Jason Bateman

Actor and director Jason Bateman feels pretty good about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Jason sits down with Conan to discuss the magical dynamic of his hit podcast SmartLess, the intricate layered comedy of Arrested Development, and traversing the difficult path from child star to adult acting professional. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

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

• 0:02Conan O'Brien?

  Who do you shop for first on the holidays, Sona? Was it, do you shop for the kids or do you shop for Tac?

• 0:06Speaker 01

  My kids.

• 0:07Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Or Oki.

• 0:08Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta get them your stuff.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Or my dog.

• 0:09Conan O'Brien?

  And then your husband is last. Well, guess what? It's that time of year. You feel that, you smell that, uh, that cinnamon cider in the air? Do you smell that?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:19Conan O'Brien?

  And you see pumpkins around, people buying turkeys. A little early to buy a turkey.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:24Conan O'Brien?

  Doesn't matter. Holidays? I would say it's just around the corner, but that's a cliche. It's, uh, very nearby in the cupboard. Well, guess what? Amazon delivers joy with low prices on the gifts you want even this early in the season. So get ahead of the season. Shop early gifts, top picks, holiday decor, and advent calendars at low prices. Get ahead, start on holiday gifting with Amazon's low prices. Shop now at amazon.com/holiday.

• 0:55Conan 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.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:04Conan 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.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22Conan O'Brien?

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

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Hi, my name is Jason Bateman and I feel...

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Pretty good about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

• 1:45Conan O'Brien?

  Wait a minute, you said you worked on this answer.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  I know, but then I said I got nothing.

• 1:51Conan O'Brien?

  Pretty good? With a dramatic pause before it?

• 2:16Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there. It's Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I am Conan O'Brien, and I'm joined here-

• 2:21Speaker 01

  It is an intro.

• 2:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23Conan O'Brien?

  What is your problem?

• 2:24Speaker 01

  I didn't know what we were doing.

• 2:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, okay. Well, that's, uh-

• 2:28Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 2:28Conan O'Brien?

  Par for the course.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:29Conan O'Brien?

  No, we're not changing anything. We're keeping this-

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, Gourley will cut this out.

• 2:32Conan O'Brien?

  No.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:32Conan O'Brien?

  Gourley, keep it in. It's too good.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  Well, torn between two parents.

• 2:35Conan O'Brien?

  All right, I'll start again. My guest today. Oh, sorry.

• 2:40Conan O'Brien?

  Now you gotta keep it in. Hello. Goodbye. Hey there. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I don't know why I'm talking like the old movie phone guy. Uh, I'm Conan O'Brien, joined by Sona Mafassian, Matt Gourley, and, uh, I was, I was disheartened to learn, Sona, uh, last week-

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:59Conan O'Brien?

  That the jacket that for years I'd made fun of, because you wore it all the time-

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:03Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, just constantly, constantly. I mean, you wore it at your wedding. It was ridiculous.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:09Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, and-

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Didn't wear it that much.

• 3:10Conan O'Brien?

  You wore it all the time, every day. Do you agree that you wore it a lot?

• 3:14Speaker 01

  I, I wore it so much the lining was ripping.

• 3:17Conan O'Brien?

  And so it was a little bit of a thing where I would make fun of the jacket. It was kind of like a fun hee-hee-ha-ha. And then I found out on last week's episode, just joking around-

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25Conan O'Brien?

  That your, uh, jacket was lost in your, when your house caught fire.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:31Conan O'Brien?

  Which I didn't know, and I was, I was expressed real surprise, because I couldn't imagine that jacket not being with you.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:38Conan O'Brien?

  But you said it was in the house, and so it's gone.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  It's gone. It's, it, it was in the house. It, I did wear it a lot. It was my, I felt like, but the Fonz wears his jacket all the time.

• 3:47Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Like, there's cool people who wear the same jacket.

• 3:50Conan O'Brien?

  That's a, that's a television character. They're legally required to wear the same-

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Indiana Jones?

• 3:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, they have to wear the same thing all the time.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like, isn't it cool?

• 3:59Conan O'Brien?

  Um, it was not.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 4:01Conan O'Brien?

  No, it wasn't good every day. And I offered to buy you other jackets, remember?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but I didn't, I don't need other jackets. I had a jacket I liked.

• 4:10Conan O'Brien?

  Well, now you need a jacket.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Well, so I looked and they still sell my jacket.

• 4:14Conan O'Brien?

  They do?

• 4:14Speaker 01

  They do, they still, it was like, I think I bought it like maybe 10 years ago, but it's like kind of a staple for the brand.

• 4:21Conan O'Brien?

  I think it's more than 10 years ago because, no, because you started working with me like 15, 16 years ago.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  I bought it while I was working for you.

• 4:30Conan O'Brien?

  And you had the jacket then, yeah.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was a splurge for me. So I thought myself, okay, if I, if I wear it enough, it'll justify how much I spent on it. And so that's why, like, that's part of the reason why you wore it so much.

• 4:41Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  So, uh, anyway, they still have it.

• 4:44Conan O'Brien?

  They still have the jacket?

• 4:46Speaker 01

  They do, yeah.

• 4:46Conan O'Brien?

  Would you want to replace it? I will pay for this jacket. If it doesn't go above a certain amount.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  If I do buy another one, are you going to make fun of me?

• 4:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  So you're paying for the right because you've now lost the right to make fun of her jacket.

• 5:04Conan O'Brien?

  I can't, I had a, we had a fun thing going where I could come up with all these different riffs about the jacket.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:10Conan O'Brien?

  And the jacket tragically lost, the riff was lost, the joke was lost.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  I understand this.

• 5:15Conan O'Brien?

  That's what I think of.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  I think, can I represent you?

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, please.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Will you give her the cash value?

• 5:22Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, no, I want the, no, absolutely not. No, she's got a.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Cold-hearted.

• 5:26Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I'm sorry, I'm a businessman.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Is that as far as you had? That's, that's all you had?

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Well, I'm a podcaster, I'm not a lawyer.

• 5:34Conan O'Brien?

  He's a lawyer who just, oh, I understand. And then immediately, he closed his, he closed his briefcase. He folded up the table he was sitting at and he jumped out the window.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  My work here is done.

• 5:48Conan O'Brien?

  Well, my work here is done, out the window.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  Matinee at the Bijou, I've got a catch.

• 5:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I really thought you were gonna go in on him.

• 5:56Conan O'Brien?

  No, no.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  I know what I'm doing.

• 5:57Conan O'Brien?

  I will not do the cash value. I want you to have the same jacket because I want you to have that jacket back.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Bring up that picture.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Because I don't remember this jacket.

• 6:05Conan O'Brien?

  You don't remember? It's the only thing she wore.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  It looks so much better on this model.

• 6:11Conan O'Brien?

