For the Love of Butts

Conan talks to Broadway producer Sean from Issaquah, Washington about switching career paths to the arts later in life and how he’d pitch Conan O’Brien Need a Friend: The Musical. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: teamcoco.com/apply

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

• 0:02Conan 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?

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:15Conan O'Brien?

  You know, when you own a house, you gotta fix it yourself. Sona.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:17Conan O'Brien?

  You see this to be true, right?

• 0:19Speaker 01

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

• 0:22Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:26Speaker 01

  It's mine, dude!

• 0:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Liberty Mutual customizes your car and home insurance to save you money. In fact, they work overtime to tailor 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.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Liberty, liberty, liberty.

• 0:41Conan O'Brien?

  Liberty, liberty. It's in my head all the time.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Liberty. Yeah, me too.

• 0:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Start your quote at libertymutual.com.

• 0:49Conan O'Brien?

  Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is so good, it's almost impossible not to finish it before the meal arrives. It's just too good to wait. That happens to me sometimes.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 0:58Conan O'Brien?

  You can try rules like no sipping until the appetizer arrives, or you tell your friend, "Don't let me touch my glass," but every time you're staring at an empty glass. So if you've ever finished your Coke Zero before the first fry hits the table, you're among friends. It happens. Occupational hazard with Coke Zero.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16Conan O'Brien?

  Real Coca-Cola taste, zero sugar, too good to wait. Enjoy an ice cold Coca-Cola Zero Sugar today.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan. Wanna talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com/callconan. Okay, let's get started.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Hi, Sean. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan.

• 1:39Conan O'Brien?

  Hello, Sean. How are you?

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Could it be better? How are you guys doing?

• 1:42Conan O'Brien?

  We're doing very well. Sean, I'm gonna cut right to the chase. You've been kind enough to zoom in to us. It says here that you were from Issaquah, Washington. Is that correct?

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Correct. You said it perfectly. Yep.

• 1:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. My wife is from Seattle, so I'm in, I spend a lot of time in the state of Washington. I love it there. Beautiful.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  It's beautiful, yeah.

• 2:02Conan O'Brien?

  Now, let's get to the meat of this subject right here, sir. It says here that you were a Broadway producer. And I always think of the cliche, a guy with a cigar. Do you know what I mean? Someone prowling the streets, looking for the next big Broadway musical. Is that you to a T?

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, like Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick. Yeah, definitely. Just running schemes on old ladies.

• 2:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah. Are you always saying, put music to that and you got something?

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:31Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my God, it says here, well, I see Tony Awards behind you, unless those are fake. How many Tony Awards do you have?

• 2:38Speaker 02

  In a way. So my husband and I, Paul Danforth is my husband, and we started doing this a year and a half together. We won one Tony last year.

• 2:47Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, you've been doing this for, hold on, hold on, sir. You've been doing this for a year and a half with your husband, and you have a Tony already?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we're good. We're gonna move on to something else next. Horse racing, or I don't know.

• 3:01Conan O'Brien?

  You should look into a microscope one time and win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  That's how it works, right?

• 3:09Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, what did you win a Tony Award for?

• 3:11Speaker 02

  I think you saw it, Death of a Salesman with Nathan Lane, and yeah.

• 3:15Conan O'Brien?

  It was fantastic. It was amazing.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  It was incredible, and Laurie.

• 3:19Conan O'Brien?

  Laurie Metcalf.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Metcalf, thank you, yeah.

• 3:23Conan O'Brien?

  You should learn the cast.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Whoever she is. Thank you.

• 3:25Conan O'Brien?

  No, I was blown away by that show. It was spectacular. And, I mean, Nathan Lane was amazing. I think Laurie Metcalf, single-handedly, she like transformed that role. I mean, she gave it a whole different urgency. It was amazing. It was great. Congratulations.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Thank you. Yeah, it had been done so many times. People were like, do we need another one? And clearly we did. It was pretty. So this is actually, I'm at a friend's office, who's like one of the most prolific directors in Broadway. So he said, I can show you as if it's mine, but this is his, but mine's at home.

• 3:59Conan O'Brien?

  I don't want to see someone else's Tony.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  It's fine. You can't see the back.

• 4:03Conan O'Brien?

