like I had like left my sons and again, I like left my sons like remote control car down there. And then every time I'd see it, I would turn the car on to chase it away. And then that evolved into just like Nerf guns. Where like that thing would come and I would just like run out there like lighting it up and uh, it it knew who I was.

• 54:21Conan O'Brien?

  I think you found your hobby. You have a hobby.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's it's fighting birds, saving koi fish.

• 54:27Conan O'Brien?

  Fighting birds without hurting them.

• 54:29Speaker 05

  Did you win? Did you get rid of them?

• 54:30Speaker 02

  Well, you know what was funny is like one day I went out there and I did, I lit that bird up. I I like, I I made full contact with that thing. It flew over the hedge and I went back in the house like, got him. The bird flew around to the back of the house and started banging on the window and shit all over the back of my deck. It was like, oh, he knew, he he knew.

• 54:50Conan O'Brien?

  Of course he knew, yeah.

• 54:53Conan O'Brien?

  Cut to the bird in a gun store.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's gonna even the score.

• 54:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, buying like a Nerf gun, you bring a real gun. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  But I think protecting those fish, I, there was a few times where I saved a few where I got home and the fish was still flopping on the ground. And I saw the scared look in its eye as I put it back in the water. I was like, I can never fish now. I've ruined it for myself.

• 55:15Conan O'Brien?

  I'm determined now to go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to Charleston, South Carolina and hang out and get the word out that I'm ready to hang with Danny McBride.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:22Conan O'Brien?

  But then it's just gonna be really fun that you don't reach out to me. And I know that you're just like six miles away.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  No, I'll reach out to you.

• 55:29Conan O'Brien?

  But what would we do?

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Well, there's a few good bars down the street from my house. We probably ride around in golf carts. Maybe we go on a ghost tour.

• 55:38Conan O'Brien?

  I would love that.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  I I, you know, the the area where I live, people cruise around on golf carts and it's uh, there's no hotels or anything out there. It gets pretty dark after night and like, I love to just like put the kids in the golf cart. And I literally just like play the soundtrack to The Shining and turn the lights in the golf cart on. And just cruise around the island.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  It it is, it is more frightening than what you could imagine.

• 56:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so, so how they doing these kids? I worry about them.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  They're in therapy, uh.

• 56:10Conan O'Brien?

  You said they haven't really grown much. And they're terrified all the time.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  I remember when we shot Land of the Lost here in Los Angeles. We were, that's like one of the only movies I ever worked on that shot on a back lot. That was what I thought all of Hollywood would be. Would be like you'd be on a, you know,

• 56:28Conan O'Brien?

  Sure.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  The studio and every movie would be shooting there. I think we were the only movie that was shooting in town that time on the Universal lot. And we would have all these late nights and Will Ferrell in your mind, I would get in golf carts at the, like, late at night on like, you know, on these night shoots and we would drive through Universal Studios when it was closed down and we would pull up in front of the Psycho House and one by one, you'd have to go up by yourself and knock on the door.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  And it seems so silly. It was scary as shit.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 57:05Conan O'Brien?

  That does sound scary.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  It was, it was. You would freak yourself out. There was no way after you knocked that you would not run back to the golf cart where everybody was.

• 57:13Conan O'Brien?

  And then quickly make some jokes like it wasn't that scary.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  And don't they have the mom in the window?

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they have her like, like a mannequin.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Not real.

• 57:21Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that might be, I think it's a working actress.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  She's just sitting there.

• 57:25Conan O'Brien?

  24/7.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  It's so creepy.

• 57:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. She was on a, she was on like Silver Spoons. And now that's what she does.

• 57:36Conan O'Brien?

  This has been an absolute blast. Absolute blast. You've been on our, how do we get, how do we get this man? He's never in LA. Just, I'm so happy that you were able to get yourself in here and met you in 2006 and right away was an instant fan. Like, and then everything just has, from a distance, I've just watched everything blow up since for you in all the best ways and I'm really happy. And Righteous Gemstones is hilarious and great and this is the final season?

• 58:10Speaker 02

  This is the final season. Wrapped it up this season. Yep. I think we've, I think it's our best one yet. I know everyone has to say that to get people to tune in, but I really do think that.

• 58:19Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I am so happy for you and I look forward to the day that I intrude on you.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Yes, please come down. I'll give you the real tour.