  That's like me saying I don't remember your puzzled expression.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Look how cool. That was a cool jacket.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 6:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  It's like a proper, it's like a biker's jacket.

• 6:22Conan O'Brien?

  It's this, this is the part that I thought was very General Zayas Planet of the Apes.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  The little detail.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Oh, right. That's like, um.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  I don't know if I need that anymore.

• 6:32Conan O'Brien?

  No, you gotta have that.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  There's like a quilted leather crosshatch.

• 6:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah. That was the part that really bothered me.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 6:39Conan O'Brien?

  But I want you to get that exact same jacket. They still sell it?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  They do.

• 6:42Conan O'Brien?

  What's the price?

• 6:43Speaker 03

  It's the Terminator jacket, basically.

• 6:45Conan O'Brien?

  Is it?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  It's kind of.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  I didn't, I don't know.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  You're a Terminator?

• 6:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  No, the Terminator wears like a normal motorcycle jacket, doesn't he?

• 6:52Speaker 03

  That's kind of what that is.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  There's other jackets that don't have that detail on it.

• 6:56Conan O'Brien?

  All right, let's get into more profitable territory. Because you guys are going into the weeds here and it's my job.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Let me have this. Is that your final offer?

• 7:07Conan O'Brien?

  What, how much is this?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  I'm scared to say it because it's, I do want to say it, I did splurge on this.

• 7:13Conan O'Brien?

  Let me say, let me say what it is.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  It's $5.50.

• 7:15Conan O'Brien?

  I spent that on lunch.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:17Conan O'Brien?

  I order $550 worth of fresh Alaskan crab every day. And I eat it off the small of my head writer's back.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Why?

• 7:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, Mike Sweeney has to, Mike Sweeney has to get on all fours. I ladle out this crab that's been shipped in in a private plane. And I ladle it onto his small back and then I eat it with a tiny little silver spoon. So anyway, yes, I will buy you, I will buy you that jacket.

• 7:48Conan O'Brien?

  I will buy you that jacket. No, that would actually, I'm not kidding. It would mean a lot to me to replace that thing that's been lost. Would also mean a lot to me to keep making fun of you.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  I know, that's what I know.

• 7:58Conan O'Brien?

  I'm buying you that jacket. It's a done deal.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  You ordered it? I brokered the deal.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you.

• 8:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you were a key in this whole matter.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, you really.

• 8:06Conan O'Brien?

  So, uh, no, seriously. Sona, order the jacket.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  I don't have to do that.

• 8:11Conan O'Brien?

  No, no.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:12Conan O'Brien?

  This doesn't work if you don't do it.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll do it.

• 8:14Conan O'Brien?

  You've got to order the jacket.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:15Conan O'Brien?

  Because the jacket was lost, to be serious for just a second.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:19Conan O'Brien?

  The jacket was lost in the fire.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:21Conan O'Brien?

  Let's replace it.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Okay, and now I'll represent you. He'll buy it, but you have to bring it in and we do a segment about it.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  I will, I'll bring it in. I will, I will definitely bring it in because I'm gonna wear it probably all the time.

• 8:33Conan O'Brien?

  So buy the jacket and, uh...

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:37Conan O'Brien?

  And don't have me reimburse you, I have to buy the jacket.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I have your credit card.

• 8:41Conan O'Brien?

  I know you do.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  What?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:42Conan O'Brien?

  She has my credit card.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Why aren't we living high on the hog?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I know.

• 8:45Conan O'Brien?

  Um, she's actually done okay for herself. Gee, there have been many times where Sona, how much? How many drinks do you think you've had on old Uncle Conzie without Uncle Conzie even knowing it? All over the years.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Without you even knowing it?

• 8:59Conan O'Brien?

  Before you even became a responsible member of society.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Uh, quite a bit.

• 9:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Oh, I love it, I love it.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  But I think it's also the least you could do for me.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  So, you're welcome.

• 9:10Conan O'Brien?

  It was always showed up on my Emick statement says, "Least I could do." Least you could do for Sona. And then it'd be like, "Oh my god." You dropped eighteen hundred dollars at a bar? Um, yeah, so, uh, we're done, it's a done deal now.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:25Conan O'Brien?

  You're getting that jacket.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:27Conan O'Brien?

  I will pay for it, you will wear it, and that is my way of, uh, making all of your loss go away.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 9:37Conan O'Brien?

  Does that cover it? The one leather jacket?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 9:40Conan O'Brien?

  You lost in your house.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, the one leather, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  It's too bad he didn't make fun of your house.

• 9:47Conan O'Brien?

  That house is no house. All right, let's get into it. My guest today, starred in Arrested Development, now co-hosts the popular podcast Smartless alongside my arch-enemies, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. Uh, I am very thrilled that this gentleman is joining us today. Uh, this is his first time, this is very cool. I bullied him into coming here.

• 10:14Conan O'Brien?

  Jason Bateman, welcome.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  You know, the question is, are you Conan O'Brien's friend if you aren't invited to his, to his Christmas party? And you know, there's so many hundreds and hundreds of people.

• 10:27Conan O'Brien?

  We've straightened this out. No, thousands are invited to the Christmas party. I invite thousands and about 50 come. Listen, we're gonna just, because this has been a thing, and then I went on Smartless recently, uh, you know, about you coming to the Christmas party. And it was a thing for a while. You, you, you claim you weren't invited.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  I was shocked that there was a Christmas party. That, that the Christmas party had been going on for years.

• 10:52Conan O'Brien?

  But you were, I think you were shocked that Christmas was celebrated. Because you're such a Grinch.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  That Christmas had something to do with your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I was like...

• 11:06Conan O'Brien?

  Well, listen, the point is, you, you know, let's talk about Smartless. It's a juggernaut. You guys are...

• 11:12Speaker 02

  It's a pretty hard pivot. It's a real, I mean, it was a four-wheel slide.

• 11:16Conan O'Brien?

  Can I say something?

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Right?

• 11:17Conan O'Brien?

  I just, I just broke my hip, pivoting. But no, the point I'm trying to make is, of you three guys, you got Will Arnett, you got Sean, is it Hayes?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's H-A-Z-E.

• 11:31Conan O'Brien?

  Okay. And then you're Jason?

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Bateman.

• 11:35Conan O'Brien?

  Bateman. Okay, there's the three of you. And you're the one that I have trouble getting a beat on, I gotta say. You're the one, you're squirrely. You're squirrely, Bateman. I've always had a problem getting a beat on you. A huge fan of yours. I adore you, but I can't get a beat on the guy. I can't.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Because you can sense that I'm not sure why I'm there? And I don't really, I'm not really sure if I, I don't get it. I don't understand why people listen to it. I, I get that Will and Sean are appealing fellas. That's why they're two of my best friends. And we're not doing anything more than just the drivel that happens when we're in a car together, or at a dinner, or how, I just don't think that that's monetizable.