  No, I don't want, I don't, no, it's no. No, uh-uh. Uh-uh. No.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Oh no, this one's mine. This one's mine. Sorry, yeah, this one's mine.

• 4:12Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yay! Hi, I'm easily fooled. Wow, that's spectacular. So congratulations to you.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 4:22Conan O'Brien?

  This world fascinates me because I know absolutely nothing about it. My wife, very much into theater. I like to go and see shows, but I don't understand what it means to be a producer. What are you working on now?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, we got some stuff coming over. We've got Paddington coming over from London.

• 4:38Conan O'Brien?

  You're gonna do a Paddington show? Great, great.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, it opens in April. It's one of the biggest hits they've had in London in decades, really. It's sold out almost to half of next year.

• 4:48Conan O'Brien?

  Is it the one with the little animatronic, kind of robotic Paddington? Wow.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  So it's, we have a little person in a suit, and then the head is mechanical, and the person who's doing the voice is on the side of the stage. They control the mouth while they do the speaking.

• 5:02Conan O'Brien?

  Excuse me, I met the person who plays Paddington in the Paddington outfit, and the person who does the voice. And I'm trying to think of, this is an insane thing to say, I don't know where I.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  It was Nathan Lane.

• 5:14Conan O'Brien?

  No, yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  You were Good Morning America. David Hoppin told me.

• 5:17Conan O'Brien?

  Where was I?

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Good Morning America.

• 5:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, that's right. Okay, I was on Good Morning America, and I was told there are some very special people that want to meet you out in the hallway. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. I go out in the hallway, and there's Paddington, and this other person. I got to meet them, get my picture. It was very neat. I'm a huge Paddington fan.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Wouldn't it be cool if you played Paddington? And instead of like, you know, a smaller version, it's like a six.

• 5:40Conan O'Brien?

  Six foot four inch.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  He just plays the marmalade.

• 5:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Six foot four inch jar, a six foot four inch jar of marmalade. And I come out and I go. I'm way too sweet for those breakfast treats. People prefer jam, but I'm such a ham.

• 6:02Conan O'Brien?

  You owe me a piece if you... What other musicals are you working on?

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Well, the one that I'm really excited, we're gonna do the heated rivalry. On offer on musical parades.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Sona! Sona! Is that the one that's playing in LA, in LA right now, or is that a?

• 6:17Speaker 02

  No, that's a different one.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 6:20Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, Sona!

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Sona!

• 6:22Conan O'Brien?

  You're a terrible interviewer.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I am. I shouldn't talk.

• 6:25Conan O'Brien?

  A lawyer should never say anything in court when they don't know the answer.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 6:29Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's a terrible one I've heard.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  It's, this one's off-Broadway, and we're also opening in London today, actually while we record this. So we're all over the place.

• 6:38Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, you really don't have, you don't really mind the store, do you?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  No!

• 6:42Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, he's gone!

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Ah!

• 6:44Conan O'Brien?

  Oh! That was dramatic.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like to add a little flair to the whole show.

• 6:50Conan O'Brien?

  You are a good producer. This is gonna get fixed.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Wait, was that an intermission?

• 6:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I went, I went and stood in a long line for the bathroom, used it and came back. And then Sean reappeared. We had a technical difficulty. Sean was gone momentarily, but he's back now. And you just dropped a massive bombshell. The biggest heated rivalry fan in the world sits next to me, Sona Movsesian, and you.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Well, not the biggest, yeah.

• 7:13Conan O'Brien?

  You are.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  I am pretty big.

• 7:14Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you came in, I think before it was, I think you were looking at dailies when they were shooting it. And you kept coming in and talking about butts.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in a bush while they were shooting it, just watching with binoculars.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  You were in the what?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  In a bush.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  In the what?

• 7:27Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, take it easy, Sean.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Oh, no, damn it, Sean! Get your head out of the gutter.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Let the man have his fun. It's heated rivalry.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  We've sent your video of you talking about how much you loved it to everyone in the cast. And yeah, you're very famous for your love of butts.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Famous for her love of butts.

• 7:49Conan O'Brien?

  Heated rivalry.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  My legacy.

• 7:51Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Sona Movsesian.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Love of butts.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Known for her love of butts.

• 7:55Conan O'Brien?