• 58:27Conan O'Brien?

  I would end up seriously, I mean, I'm a huge, I've been to Fort Sumter. I'm a real nerd. I've toured the, I know a little bit too much about, I've gone to the South and I've told people this. I took my wife on, when we were newly married, I took her on a drive through Georgia to look at Civil War landmarks and the marriage almost ended there.

• 58:51Conan O'Brien?

  So, so anyway, thank you so much for being here.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 58:57Conan O'Brien?

  Seriously, and get a hobby.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  I'll try to.

• 59:08Conan O'Brien?

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

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 59:12Conan 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.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 59:26Conan 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.

• 59:34Speaker 01

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

• 59:39Conan 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?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 59:59Conan 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.

• 1:00:34Conan O'Brien?

  We all have those pieces in our closet we can count on. Sona, I imagine for you it's that leather jacket I got you.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Are you gonna do a bit?

• 1:00:41Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, it's a really nice leather jacket I got you once.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  I had that and then I replaced it and yes, I use it all the time.

• 1:00:46Conan O'Brien?

  We all have that versatile jacket, the perfect T-shirt, and those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. And you know what I was thinking about this morning?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:00:56Conan O'Brien?

  Quince. They do it best. They really do. I was really thinking about this.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  What a coincidence that we're doing an ad for them.

• 1:01:01Conan O'Brien?

  No, a co-coincidence.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 1:01:06Conan O'Brien?

  That's why I get the big money.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  I gotta go.

• 1:01:08Conan O'Brien?

  Cut to very small amount of money. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials and designs that are timelessly thoughtful, crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And when the temperature starts to drop, Quince makes it easy to build on those everyday staples with versatile layers. Layer up. That's the key. Now, Blay, you're using some Quince.

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  That's right. I'm spending a lot of time back east in Michigan. It's getting a little colder, so I got a featherless quilted jacket in Atlas Navy, and I just feel like a different guy. I feel classy.

• 1:01:37Conan O'Brien?

  You look like a different guy because you're well-dressed.

• 1:01:40Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:01:41Conan O'Brien?

  No, I'm serious. He looks like a hobo half the time.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  That's true. He's right. That's true.

• 1:01:44Conan O'Brien?

  No, they really do great stuff. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:01:58Conan O'Brien?

  And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Please do that. Say, "By the way, I heard about this on Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend." "Oh, I didn't really ask. I just want you to know." It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:02:16Conan O'Brien?

  Sona, what are some of the things in life that really get you down?

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Uh, driving?

• 1:02:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  That's the first thing that popped in my head.

• 1:02:22Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I've seen you drive, and it's true. I'm always picking mailboxes out of your grill.

• 1:02:28Conan O'Brien?

  You're a creative driver. Uh, look, let's face it. Just living on Earth can be a lot, right?

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  It can.

• 1:02:34Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, oy vey, it's a lot.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Conan O'Brien?

  There's gravity, there's mosquitoes, there's this, you know that they say the sun is going to, at some point, go supernova and incinerate the Earth, probably in five billion years.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02:45Conan O'Brien?

  But watch your diet, we might be sticking around for that.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 1:02:48Conan O'Brien?

  So cosmically speaking, you've earned a break.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Conan O'Brien?

  And you know where this is going? I think you do.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:02:52Conan O'Brien?

  Pluto TV.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Oh, right, of course.

• 1:02:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, to escape all of these hassles in life, you gotta get Pluto TV. Turn off all your earthly problems and turn on the movies and shows you already love. You've seen them, but you wanna see them again. They're old friends.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:06Conan O'Brien?

  Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Dirty Dancing, Alias, X-Files. Pluto TV is completely free.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:03:12Conan O'Brien?

  These streamers, all these things cost so much money these days. And I won't mention that when I do an ad for them, but

• 1:03:19Conan O'Brien?

  no subscription, no fees, zero dollars. And as any mathematician will tell you, zero is one of the most profound numbers ever conceived. I was thinking about that this morning.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Wow, that's profound.

• 1:03:28Conan O'Brien?

  I really wasn't. The best thing on TV are free. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 1:03:40Conan O'Brien?

  A number of episodes ago, we talked about how you lost your beloved, and I think, long-term leather jacket.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:03:48Conan O'Brien?