• 12:21Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  That you should ask for people's attention to listen to that.

• 12:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  That you can monetize.

• 12:27Conan O'Brien?

  I agree with it about your podcast. I agree, because I've checked it out. And I'm, I'm like, I can't believe that this is something people, I mean, this, what we're doing here.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  You've got a full, you've got an array of talent here.

• 12:41Conan O'Brien?

  I'm looking, hold on a second, let me put my glasses on. Even we would disagree with that.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  You've done some prep, right? I can see questions there.

• 12:48Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, this is your medical history. This is your medical history.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  You've got a handsome studio, you've got cameras around, this is very professional.

• 12:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, also.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  We're on a Zoom.

• 12:58Conan O'Brien?

  Also, can I just point out, I've been interviewing people around the clock since 1993. I'm a seasoned professional.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 13:06Conan O'Brien?

  What Muhammad Ali was to boxing, I am to interviewing.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  We can cut all this out.

• 13:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, well.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  You need lifts.

• 13:15Conan O'Brien?

  But, yeah, you guys with this, you know, R and N.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  But, but in, in, yes, but.

• 13:24Conan O'Brien?

  So I agree with you.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  At least Will, at least Will has just sharp dagger humor. He's got a darkness that's fun to follow.

• 13:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  A voice that's not bad to listen to.

• 13:34Conan O'Brien?

  No, I'd buy whatever truck he's selling.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Right?

• 13:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  I mean, as long as it's professional grade.

• 13:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  He's got, he's got an opinion and he'll let you know it.

• 13:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Sean P. Hayes is sure, is, is just pure sunshine and, and is curious and is warm. And I don't, I don't, I'm trying to find the lane that I'm supposed to be in, which is the, the, the area in between those two, which I guess is just sort of listening and asking questions that I think the normal guy wants to know.

• 14:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  You know?

• 14:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  And so I'm, I feel I'm easily replaceable.

• 14:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yes, I was gonna say the same thing. I was gonna say, I'm glad you said it. No, no, I, you know, I think you could come, you could go.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:21Conan O'Brien?

  You know, whatever.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Which is kind of what I do in whatever the hell I do on camera too. I'm trying to just kind of be us.

• 14:26Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, I'm gonna draw a parallel to what I maintain, and I've said this to Mr. Arnett many times, is one of the finest comedy television shows of all time, and I take this stuff, as you know, very seriously, my television comedy loves and my interests. I think Arrested Development is one of the finest, finest pieces of work done in television comedy. And I think that you are hilarious and essential in that show because-

• 15:01Speaker 02

  I'm surrounded with funny folks.

• 15:02Conan O'Brien?

  No, you're missing, but that's not it. You're not just the guy who's yes-anding all of the funny people. You're doing it in a hilarious way. You're taking it all in, you're trying to understand. You do a beautiful job in that show.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  As being our proxy, right? Like, if somebody says something wacky, you've got someone you can turn to and give a ground to bounce off of, right? I mean, like, there's nothing funny about Martians on Mars. I'm like, I'm Earth, and they're the Martians, and now there's something that's popping, right?

• 15:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, but that is a very hard thing to do. It's, in the history of comedy, straight men were always listed first. So, it was Martin and Lewis. It was Abbott and Costello. And it was because a good straight man was actually harder to find than a good wacky person.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:59Conan O'Brien?

  And that is the history of comedy, is that the act was controlled by the straight men. Burns and Allen. It was always controlled by the straight man who was, it was a skill that was seen as more appreciated. So, without getting too heavy, too serious, which I've probably done, I thought you did an absolutely stellar, remarkable job on that show.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Thank you, sir.

• 16:24Conan O'Brien?

  And you're underselling yourself when you say-

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Thank you. I'm just looking to get you to continue talking in a flattering way about me. I'm trying to continue to tee you up. So, I'm not really sure what, explain, I'm confused.

• 16:39Conan O'Brien?

  What you did.

• 16:43Conan O'Brien?

  Like Picasso. No, you know what's really nice? It's been, I've told this to Arnett a million times, but that show was a very key bonding element for my son and I because my son has a very keen eye for comedy and really liked certain shows. And when he discovered Arrested Development, that was it.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  How old was he when it started to kind of work for him?

• 17:07Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, he was in his late 50s.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:09Conan O'Brien?

  He was 58.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:11Conan O'Brien?

  I had him a long time ago.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  You look great, by the way.

• 17:15Conan O'Brien?

  I've had so much done to me and for me. Now, I want to say he was, I want to say he was 11, 12, and chapter and verse. There's not, there's not an episode I can name. And we've, we watched them repeatedly. So sometimes when he's blue, or we'd be somewhere, it would be, okay, there are certain specific episodes that we would watch.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Was the medicine?

• 17:43Conan O'Brien?

  Just, it was the medicine. Yeah. And, and it's nice because we all knew what's coming because we've seen them a thousand times.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  And I bet, how old is he now?

• 17:52Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, he is 19.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. I'll bet, I bet if you watched him again, that you'd see, I still see stuff, you know, like, I've been seeing it for a few years, but I saw a clip of something. I was just like, I was just kind of noticing, you know, like Mitch, Mitch Hurwitz, who's the, the reason the whole thing is so funny, he just has a, a, um, sort of this appetite for humor that exists on more than even the standard two levels. Like, he's not even happy if it doesn't work on like four or five levels.

• 18:22Conan O'Brien?

  Right, right.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  And so the older you get, or the more jaded you get, or whatever, you, you start to see like level four and five, or whatever the hell it would be. Um, to the point where, I mean, me personally, I started to, I started to just think it was. It was too confusing for my little bird brain towards the end there. Like, there were just layers and layers. He would have to come to the set and explain to us, me particularly, what the relevance of this line was or this scene was. And sometimes it was because certain scripts weren't available, which paid off what I was trying to either establish, you know, through some of this exposition, because I was usually the exposition guy,

• 19:08Speaker 02

  or I was the guy that had to give a knowing look,

• 19:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  signifying relevance about something that was a little opaque. So like, I would need to know what that means to dial in whatever the hell that look would be. And so he would need to come down and sort of like decipher things for me. Oh, you need to raise an eyebrow there. Because the reason that she said eggplant instead of cashew is because of, you know, like, you gotta read like, that's gonna mean something to you, you know, anyway.

• 19:38Conan O'Brien?

  Can't you just give the same knowing look every time? No, I'm not an actor. But, and maybe there's a reason I'm not an actor. But I would just every single time go, ooh.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  And just leave it up to the editor to slot it in there, right?

• 19:54Conan O'Brien?