  The only way to get Sona to watch like Head of Gabler, or some, you know, some really, some really important work of theater is to have a lot of butts in it.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Put a butt in it. Put a butt in it.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Like in Death of a Salesman, there were butts everywhere.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Ah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that version.

• 8:15Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, so a lot of questions here. It says that you used to be a lawyer.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Yes, I still technically can practice, but I don't like conflict, I realized.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  And yet you're doing a show called Heated Rivalry. Wow.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I like that. It does a good ending to that.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Which is in itself, in a heated rivalry with another production of Heated Rivalry.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, we don't talk about that other one.

• 8:39Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, yeah, again, I think you're taking us, you two are terrible at this.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  But I just wonder if we can quantify which one has more butts.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Oh, ours, for sure.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:48Conan O'Brien?

  They have a giant butt that comes out of the floor and sings, "I'm just a butt."

• 8:55Speaker 02

  We added.

• 8:55Conan O'Brien?

  I had a bigger part, but it was cut.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  I'm just a butt, yeah.

• 9:00Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just a butt. So.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. I was a lawyer. I didn't like it. And then I just got my mid 40s and I was like, you know, I want to have a change of career. I lost both my parents during that time.

• 9:10Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, sorry about that.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had about 11 years sober. It's kind of this moment of like, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? And so we decided to get into the arts and it's been the best decision we've made.

• 9:22Conan O'Brien?

  Now, you, you say that you encourage people to invest in shows. Is that, is that part of your job is to get people to invest? Is it something that you, I mean, I've never invested. Well, I've never invested.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  That's why I'm here, actually.

• 9:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I've never invested in a, in a show and I've always been curious about that part of it. How does it work? How would you get me to invest in, say, the heated rivalry musical?

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Unauthorized musical parody before we get HBO coming at us.

• 9:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Yes. So it's, most producers raise money. My husband and I, we actually put all our own money in, which just makes it a little bit more. I don't have the personality to go raise money from other people, you know, I'd be, I'd be so worried about their money. More than I would my own, if that makes sense. I just don't have that personality to be like, hey, guys, sorry, the show. Cause with Broadway shows, if they go down, you lose everything. It's not like, you know, like in the stock market, Amazon's not going to go to zero, right? So there'll still be some sort of, there'll be something left. But in Broadway, you can lose your entire investment. It's pretty, pretty common to, too. So the old saying is you can make a killing, but you can't make a living.

• 10:34Conan O'Brien?

  So why are you doing it this way?

• 10:39Conan O'Brien?

  Why don't you get other people to invest their money in it and do the best you can?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Well, I couldn't just turn to people and just say, sorry, I lost all your money.

• 10:49Conan O'Brien?

  Well, you don't have to call them and tell them that. You just don't return their calls.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Ghosted?

• 10:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. No one, no one calls and says, I'm sorry, I lost you all your money. You just, but first of all, they go to, they go to your, they try to call you, they don't get you. They go to your office. It's not your office anymore. It's a laundromat. They do the classic thing and they say, I swear, there was a bank of telephones here and there was a guy over there. And the policeman goes, cuckoo, cuckoo. And you're off the hook. You're in the, you're in Bermuda, you know?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  And what we've, what we've liked so much about like heated, these smaller shows is that we get to have a little more say. It's not just raising money. We actually get to be a little bit more in the creative development part of it and like, make decisions about where it's going to go and if it's going to tour and all that stuff.

• 11:32Conan O'Brien?

  You get to choose the butts.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  More butts, more butts.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  We get to do the audition, which is just great. I mean, we just have auditions for fun.

• 11:39Conan O'Brien?

  Do you have, do you have butt calipers to? I have a pair.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  When you're a beginner, I can just eyeball it now.

• 11:47Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, but at the beginning, at the beginning, you have to use butt calipers. And then later on, your eyesight adjusts, you know?

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Like 100%, yeah.

• 11:56Conan O'Brien?

  I carry them on the subway in New York.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  You do?

• 11:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it doesn't go over well. People are like, excuse me. And I went, uh, do you want an accurate measurement or not?

• 12:12Conan O'Brien?

  Your name represents everything you've built, okay? Everything, like I feel that way about my name.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:17Conan O'Brien?

  It stands for all of the work, good and not so good in my life. But guess what? Your children's names represent their whole futures.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:26Conan O'Brien?

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• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:48Conan O'Brien?