  Well, weren't you in a long-term relationship with this leather jacket?

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  I bought it and I wore it a lot.

• 1:03:52Conan O'Brien?

  Aren't you burying the lead, which is she lost her house? She lost her house and her leather jacket was in the house.

• 1:03:58Speaker 04

  This is the first I've heard of that.

• 1:04:00Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, yeah, you're a real sensitive guy.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  My house burned down.

• 1:04:02Conan O'Brien?

  You lost, you lost your home in the Altadena fire.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:06Conan O'Brien?

  And, um, you are still living, you're living with your parents?

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:11Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, well, we won't get into that too much. There's some stress there, probably.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  It's okay.

• 1:04:15Conan O'Brien?

  It's all good. I love your mom, I love your dad.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:18Conan O'Brien?

  But your mom can be a bit much.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Ooh, I'm gonna clip it and show her.

• 1:04:23Conan O'Brien?

  Quoting you.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, what?

• 1:04:24Conan O'Brien?

  I, I love her. I don't know what your mom is with her.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  What did you say?

• 1:04:27Conan O'Brien?

  I love her.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:28Conan O'Brien?

  And I was quoting you when you said she, you know, you and your mom clash sometimes.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  We, we do, we clash.

• 1:04:32Conan O'Brien?

  Your two-strong personality is because you love each other very much.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  I adore my mom, but we have a generation. National divide and a, a, a, a cultural divide.

• 1:04:42Conan O'Brien?

  There you go. So anyway, house burns down.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:44Conan O'Brien?

  And among the things you lost was the leather jacket you've been wearing since the day I met you.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Conan O'Brien?

  You've had that jacket forever.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:04:52Conan O'Brien?

  Sometimes I would kid you about the jacket.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Sometimes.

• 1:04:55Conan O'Brien?

  You would wear it every day. You wouldn't mix it up too much.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Okay. I loved that jacket.

• 1:05:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and I'm sorry it went. And what did I do?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  What did I do?

• 1:05:06Conan O'Brien?

  I forget. I forget what I did.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  Okay, then I guess we have nothing else to talk about.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Okay, well, okay, so it's still, they still make this jacket and I found it and you very generously offered to buy me a new one. So I went with your credit card, which I have.

• 1:05:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yep, I know.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Bought a new jacket for myself.

• 1:05:26Conan O'Brien?

  I got an alert that this, uh, they were very suspicious of you using my card.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  Okay. And then, uh, but then I realized what I did was I just bought you like ammo for me.

• 1:05:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  And that's not, I don't know why I did that.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  That's why he did it in the first place.

• 1:05:42Conan O'Brien?

  I, there was a jacket I made fun of and then it was lost in this tragic fire. And I needed the jacket replaced immediately so I could make fun of the jacket.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  It's so ironic because you're sitting here in a leather jacket.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Speaker 04

  It's like I'm sitting with Mad Max and the Red Baron right now.

• 1:05:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:59Speaker 04

  This is amazing.

• 1:06:00Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, no, problem is not that it's a leather jacket. I love leather jackets. It's just that she only wore one jacket and I swear to God, you wore it to everything.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  I did wear it to, I, it fit me like a glove. It was like stretched in.

• 1:06:11Conan O'Brien?

  When your kids were christened in that beautiful church and I was the godfather. And it was a beautiful ceremony. I'm wearing a suit, Liza's wearing a dress, people are wearing robes, you're there, uh, wearing, uh, Dr. Zay's jacket from.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  Okay, come on. It's so cool. Don't I look cool in it though?

• 1:06:28Conan O'Brien?

  No one said, looks cool who says, don't I look cool?

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Yes, I do though. I look so cool in this.

• 1:06:33Conan O'Brien?

  It's a great jacket and I'm happy and you know what? I'm happy that you got this back.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too. I am too. It really felt good. A lot of the things that we lost, we've been trying to find versions of it and.

• 1:06:44Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, what you, there is one thing in particular, isn't there that you got? Size lost a poster. What is it?

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  A cell, an animation cell from King of the Hill.

• 1:06:53Conan O'Brien?

  Oh.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  That Tac loved. And so it's the first time I've ever really done this. I asked Greg Daniels.

• 1:07:00Conan O'Brien?