  Fix it, fix it, or use some CGI or do something. But you're getting one ooh from me and then I'm out the door. I wouldn't take that from Mitch Hurwitz, not for a second.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  I know. We almost did the movie for a long time. Remember all that talk? Do you remember that talk?

• 20:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, I do remember the movie.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  It was, I was so excited about that. I thought, oh my God, we're gonna do it. And then I remember Matt Damon coming up to me at, I think it was like a Golden Globes or something, and I was so excited to meet him. And he was like, hey, he was a huge fan of Arrested Development. And he was saying, you know, I really think I could play, because I hear you guys are doing the, I think I could, can I do you? Can I play?

• 20:29Conan O'Brien?

  What?

• 20:30Speaker 02

  It was like, oh my God, I went right back to Mitch. I said, this thing is moving, you know, like, come on.

• 20:35Conan O'Brien?

  Wait a minute, why can't you be you? Just be, and also, everybody getting re-cast?

• 20:43Conan O'Brien?

  I love that there'd be an Arrested Development movie and all of you would be recast with real actors.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Well, that was the sort of the story that Mitch was thinking the story of the Arrested Development movie would be that in the show Hollywood wanted to make a movie about us and so we certainly couldn't play ourselves because we're not actors.

• 21:04Conan O'Brien?

  But you'd still get to be yourselves, but yes, I see that.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, yeah, I would be, Michael Bluth would be on set watching Matt Damon play Michael Bluth and be so excited. Of course, David Cross would play Tobias in the film as well because he was an actor. Tobias was an actor, yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  And I think, I think Arnett was pretty close to getting Farrell to, to play Jove and it would have been pretty cool.

• 21:30Conan O'Brien?

  It could still happen.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  No, I don't think anybody gives a shit.

• 21:32Conan O'Brien?

  I think they do.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  I think it's done.

• 21:34Conan O'Brien?

  I think one call from me and it's happening. When I say call, I mean on an old 1940's phone. Because I'm so out of touch with what kind of pull I have in this town.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Your son would be the only guy in the theater.

• 21:45Conan O'Brien?

  That's not true. Tons of fans, at least nine fans.

• 21:56Conan O'Brien?

  The holidays are supposed to be about making memories, not managing the mess that comes with them. Between winter weather, road trips, shopping and family gatherings, your vehicle can take a beating. Mine sure does.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Same.

• 22:07Conan O'Brien?

  Especially when I'm back in the Northeast driving around. I mean, I grew up with that.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:11Conan O'Brien?

  Cars with the salt on the road, people throwing rocks at me.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  What?

• 22:16Conan O'Brien?

  That's not a weather thing. That's more of a me being, making people angry. WeatherTech helps protect your vehicle from snow, slush, salt and seasonal messes. They also make the best gifts for automobile protection from floor liners and cargo liner to side window deflectors, even gift cards. Great for today and to prevent future messes. Everything is built to last, easy to clean and designed for harsh winter conditions, okay? I got, I grew up with this.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:42Conan O'Brien?

  And the salt would eat away the car. We actually did have a Chevy. My dad had a Chevy Impala and the floor rusted out and you could see the road going by.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 22:50Conan O'Brien?

  Boy, we were praying for WeatherTech and we didn't even know it. That was before it existed.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 22:56Conan O'Brien?

  So get a gift today at weathertech.com.

• 23:02Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Conan O'Brien?

  Just accept the premise and we'll move ahead.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:08Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:13Speaker 01

  A vase.

• 23:15Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:17Speaker 01

  A jacket.

• 23:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, nice jacket. I love a nice jacket.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that jacket, nice jacket.

• 23:22Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:23Speaker 01

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

• 23:25Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:37Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:02Conan 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.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 24:11Conan 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.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:29Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:42Conan O'Brien?

  There's a, there's one image I have in my head, which is, Will Arnett is trying to sneak in Jeffrey Tambor in a stretched limo, and of course, he has his stupid puppet Franklin with him.

• 24:56Conan O'Brien?

  Who is, uh... Which you couldn't do today. Couldn't do today, or maybe racially insensitive puppet. But, um, at one point, there's this second where you think the guard's not gonna let him in, that the guard's been offended by this puppet, and then the guard says, "Go," and the guard says, "Wait a minute, you're all gonna have to step out of the car", and there is a zoom, and there's a zoom in on a terrified Arnett, there's a zoom on a terrified, in-the-back-seat Jeffrey Tambor, and then a zoom in on the ventriloquist dummy Franklin. And I think I've watched that with my son 75 times.

• 25:32Conan O'Brien?

  And it's just, I've memorized it. It's been, I don't know. It's, it just fills me with delight over and over and over again. So that's, that's, I mean, to a larger point, you've had with Smartless, Arrest Development, Ozark, you've been able to play in this very rich environment and have this crazy success. And there, every now and then I get to talk to people on this podcast who sort of, they got to have their cake and eat it too. And you're one of those people who I think has had this lovely arc where you start as a child actor, which is not a promising start.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  No.

• 26:14Conan O'Brien?

  For many people. And it really doesn't work to the point where there have been times where I thought, should they just make it illegal to be a child actor?

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Or force them to go into secondary education.

• 26:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Like, you know, I didn't, I didn't.

• 26:28Conan O'Brien?

  How old were you when you got your first, you did a serial commercial when you were 10?

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I, it was a very tangible, I don't remember a lot, but I do remember being really filled with anxiety about being able to continue to make a living in, in a business that I was, I was pretty aware that it was, it was tenuous at best, you know, that it was.

• 26:51Conan O'Brien?

  Even as a kid.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Fickle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:53Conan O'Brien?

  Even as a kid, you're, I think you did Little House on the Prairie, some commercials, you're on Silver spoons. I could see kids having two reactions to that. One, oh, I've, I've landed in Candyland. I'm in Oz. This is just amazing. But you had the emotional intelligence to be anxious about it.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:13Conan O'Brien?