  Well, guess what? With LifeLock, you can add family members to your plan, giving you the power to block identity threats targeting your children. Now, Sony, your kids are pretty young still.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  They are.

• 12:57Conan O'Brien?

  Five, but within a couple of years, you know, they're going to be buying heavy machinery online.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  What?

• 13:03Conan O'Brien?

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• 13:27Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, I want to try something different.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  What?

• 13:30Conan O'Brien?

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

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 13:34Conan O'Brien?

  Every morning.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:35Conan O'Brien?

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

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, fall is the perfect season to try something new, like joining T-Mobile.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Oh, that's good.

• 13:42Conan O'Brien?

  See what I did?

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:43Conan O'Brien?

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

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:47Conan O'Brien?

  They're America's best network.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:49Conan 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.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Oh, that's weird.

• 13:57Conan O'Brien?

  When I'm thinking about like making apple cider 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.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  You travel a lot.

• 14:07Conan O'Brien?

  Travel show that I do.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:08Conan 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.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  That doesn't seem like a good idea.

• 14:20Conan O'Brien?

  It's a great idea.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:21Conan O'Brien?

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

• 14:26Speaker 01

  My god.

• 14:27Conan O'Brien?

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

• 14:31Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 14:31Conan O'Brien?

  T-Mobile is stacking up reasons to join. Go to tmobile.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 US where you can see the sky. High-speed international data with qualifying plan. Visit tmobile.com, consult a physician. I just threw that in there.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:00Conan O'Brien?

  Sony, you have to admit, the holidays, it's really about hanging with the people you love.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:06Conan O'Brien?

  And getting to be yourself, not going to some stuffy holiday party where you need to conform to what the man wants you to think about the holidays.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's about being yourself. Turn your holiday time into Miller time by enjoying a Miller Lite in a place where you're free to enjoy yourself on a walk with a cousin. With a cousin? Why are they getting all specific about? But what about a niece or a nephew?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:31Conan O'Brien?

  Like a walk with an ex-wife? I don't know. I mean, they're just throwing, that's a weird, they just made a very specific choice.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:38Conan O'Brien?

  Now's the time for those unexpected holiday side guests and enjoy a great tasting light beer. 'Tis Miller time, as Dickens wrote. Miller Lite is brewed for taste, the taste you can depend on. The original light beer since 1975 and still iconic more than 50 years later. I like to be with my bros, my chums, my posse, crack open a Miller Lite, take a swig, a sip, look around and see my friends. We've known each other forever and we're just hanging out.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, you guys are just doing chest bumps and high-fiving.

• 16:08Conan O'Brien?

  Miller Lite is great taste done right. Go to millerlite.com/conan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. 'Tis Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

• 16:24Speaker 04

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• 17:00Conan O'Brien?

  I've secretly harbored a, a dream all my life to have a part in a, in a Broadway musical. Just a, you know, I don't have to be the star, but just a part in a Broadway musical. Is there anything for me in heated rivalry?

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Yes, actually. We actually bring up an audience member to play Scott Hunter.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Yes. And so you could do the Conan, you're booked.

• 17:20Conan O'Brien?

  What does that mean?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Let me know.

• 17:20Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know who Scott, yeah. The vampire slayer?

• 17:23Speaker 01

  He plays for the New York team.

• 17:24Conan O'Brien?

  And?

• 17:25Speaker 01

  He had a standalone episode in the series.

• 17:27Conan O'Brien?

  But what's his, what's his vibe?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  He's another, he's like kind of a veteran hockey player and he's, he has a really big moment in episode five.

• 17:36Conan O'Brien?

  This is good. I am, I, I am older than most hockey players currently in the NFL, so I could play a veteran.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  The NFL?

• 17:45Speaker 01

  But he's gay.

• 17:45Conan O'Brien?

  NHL, the NHL.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is, he's gay.

• 17:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Can you, have you ever played hockey?

• 17:50Conan O'Brien?

  No.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, all right.

• 17:54Conan O'Brien?

  Have you ever acted in a Broadway musical? Never have. I've never, I've never played hockey.

• 18:01Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm not gay and I've never had a, any kind of experience playing, you know, in a Broadway musical. But I think for all those three reasons, I'm the perfect person to play this guy. Is his name, you said Chip Wallingford? I'm not good with names.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Yep. Chip, no, Scott Hunter. And then we had the song they sing is he's the hottest, oldest guy I've ever seen. So that would work for you.