  My old writing partner and good friend.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  And who I've gotten to know really well over the last few years and not few years, but

• 1:07:07Conan O'Brien?

  Many years.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Very long time I've been working for you. And I asked him, I said, do you have any or know where I could get one? And he gave Tac the exact one that he lost and it felt like it was just coming back from the dead.

• 1:07:19Conan O'Brien?

  Greg, you're a mensch. He's a really good guy.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  It was really nice.

• 1:07:23Conan O'Brien?

  Shout out to Greg Daniels.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:24Conan O'Brien?

  That's so nice. So you're so slowly you're going to rebuild your life by getting back some of the objects.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I lost a hundred thousand dollars.

• 1:07:32Conan O'Brien?

  That's a lie. You're just lying now. Ask for more. And guess what? It had real sentimental value.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  It was all special bills.

• 1:07:41Conan O'Brien?

  I remember you, that paper bag of hundred thousand dollars, it was a hundred thousand dollars. It meant so much to you.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  It was special to me and I really wish I had it again.

• 1:07:50Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I guess there's one thing we can do.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  What are you gonna do?

• 1:07:54Conan O'Brien?

  Get some Monopoly boards. Get a lot of fake money and put it together.

• 1:08:01Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I'll, I bet you there are a bunch of things we could go through and, and, and get back.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  I hope so. I mean, it is, it does feel like you're bringing things back from the dead, which is cool. This jacket meant a lot. I loved this jacket and I really thank you for doing it, although I do know you're, you're just doing it.

• 1:08:16Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  So you could keep the riff going.

• 1:08:18Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's part of the reason I did it, but there's 10% of it. 90% was keep the riff going so I can continue to bash away at you. And then there's 10%, which is I love you and I want you to be happy.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  That's very nice. Thank you.

• 1:08:31Conan O'Brien?

  But 90% total.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:34Conan O'Brien?

  You know, guns blazing.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:08:35Conan O'Brien?

  Gotta get you.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 1:08:37Conan O'Brien?

  Make you feel bad.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  I sure, I know, I know.

• 1:08:39Conan O'Brien?

  Well, so you had a happy ending. Yes. And did you, you didn't lose anything in the fire, did you?

• 1:08:45Speaker 04

  I'm sorry to say I didn't.

• 1:08:48Conan O'Brien?

  It is weird. There's a survivor's guilt.

• 1:08:49Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Is there really?

• 1:08:51Conan O'Brien?

  I'm telling you, there is. There is totally a survivor's guilt in LA right now. And when I've, I mean, I've talked about this, but I've been very open about the fact that fire got really close to my house and filled it with smoke and I'm still not back in it. We've been out since the fire, so it's been months now since I've lived in my house and it all has to get cleaned out and everything, but you can't, there's nothing, I'm just still, I'm grateful. I'm very grateful that my house still exists. And if I ever catch myself saying to anybody, "My sneakers, my Brooks sneakers got a little, they, they have good art support for when I run and, well, they got a little smoky. And so they

• 1:09:34Conan O'Brien?

  have to be wiped off because they got smoky." And then you're, you're probably standing next to somebody who lost their house.

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  I know, yeah.

• 1:09:44Conan O'Brien?

  So keep my mouth shut.

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  You lost your house. You can't go back to your house. That's why I feel like I have guilt all around, survivor's guilt all around. I feel like I want to sleep in a tent in my front yard.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  You should.

• 1:09:54Speaker 04

  No, that's going too far.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  You should.

• 1:09:56Speaker 04

  I can't.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  It would feel really good.

• 1:09:58Conan O'Brien?

  And you should fill it with smoke.

• 1:10:02Conan O'Brien?

  Toxic smoke. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad that you, we got that back and we'll get other things back. You'll see.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:10:07Conan O'Brien?

  Peace out. Tupac.

• 1:11:18Speaker 06

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• 1:11:48Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there, Conan O'Brien here to tell you how you can get even more from me and many of your other favorite shows. If you want to be the first to hear new episodes ad-free and a whole week early, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com/podcastplus to start your free trial today. Now, I'm excited to give those of you who want a chance to listen early a chance to do so, because I know you just can't wait a whole extra week to hear my beautiful, reedy,

• 1:12:26Conan O'Brien?

  annoying voice. So go subscribe and be the first to listen right now.