  And think, I don't know if this is going anywhere.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, and I apologize to any listeners that have heard me twat on about this before, but it was, you know, my parents were my managers and they were making more money doing that than what they were, my mom was a flight attendant for Pan Am, my dad was a freelance writer, director producer. And, you know, 15% of what I was making at that time just ended up being more than what they were making in their, in their careers. And so it became an important component to our, our, our nut, our overhead. Like, we were living in a certain condo that we wouldn't be able to live in if they were just, you know, using their salaries. And so.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  A work per- you need a work permit to work as a little kid before you're 18. And that work permit is renewed every six months based on you maintaining a C average in school. And so the pressure on midterms and finals every year was immense for me because it was, you know, 60% of your grade. And so studying for those and making the- and if I- so if I fail a midterm, I don't get my work permit, which means I'm kicked off the show, which means everyone on the show loses their job, we lose our, our house. Right. And, and, and plus I was also seeing just the churn of folks that were, you know, hosting Saturday Night Live, you know, one week and then a year later,

• 28:42Speaker 02

  you just never hear from them or maybe even a few months. So like, I, I was, I was aware, I was consuming Pop Culture. So all of these, these sort of touch points of adult responsibility were really tangible for me.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Which is curious then why I didn't, I didn't get my high school diploma. I didn't go to college. I just doubled down. And thankfully I was still doing a show till I was about 21, 22, I think, called The Hogan Family. This was after Silver spoons, after It's Your Move. And then on that, when that ended, then there was like this, this, this arid plane of my twenties of, of employment. Like I'd get like one job a year and I'd kind of keep my head above water, but there was no cash cushion whatsoever because I was, I was trying to catch up for all the time I'd lost being a kid too. So I was playing really hard in my twenties. And I'm flying all over the place and paying for my friends' tickets and, you know.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  So I, I didn't have a lot of money at all. In fact, I was in debt by the time I was in my thirties, by the time Arrested Development came around. And I was really thinking at that point, so the acting thing isn't going to work for me anymore. Kind of like used goods. Television comedy was going in the direction of single camera comedy. I was known for multi-camera comedy, you know, in front of a live audience. And so I was kind of- I was just kind of damaged, you know, and especially when I heard about Arrested Development, like, here's a single-camera comedy, and it's kind of a mockumentary, and it's Ron Howard's behind it, and like, they don't want my garbage on that. But managed to guess right and get that job, and it was embraced by the industry, and it was that huge reset button for me.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  But prior to that, I really, really was, my twenties were not a comfortable period. I was really petrified about being able to support myself and have the rest of my career not be anticlimactic, you know?

• 30:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  I thought about liquidating what little I did have, literally cashing out, and literally putting what cash I had in a duffel bag, driving to the Bradley Terminal at LAX, looking up on that board, picking a city, and going and just kind of unplugging from this kind of, not rat race, but competition.

• 31:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  You know, every night's Entertainment Tonight, who's doing great, you know? Who's on your show, you know, like, and I wasn't, and I had been. And so I thought, well, I don't want to continue playing at a game that I'm gonna be, you know, losing every single year, so why don't I go to, like, Tuscany and learn fucking, you know, Italian, French, whatever, buy a coffee shop and just start over at the age of 25? I don't have a wife, don't have kids, have a bunch of friends, but let's go drink into more of those in Europe.

• 31:33Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  You know? So it was, I was very, very, getting it back to Arrested Development, that was total paddles on the chest for me.

• 31:40Conan O'Brien?

  Do you ever think you blew it, that maybe you should have done that?

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 31:44Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I mean, I'm just, seriously, this coffee shop thing.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Sounds nice.

• 31:48Conan O'Brien?

  It sounds like a good coffee shop.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Really nice.

• 31:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  You know?

• 31:52Conan O'Brien?

  Well, whatever.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Le Starbucks.

• 31:55Conan O'Brien?

  Can't go back, I guess. Can't go back. It's funny that you talk about that period of time. There's the... I had my own experience working on the late night show. We were constantly doing sketches and we would employ... There would be a sketch that needed, you know, a kid to play me, you know, from 20 years ago. Constantly, or a kid who is in the audience, who doesn't understand something. Constantly doing these sketches where we need kids. I remember very clearly, sometimes there were kids that came up to me, maybe eight years old. This happened more than once, but they would come up to me and go, "Excuse me, Mr. Brian, I am Billy." "Oh, hi Billy, you know, thanks for helping us out today.

• 32:39Conan O'Brien?

  You're doing a great job at rehearsal. I just want to say you are a formidable talent." And I could look in the background and see the mother peering out of the dressing room like, "It's formidable, we went over this."

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Say it.

• 32:54Conan O'Brien?

  You know, "Say it, so that you're booked again, you fucker." And I was... It bummed me out. Seriously, every now and then, one of those child actors, one was a little kid who nailed it and turned... Grew up into Scarlett Johansson. And you're like, "Okay, that's great." We've... I think we had one or two of those, but for the most part, it is... It is a perilous thing to be a child actor and, you know, it's so fickle. And even as adults, full-on aging adults for myself,

• 33:32Conan O'Brien?

  it's still hard not to pay attention to who's up, who's down, who's where. It takes... And that's with... I didn't have anybody recognize me on the street until I was 30 years old. That's when I got the late night show. And I had a lot of grounding before then. So I have no idea, I think if I had been recognized or had any kind of cachet when I was 11 years old, I'd be a mass murderer.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:59Conan O'Brien?

  And a very good one. Methodical.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  It is a very permissive culture that if you have some sort of success as a kid, you kind of get used to, you know, it's like it's junk food and, you know, kids don't have any self-control for junk food. They eat it all up.

• 34:16Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  And you're also learning how to be... How to convincingly be somebody else. At the exact time you're trying to figure out who you are. So it's just a big mindfuck too, and it is a big, it's a minefield. To go through and I'm really fortunate that somehow my sort of, you know, stock engine came out able to kind of navigate that, you know, somewhat decently. I mean, I am nuts. I'm crazy, but I'm functional.

• 34:47Conan O'Brien?

  I said you're squirrely. I didn't say you were crazy. Squirrely, hard to get a bead on you. I know there's a lot of stuff there. I don't want to go near.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  You can get near the cage. Just don't start poking around in it.

• 35:00Conan O'Brien?

  I would drive cross-country with Arnett, Sean in a second. You, that's not happening unless, yeah, like you say, there's like a barrier, a caged barrier.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  You can be in the back. Be in the back with a privacy glass.

• 35:13Conan O'Brien?

  No, you're in the back. I'm driving you.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 35:15Conan O'Brien?

  I'm dressed as a sheriff and I'm driving you cross-country and you're, but there's a cage and you're shackled. Every now and then I pass you some green tea, but that's about it. That's all that's happening. It is interesting to me that a important linchpin of your turnaround, which you say is Arrested Development, the guy behind that, one of the guys behind it and the narrator of the show, Ron Howard, famously, one of the few examples of a child star who just nailed it in his adult life and seemed to make every right call. Did he ever give you any insight into that world?

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Only by example, you know, like during, during the vast wasteland of my twenties, I was, in an attempt to try to self-educate, I'd watch a lot of news. I was a big fan of Charlie Rose. I'd watch, I'd watch that show religiously and Ron Howard was on it once. And I remember watching his interview and, you know, Ron Howard is, at all times it seems, just about the most gracious, magnanimous guy you'd ever find.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  And so I'm watching him just be incredibly warm and kind. And he's not doing that because he needs to kiss Charlie Rose's ass. Or that he's nervous about being on the show, or, or golly gosh. He's just genuinely that and is not worried about coming across as, as an ass kisser, or eager, or he's just being as kind as he is.