• 18:25Conan O'Brien?

  I do.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  At least the first part.

• 18:26Conan O'Brien?

  When people tell me I'm hot, which doesn't happen often, they always have a qualifier. So people always say, now, hear me out. Let me tell you why I find you attractive. And then there's a 40-minute explanation. And it sounds like those things they have to say in a prescription ad.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 18:44Conan O'Brien?

  They rattle off, may cause diarrhea.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Diarrhea, may cause, yeah.

• 18:47Conan O'Brien?

  Well, this is exciting. You've got an exciting life. This is, this guy is impressive. You and your husband, you dabbled in this, for lack of a better term, and you immediately got a tone. Do you live in Washington or New York?

• 18:58Speaker 02

  We live out in Washington.

• 19:00Conan O'Brien?

  Does that make it difficult?

• 19:01Speaker 02

  But we're here so much, I think we're getting an apartment out here soon. It's a lot of traveling.

• 19:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I noticed when I was in New York, this is, I travel with my, my other assistant. I mean, Sony does some things now, but she's mostly out hocking her own book and being a superstar.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Oh, god.

• 19:16Conan O'Brien?

  You know, occasionally you call me and say, yeah, I got a call six weeks ago that your, your dog is missing.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  I'm saying that with so much resentment that I'm thriving. Okay, that's fine.

• 19:25Conan O'Brien?

  David Hopping traveled with me to New York. I just there and between David and just random people I would meet on the street, they would rattle off all the Broadway shows they're seeing, because I chat up everyone. They're all TV shows, movies. I'll say like, what, what shows are you seeing? They say, well, we just came from, you know, Stranger Things. We're going right now to see, and then again, TV show.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Oh, The Lost Boys.

• 19:53Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, Lost Boys, yes. Lost Boys is huge.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're producers on that, yeah.

• 19:57Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, wow. Plug yourself much? Okay.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got, I got a whole bunch of them.

• 20:02Conan O'Brien?

  No, but people.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's it right now.

• 20:04Conan O'Brien?

  People said to me, we're going to go, and then we're going to wash it down with some serious theater. We're going to see is a new production of the, the House, The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Is a, is a, is a very serious play now. What's happened? You know, yes, there's, for every Death of the Salesman now, there's 35 TV shows and movies, but it's what people want to see.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Funny you say that. We actually have a show coming this spring with the Housewives.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  I was totally kidding. Are they the real Housewives? Or are you having actors playing? Wow.

• 20:33Conan O'Brien?

  But wait a minute. You're getting people who aren't even stage performers to be on stage?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Those are a lot of them are former actresses. Yeah. They're all, a lot of them were like old soap actresses and stuff. Like Lisa, I mean, I can't say, but.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Lisa Rinna?

• 20:48Speaker 02

  I didn't say that.

• 20:49Conan O'Brien?

  No one says Lisa Rinna here. He said Lisa Reh and then stopped himself and said, I can't say anything.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  And I've just exhausted my full knowledge of the Housewives.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's not, it's not just the New York Housewives? It's like all the Housewives?

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it'll be, actually, it'll be announced in about a week or so. Yeah, it'll be.

• 21:06Conan O'Brien?

  I think you just announced it.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  They're from all, I did, I know.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  It's like summer camp where they come all around.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  All the different cities.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  What?

• 21:13Speaker 03

  A convention of different cities.

• 21:14Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, wait a minute. Let me pitch you something, Sean.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:19Conan O'Brien?

  What about a Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend musical starring Conan O'Brien, Son of Sesi and Matt Gourley and the team? And we come out, I can belt a tune, you know I can, and I've got moves, like Jagger. This is, not that Jagger, different. His name's Wilford Jagger.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  You have jagged moves.

• 21:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:44Conan O'Brien?

  So, my point is.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, how would you envision that?

• 21:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, what would the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend musical look like? What's your producer hat on? Let's hear it.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I've thought about this. So it's gonna start with you guys getting ready for the podcast.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  What'd you say it starts out?

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Like you guys are like getting ready to start the podcast, right? You guys are doing all your shticky stuff, you know, and like talking. Then it's gonna pop back in time to how each one of you guys came into Conan's orbit. So we'll get like the origin story of each one of you. And then, and each one, the music will be associated with kind of how you see yourselves. So like, Sona's would be like probably early 2000s pop, like, you know, fun, Cher. Matt's would be, I don't know, bluegrass or something, I don't know.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, this misconception of me.

• 22:29Conan O'Brien?

  Sean, he was blowing on a jug in a band. And he wasn't in the band. He brought his own jug.

• 22:37Conan O'Brien?

  But yeah, I meet them and then I do that thing where I meet Adam Sacks and he says, I think you could do a podcast. And I go, what's your name? And he goes, Sacks is the name and podcasting's the game. And I say, well, I'm Conan. And then we shook hands on a street corner in New Jersey. And then Adam said, we should probably go draw up the newspapers, the papers, the contracts. And I said, you don't need a contract. We just shook hands. And then I looked out at an audience that wasn't there and said, that's a Jersey contract. And the crowd went crazy. It was in my head. And that's an actual line from the four seasons.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Oh, Jersey Boys?

• 23:13Conan O'Brien?

  From Jersey Boys that enraged me. Because the entire crowd, what was from Jersey, all leapt to their feet cheering. And I thought, fuck you. Everyone in Jersey sues each other and everyone needs a contract. You're just, you're all cheering an idea that was just presented to you that you'd like to believe.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Wait, so every, every story has to have the second act fall?

• 23:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  What is that gonna be? What happens? What's our crisis?

• 23:36Conan O'Brien?

  I know what it is. I realize that you're a permanent hire.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 23:41Conan O'Brien?

  And there's like no, what are we gonna do now?

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Or it could just be the fact that we realize we have to do this thing. And how tragic that is.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  I wanna hear what Sean wants.

• 23:50Conan O'Brien?

  Before Sean speaks, and he's an expert on this, I have to keep talking.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:54Conan O'Brien?

  Because it's what I do and I've had a lot of coffee and I just got off a flight. I think, tell me if I'm wrong, Sean, the second half is this thing blew up, which it did. It gets really big. Suddenly we're doing live shows. Suddenly Sona's writing books. Suddenly Gourley is buying more expensive tweed suits. And, and, and more, and more vintage ventriloquist dummies. And, and, you know, it's getting crazy and I'm out there. I'm, my marriage is in trouble because I'm just, you know, just, I'm out there with podcast fans all the time. I'm straying.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Groupies.

• 24:28Conan O'Brien?

  Groupies. I'm with podcast groupies. And they're like, do that ad read again. And I'm like, okay, one more time.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Oh my god. Oh my god.

• 24:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, so.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Miller Lite.

• 24:38Conan O'Brien?

  Do the Miller Lite again. Hey.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Bidet, the bidet one.

• 24:42Conan O'Brien?

  Do the bidet ad again, but, but take your pants off, you know? And so, that's, the second act is, the first act ends with this thing, you know, launching. The second act is it takes off and then it gets crazy and there's all kinds of infighting and, you know, quarreling. And then the third act is we mourn what happened to Adam Sacks.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  What happened to him?

• 25:06Conan O'Brien?

  Well, a crazed fan. Embezzling, he fled the country.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  No, Adam.

• 25:12Conan O'Brien?

  But he thought he had fled the country, but instead he just went to a different part of the United States. He's so provincial.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  He went to Epcot.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  He went to a different part of New Jersey.

• 25:21Conan O'Brien?

  He fled to, yeah, he fled to Epcot and said, good luck getting me now. I'm in China.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  There's no extradition here.

• 25:28Conan O'Brien?

  They arrested him in Anaheim after he had taunted the police.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Wait a minute.

• 25:33Conan O'Brien?

  Are you writing this down, Sean?

• 25:35Speaker 02

  I have it all, but we couldn't get the rights to Epcot from Disney, so it has to be a fake name.

• 25:39Conan O'Brien?

  Trust me, I'm in Toy Story 5. Disney does what I say now.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I used to work there. I got a lot of strings I can pull.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't sing, dance, or act. I'm guessing.

• 25:49Conan O'Brien?

  You're perfect for modern Broadway.

• 25:54Conan O'Brien?

  Shots fired. Isn't that what kids say? Oh, come on, please.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Shots fired.