• 36:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  And is not worried about masking that. Because if you grew up in the sort of cynical environment I grew up in, it's, you know, it's like, well, make sure you look like you don't want it, you know, or make sure that girl can't tell that you like her, you know, like, you know, be mean, or when you go on an audition, make it seem like you don't really want it, or that it's an inconvenience. Whatever, you know, toxic crap I was listening to as a kid. He was completely at odds with that, with his, so anyway. So I remember sitting there watching that interview and going, if I ever get relevance again, any sort of industry capital again, the greatest thing about it will be that I will be able to be as kind as I want to be and not worry about it coming across as

• 37:36Speaker 02

  um, being too eager and wanting the job, or, you know. And then I got Arrested Development, like, working for this guy. And, and, you know, he did all the voiceovers, so he was never really on set. So I never really met him until after the show had been going for a while. And, and eventually I, and I think it was pretty late, maybe four or five years into, I finally had dinner with him. And I told him the story and I told him about what-

• 37:59Conan O'Brien?

  Did he narrate the dinner?

• 38:04Conan O'Brien?

  And then he told you to fuck off.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  He pulled the mask back, he said, uh, fooled another one.

• 38:09Conan O'Brien?

  Jason seemed perplexed. He wanted the eggplant risotto, but he didn't know if it was gonna be too heavy.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, he, I think he, I think he understood what I was saying.

• 38:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  That not only his example kind of provided this north star for me, but the actual show itself gave me the capital that I was, you know, reaching for, hoping for, that I could stop kind of acting twice going into interview, you know, uh, auditions, you know, kind of like, trying to be like, kind of like, oh yeah, what's up everybody, you know? And then like, it's fucking such a douchebag. I was just like, and of course it would make me incredibly nervous, because I've got to pull off that performance and now it's time to do the audition and, you know, now I gotta pull off this one. I was just like exhausted.

• 38:55Conan O'Brien?

  Well, they say it's, it's- It's exhausting to be a pathological liar.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:00Conan O'Brien?

  Because you have to keep all of your stories straight.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:03Conan O'Brien?

  And it is exhausting to have to put on a persona.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:09Conan O'Brien?

  To then audition for something where you're then another persona. But then if you don't get it, you have to switch into the persona, which is I didn't really need it anyway. I'm cool. I'm good.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  It's just garbage, you know? So thankfully, I kind of got through that to a certain extent. But it was painful. I mean, my twenties were just like... It was fun, but a real, um, a real sort of head trip for me. Because I'm transitioning from like all of that fame and success and easy road to not making as much money, not having the, not having the actual sustenance to, to... Because my confidence came from my work.

• 39:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Now that I don't have the work, now what do I have the confidence on? You know, it's just like, aye, aye, aye.

• 39:58Conan O'Brien?

  Nine people out of 10 who went through what you went through would not, it would not have worked out. Can you identify something in you that helped you say, okay, I'm partying too much? This has to stop. I need to... There is an inner resource that you have.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:16Conan O'Brien?

  That...

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:18Conan O'Brien?

  90% of people in your situation would not have.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  But I, and I, perhaps, but I, I, I think everybody's got it. Because all it was, was just, uh, goals and foresight and vision and, and, you know, everybody has a way they like to think of themselves.

• 40:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  And there are certain things that you can't do and certain things that you want to achieve and incorporate that, that make that vision...

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Legit.

• 40:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  You know.

• 40:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  I I knew I wanted, I wanted to be a dad, I wanted to be a father. And I, I'm sorry, I want to be a husband, a dad, and I wanted to direct a movie. With, as, as an adult, that was what I always said to myself as a kid. And so I knew I had to do certain things to make those three things happen. Um, I had to build up sort of acting capital to be able to say, hey, now I want to direct. The famous T-shirt, right? Um, I couldn't be like, you know, a fucking drug addict and a drunk. Uh, and expect to have any sort of relationship that was, that had any legs. Um, and then, you know, being a father follows that.

• 41:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  So, um, so I, I knew I had to kind of wind down the, the, the twenties fun at some point. Uh, and I, I didn't know. Do you, do you get rid of all that stuff and then the work will come? Or should I wait for the work to come to be sort of like, you know, the little pacifier that allows me to like, stop doing all the other stuff? It ended up kind of all happening at the same time, which was nice. Um, uh, but yeah, I, I guess it would just be that. So I don't think I'm not that special. I think everybody wants certain things for themselves in the future. And I think it's just about having perhaps the discipline to say, okay, you kind of got to do X, Y, and Z to get to A, B, and C. And, and at what point do you want to start to implement that plan?

• 42:09Conan O'Brien?

  I've never, ever had any ambition to direct anything. I, I, I admire that skill immensely. And I think part of me is a little curious if someone put a gun to my head and said, you have to direct something, what I would do.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  You'd be great.

• 42:25Conan O'Brien?

  But I don't understand what it is, but I've, I know that you, uh, directed quite a bit on Ozark. You must have been watching the whole time.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:35Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, this was, go back to when you're a kid.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:37Conan O'Brien?

  Where you're watching other people make these decisions. Someone explained to me once, a lot of directing is making choices. Do you want this or do you want that? Well, you know. So you're watching that and saying, I want to be doing that.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it was, uh, it was Michael Landon on Little House on the Prairie. So right, right as I was starting to like. You know, I'd done a couple of years of commercials and stuff like that, but um, but I was starting to really kind of notice what what this magic trick is of making fake life. Like, okay, so you point, like, you know, because we all look through the paper towel tube when we're a kid, you know, and like, you know, you're kind of like, you know, you make that little tunnel that you're seeing stuff through and outside that tunnel, the stuff you can't see, like, that's where all the gap can be, right? Like the microphone and the lights and all that stuff. And so just inside that tube needs to be pristine. And so I started to, I started to watch directors and crews kind of create this fake life. And Michael Landen was the director, executive producer, star, writer.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Um, everybody loved him.

• 43:36Conan O'Brien?

  What did you, what was he like? Um, I just because I grew up.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  He was George Clooney.

• 43:40Conan O'Brien?

  My brother is obsessed with Bonanza and has been his whole life. And has made sure that all of us around him have watched almost every episode of Bonanza. So, um, even though, yes, I know he, he went on to Little House on the Prairie and everything. I just can't believe that's, that's Joe Cartwright.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:57Conan O'Brien?

  I can't believe you even knew him.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 44:00Conan O'Brien?

  What was he like as a person?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  He was, George Clooney would be like the, the perfect comparison today. Um, his ease with people, with the process, with the business, with just Joe on the street.