• 25:58Conan O'Brien?

  We're gonna see the Housewives of Atlanta musical and I'm gonna judge pretty harshly. If it comes out.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  It's gonna be a play.

• 26:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  If it comes out.

• 26:06Conan O'Brien?

  It's just gonna turn into the vagina monologues. That's what's gonna happen.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  I hate, I hate, what is it? I hate monologue, what is it? I hate ventriloquists. That's the old joke about vagina monologues.

• 26:16Conan O'Brien?

  What was it?

• 26:17Speaker 02

  I hate ventriloquism.

• 26:19Conan O'Brien?

  God.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Cause you can.

• 26:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, let's not go there.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:23Conan O'Brien?

  Sean, you're, Sean, you're canceled.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Butts, vaginas.

• 26:26Conan O'Brien?

  Nice.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  This podcast had everything.

• 26:28Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, we learned a lot here. Sean, what do you think the second act is?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Well, I thought, I mean, I was gonna end the whole show having to be you saying, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend as your first episode.

• 26:38Conan O'Brien?

  Boo.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  I didn't know we were, that would be the first act then. Second act, Sona goes off like, you know, like the Supremes, kind of becomes her own celebrity. And there's all that tension in the group, kind of like Dreamgirls, you know, she's too big for us.

• 26:50Conan O'Brien?

  Sean, if you thought the first, if the entire play was all about us in pre-production, you should not put your own money into these things. I'm telling you, I've got it right. First act, we make, we come together. Second act, meteoric rise, terrible fall. What's that?

• 27:06Speaker 01

  I say, he has, he has a Tony. That's all I just said. In a year, in a year. Okay.

• 27:09Conan O'Brien?

  Sure, yeah, yeah. Okay, we don't even know if it's real.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  You know a guy named Tony, don't you?

• 27:12Conan O'Brien?

  I know a guy named Tony. And by the way, all we know is that he is in an office with a bunch of other people's Tonys right now. That's his claim to fame.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, he lives in Washington, for Christ's sake.

• 27:22Conan O'Brien?

  I bought an Oscar in Times Square.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  The security's trying to break into the office right now and kick me out. Yeah.

• 27:28Conan O'Brien?

  That's it. And then I just don't know what the third act is yet, but we'll figure that out.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  It can't end on the deaths.

• 27:33Conan O'Brien?

  No, no.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Or Adam.

• 27:34Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, Adam's gonna be, Adam's not gonna die, but I do think that maybe Sona loses her way and runs off. And Gourley and I have to find Sona in the third act and like bring her back. And.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Did you find, like where you found her, didn't you find her washed ashore? Is that the lore of Sona?

• 27:55Conan O'Brien?

  Well, Sean, if you're, if you're referring to my now infamous Rolling Stone quote, that I found Sona because she was, she was being, I think you were in a goat attack.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  My father was in a goat attack.

• 28:06Conan O'Brien?

  A goat attack. And you were a baby and he wrapped you into a basket that he made quickly.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:10Conan O'Brien?

  And, and sailed you off the island of Romania.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Landlocked country. Okay, yeah, that's fine.

• 28:16Conan O'Brien?

  That's your fault. And then floated all the way to California where I found her and taught her English by showing her game shows. Okay, this is maybe our stupidest fan interaction, but one of my favorites.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  One of my favorites.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  We have, and what's funny is we have all the Housewives coming to these serious shows, but then that Off-Broadway, A Heated Rival, it's written by a guy named Dylan Markorel from Harvard.

• 28:37Conan O'Brien?

  Oh yeah, that's, wow, that's, he's in elite category. They let anyone in there now.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  We got Troy Awata, who's from The Daily Show. He's one of the correspondents from there. And Jay Armstrong Johnson, a big Broadway star. So like we've got like these, these big people in the small Off-Broadway shows because we've got the Housewives leading the Broadway shows.

• 28:55Conan O'Brien?

  I see what you're doing. You're now.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  That's kind of what we've been having too.

• 28:57Conan O'Brien?

  You're now shoring up the credibility of this next scam. I love it. I think it's great.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Who's playing us? Or are we, we're?

• 29:04Conan O'Brien?

  No, he's talking about real Housewives.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  I know.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  I know, but in our, in our musical, I think.