• 44:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  Uh, women are crazy about him. Guys want to be his buddy. Um, and so watching him juggle all those balls and, and kind of be this leader and, and presence on a set and be kind with people, but also be kind of a, a, a, you know, stern boss if he needs to, or what, that was, that was pretty inspirational. And so, um, that's kind of where it started that. And my dad never really took me to the park to throw the ball. He'd take me to, you know, art houses, you know, to like, watch foreign films and show me what, what directing is and what acting is and what's good and what's bad.

• 44:50Conan O'Brien?

  What if he only took you to art houses and showed you Bonanzas?

• 44:54Conan O'Brien?

  Here's one where this, uh, these cattle rustlers come to town.

• 45:00Conan O'Brien?

  Michael.

• 45:03Conan O'Brien?

  There, we're gonna show a true film, true film here, but we shut that down. This is gonna be the Bonanza where, okay, all right. But that's beautiful that he did that.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, in retrospect, it was because it kind of planted the seed.

• 45:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then it just kind of went on from there, and I was always sort of tracking it and wanting to do it. And so paying attention to every set I was on after Little House. Um, and then I actually went and spoke to the producers of The Hogan Family when I was 18 to see if there could be a slot for my dad to direct an episode. Um, and while I was talking to the producers about that, they said, uh, yeah, for sure. And do you want to direct one? And I said, yes, please. And, um, and ended up doing that. And, um, and then that was just sort of like, well, I guess now I can, now I can do this. It's a different thing directing stuff in front of a studio. It's more like directing a play, you know, to be fair.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  But still, it was, I got me my DGA card and I thought, you know. And then I was really pursuing that career when Arrested Development came around. I was, I was following, um, Jim, uh, James Burrows around.

• 46:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Jimmy Burrows around and watching, he's a, uh, for the listeners that don't know, he was like the most famous.

• 46:18Conan O'Brien?

  The Babe Ruth of, uh, all the great Cheers.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, sitcom directors.

• 46:22Conan O'Brien?

  Sitcom directors friends.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, well, I want to turn my, my, my, my history of doing sitcoms into a positive instead of the negative that it, I felt it was at the time and let all that experience maybe get me hired as a director. And so I wanted to be like the new Jimmy Burrows. And then Arrested Development came along.

• 46:39Conan O'Brien?

  I, my quick, this just popped in my head, but literally a couple of months ago, I had to go back to Boston. Uh, quickly, uh, see my family and I always stay in the same hotel. And I get on my elevator to go down to the lobby and it stops on another floor and Jimmy Burrows gets on.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Really?

• 46:59Conan O'Brien?

  And this is a hotel that's right on the park. Uh, literally maybe 60 feet from the Cheers bar.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:08Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm headed down and Jimmy and I are talking and I said, hey, Jimmy, can I go over to the Cheers bar? Hang out? And he went, yeah, no.

• 47:21Conan O'Brien?

  It's like, I don't know why that popped into my head.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  I've been in there.

• 47:23Conan O'Brien?

  But yeah.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  That's a cool spot.

• 47:25Conan O'Brien?

  Sure. People go there. It's like people that go to the central, one of the Central Park coffee shops and think they're gonna see Jennifer Aniston.

• 47:34Conan O'Brien?

  They feel cheated that they're not. It's a bar. But.

• 47:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I, uh, I think the salvation is if you get into the work, like, for me, when I hear you talk about all this, is that you were very interested in making the stuff and the work. And to me, that was always the salvation. I wanted, my goal, if you asked me when I was 20, what's your goal? I would say, I would like to have a body of work, which sounds incredibly pretentious, but that's what I wanted. People could like it.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:10Conan O'Brien?

  They could hate it. But I just wanted, when I was done, to have stuff that I had made, that.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  As a writer?

• 48:19Conan O'Brien?

  As a writer, as a whatever, just as a performer, as a whatever.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Did you have on-camera aspirations at that time?

• 48:25Conan O'Brien?

  I, you know, it's so funny. I knew that I could get a job as a writer, but I always was a performer as a writer. So I was always the guy that would get up and do stuff. At Saturday Night Live, I would do things in front of the other writers, start doing something and they would be laughing.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  And Lorne would notice this.

• 48:44Conan O'Brien?

  And Lorne would notice it, but also the writers would say, that's a sketch that guy you're doing right now. And I'm just doing it because something's wrong with me.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Or you're trying, you're trying to make it more, you're trying to get your point across to the other writers. That this, this is what it needs to be, or that this, this, this sketch works if you play it paranoid. And so you, you, you gotta like do it.

• 49:04Conan O'Brien?

  But not even that. There were often times when I wasn't pitching a sketch, I was just doing.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:09Conan O'Brien?

  You've seen it, Sona, where I'll just come in and I'll just be doing something that strikes me as funny or odd, and.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  That's all you do.

• 49:18Conan O'Brien?

  That's kind of all I do.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  I don't know the real you.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:22Conan O'Brien?

  And then we got to SNL and I was doing that for someone like Odenkirk or Smigel, and they said, no, that's a sketch. That's a, that's a, that's a sketch. And I was like, oh, that's just a thing that I do. Right. And then that was I could just write that down and make a living. Many, many of the things that I've, over the years, that I wrote for SNL, or any of the things that I, over the years, did on Late Night, were just things that I did. Sometimes I would do them in the shower. Right. And my wife, to this day, will hear me in the shower saying, "You've got some nerve." And, um...

• 50:02Conan O'Brien?

  Well, they've all Just grown accustomed to it, but that's where that came from.

• 50:11Conan O'Brien?

  Who do you shop for first on the holidays, Sona? Was it, do you shop for the kids, or do you shop for Tac?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  My kids.

• 50:16Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Or Okie.

• 50:17Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta get them your stuff.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Or my dog.

• 50:19Conan O'Brien?

  And then your husband is last. Well, guess what? It's that time of year. You feel that, you smell that, uh, that cinnamon cider in the air? Do you smell that?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:29Conan O'Brien?

  And you see pumpkins around, people buying turkeys. A little early to buy a turkey.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:33Conan O'Brien?

  Doesn't matter. Holidays, I would say it's just around the corner, but that's a cliche. It's, uh, very nearby in the cupboard. Well, guess what? Amazon delivers joy with low prices on the gifts you want, even this early in the season. So get ahead of the season. Shop early gifts, top picks, holiday decor, and advent calendars at low prices. Get a head start on holiday gifting with Amazon's low prices. Shop now at amazon.com/holiday.

• 51:06Conan 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.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Are you gonna do a bit?

• 51:12Conan O'Brien?

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

• 51:14Speaker 01

  I had that.

• 51:15Conan O'Brien?

  That's your go-to.

• 51:15Speaker 01

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

• 51:18Conan 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?

• 51:27Speaker 01

  What?

• 51:27Conan O'Brien?

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

• 51:31Speaker 01

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

• 51:32Conan O'Brien?

  No, a co-coincidence.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 51:37Conan O'Brien?