• 29:07Conan O'Brien?

  First of all, we play us.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  We do.

• 29:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:10Conan O'Brien?

  And then we do podcasts during the day when we're cooling our heels and reading our boffo reviews.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  What if the third act is us actually recording an episode that then goes out?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  So each person, each audience gets a different third act.

• 29:22Conan O'Brien?

  I was so rooting for you to have a bad idea and you had a great idea.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can I do the, can, can we sing it in the rain me? Like have someone who actually has talent talk for me?

• 29:32Conan O'Brien?

  Like we do here on the podcast? Let's bring her out.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  You're talking a Texas switch.

• 29:40Conan O'Brien?

  Let's get Selma Thacker out here.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  A verbal Texas switch.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm just mouthing it and she's actually, you know,

• 29:47Conan O'Brien?

  I think.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  talented.

• 29:49Conan O'Brien?

  First of all, that's a great idea and the more I talk about this, the more I think this could be

• 29:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:53Conan O'Brien?

  our podcast, given the way that Broadway has changed, it could be a Broadway musical.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  It's innovative because it's Broadway and podcasting and they're meeting and they're both happening.

• 30:05Conan O'Brien?

  Right. And again, I have to just.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  Well said.

• 30:09Conan O'Brien?

  I'm a song and dance man. You know I am. I can croon, I can belt, I've got the moves.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  I have theater experience. I've done many Shakespeare shows. This is gonna cook.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  I can lip sync. I can lip sync.

• 30:20Conan O'Brien?

  Weren't you just mostly showing people to their seats?

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I have.

• 30:25Conan O'Brien?

  We're gonna have ushers. They have ushers.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  No, no, let me do it. Let me shine, boss.

• 30:29Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, all right. Hey, you know what? You're in the show and you're great in the show because you are a very funny performer, but you also show people to their seats. That's another hook.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  I'm the producer of the podcast and I have to bring people in.

• 30:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  You know?

• 30:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  It's gonna work. This is big.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  You're cutting costs. I like this. This is good.

• 30:44Conan O'Brien?

  And then Adam comes out at the top of every show and you do, and you just talk about how there's gonna be dynamic ad insertion.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  That's what the audience wants to know.

• 30:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and please, during the dynamic ad insertion, no one make any noise.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:58Conan O'Brien?

  Okay?

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Is there gonna be an Eduardo and a Blay?

• 31:00Speaker 03

  They are them.

• 31:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 31:01Conan O'Brien?

  They're in it. No, no, Blay is gonna be played by someone in that giant marshmallow costume from Ghostbusters.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

• 31:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, he's gonna be in that costume and just running around in the background and every night he dies in a different way.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  He's like Kenny from South Park.

• 31:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's like Kenny on South Park. Yeah, okay. This is, I'm not kidding. Sean, we're gonna have follow-up calls. Anyone listening right now, don't get any ideas because we have to register this idea today.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and Sean, are you in?

• 31:29Speaker 02

  I'm gonna raise money for this for the first time. I'm not putting my own in.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  You heard it.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  But, um.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  That's a Jersey contract.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  That's a Jersey contract.

• 31:39Conan O'Brien?

  That's a, that's a rural Washington contract.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Eight shows a week, though. Can you do eight shows a week?

• 31:45Conan O'Brien?

  I can do 50 shows a week. You're talking to the original. I mean, I am a machine. Shona, tell him I'm a machine.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  He is a machine. Yeah, but I'm not. Selma Thacker can do it.

• 31:54Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no, we'll get Thacker back in. Sean, this is really fun and I'm 70% serious about this musical. I know you're not there yet, but you'll come around.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  I'm excited. Yes, stay in touch. And if you guys are in New York, I'd love to bring you to the heated rivalry parody and have you up on stage to play Scott Hunter.

• 32:11Conan O'Brien?

  Wow. When a producer says stay in touch, it means fuck you. All right, take care. Good luck with heated rivalry and the upcoming Real Housewives, if it ever happens. And I know it's not real and hasn't been announced yet. Goo goo.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  And Lisa's not in it. Yes, thank you.

• 32:26Speaker 05

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Dougherty and Lisa Berman. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm.com/conan. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan wherever fine podcasts are done.

• 33:11Speaker 06

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• 33:41Speaker 07

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