  That's why I get the big money.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  I gotta go.

• 51:39Conan O'Brien?

  Cut to very small amount of money. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials and designs that are timeless, 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. 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, an Atlas Navy, and I just feel like a different guy. I feel classy. You look like a different guy, because you're well dressed. That's right. No, I'm serious. He looks like a hobo half the time. That's true. He's right. That's true. 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

• 52:23Conan O'Brien?

  order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. All right. 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.

• 52:49Conan O'Brien?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp therapists can help you figure out what rules or traditions aren't serving you and how to rewrite them. And with insurance, many members pay $15 or less. Some pay $0. BetterHelp, they do a great job. You're in good hands. BetterHelp therapists are fully licensed in the United States with at least three years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. When it comes to matching with a therapist, BetterHelp does the initial work for you. Just take a short questionnaire to help identify your needs. And if you're not happy with your match, this is the best part. A lot of people think, oh, my God, this is the person I've signed up with. I need to make this work. That's not the case. If it's not a good match, you switch to a different therapist

• 53:32Conan O'Brien?

  at any time from BetterHelp's tailored recommendations. Mm-hmm. BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/conan. That's better H-E-L-P.com/conan.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  What have you ever, and I apologize if it exists and I haven't seen it, but have you ever spent time doing multiple characters along with your writing as you would have done had you been on camera at SNL?

• 54:17Conan O'Brien?

  What do you mean?

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Well, like inhabiting multiple characters, playing some French pastry chef and then playing a mechanic and then, as you do as a cast member.

• 54:29Conan O'Brien?

  I think we've done bits where I've been different people, but...

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Not on the talk show, no, right? Where you like dress up in costume and there's a wig and there's prosthetics, just like an SNL cast member.

• 54:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because I always, when I was at SNL, I never looked at Dana Carvey or any of those guys and thought, "I could be doing that." Because I always knew the difference. I always knew, there have been things where we would shoot something, we did something with Liev Schreiber once, which was a parody of that show, Studio 60. Remember there was a show that was a very serious...

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Aaron Sorkin Show.

• 55:09Conan O'Brien?

  Aaron Sorkin Show, kind of a, he took a West Wing approach to like a Saturday Night Live and people were giving him a hard time for it. We decided to do a parody of it and so Liev Schreiber, we got him to play me. So Liev Schreiber has the Conan hair and I, my favorite thing is I, he got me a thin mustache and you could probably see it online and waxed back my hair and I played the producer. And I'm talking to Conan and I'm saying, "God damn it, Conan. You know, women want to be with you, men want to be you, you've got it all, the looks, the shots." And Liev Schreiber's brooding and I'm talking about Conan in this, you know.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  What was this on?

• 55:53Conan O'Brien?

  It was on the late night show, you know. I, I mean, we did thousands and thousands of hours of late night shows and we would, we would fill. So I guess the point is that for me, it's always been, I'm gonna quote my dad and I've quoted him many times on the show with this exact same line, but he always said, you're making your living off of something that should probably be treated because it's very manic and I can't not do it. And I do it. I just got back from a vacation with my wife and kids. I did it there. They just tune it out. They're not interested. They, you know, um, as, as kids, I would call my kids together when my wife was not around and I would say, kids, kids, your mother's gone and I

• 56:36Conan O'Brien?

  need to talk to you. And they would, and they would gather around me and they would look up at me and go, is this real or is this a bit? And I'd go, it's just that I think. And they'd go, it's a bit. And walk away. So it's, it's that 24/7.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  I love, I love being just a total whack job with my kids sometimes, but it's such an unreliable audience. I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're determined not to laugh.

• 57:05Conan O'Brien?

  Of course.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Right? So it's pain for you and for me to do that.

• 57:09Conan O'Brien?

  But also I love it and it's.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  Cause if you can crack them, you've got something.

• 57:13Conan O'Brien?

  But also it's as it should be.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:16Conan O'Brien?

  If your children are laughing and saying, God, Dad.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  You're the greatest. You got a problem.

• 57:22Conan O'Brien?

  You have a real problem.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  They want something.

• 57:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  My, my, my eldest, Franny, she's 18, she, um, she's, she's just recently, I don't know, like in the last year, gotten into directing. Like she's starting to really look at films and, and, and kind of understand what a director does. And so she wants to pursue that. And, um, and I guess somebody, and she, she's never watched anything I've done. Not, not, maybe one. I think it's weird for her to see me pretending to be somebody else. Or she also has a real hard time with me getting hurt. Um, and I'm often, you know, getting the pie in the face, you know?

• 58:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  Um, and so I guess somebody in her class or somebody started watching Ozark or something and went up to her and said, you know, hey, you know, your dad and this thing's really good. I just remember like about a year or so ago, she came home and she was like, she basically, well, I don't remember the words, but she basically said for the first time, kind of, so you do this, you do this thing that I'm interested in. Tell me, tell me about what.

• 58:31Conan O'Brien?

  But that is so healthy.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  Well, no, it's healthy, yes, but it was, it was also so exciting for me that like, she has an appreciate, or she thinks what I do is cool or that she might, she might realize, oh, dad can answer a question for me, you know, like, how do you do that shot? You know, is that a steady cam? Is that dolly track?

• 58:50Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  And so anyway, so now we've been having like an incredible time bonding over films and directing and things like that. But it is, it was, it's great that they don't give it up until it's something that's really kind of interesting. And not, in other words, she's not fascinated with my fucking job that I just go off and go do. Just like any kid wouldn't be like, hey dad, tell me about your day at work today. How was, you know, what was it like at the office today? Like, who cares? You know, it's just be my dad. And, and, and I appreciate that because it's kind of, I had a bit of a hybrid experience of that at best as, as a kid. You know, there wasn't really that, that really healthy dynamic of deference to, to, to parents as you're sort of, you know,

• 59:35Speaker 02

  the adults you, you aspire to be and you could only ever reach for, and you'll never be as old as them. Like, I was, I was colleagues with my parents at a very early age.

• 59:45Conan O'Brien?

  You worked with, you worked with each other.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so that was sort of, I had to learn to adapt and not, you know, live a childhood that didn't really have that. So I love that she has sort of kept me at this place. It was like, yeah, dad goes to work. Who gives a shit? You know, like he's just, he's just my dad.

• 59:59Conan O'Brien?

  I remember doing the late night show and Bruce Springsteen was performing on the show and Patty's there, his wife is there. And then at one point he's talking and then he leaves the room. And I said something like, um, he had just told a joke or something and she like rolled her eyes and I was, she said, yeah, when he does his jokes around the kids, they're like, God, Dad. And I was like, that's Bruce Springsteen.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Conan O'Brien?

  But no.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:00:28Conan O'Brien?

  In the best, in the very best way, they're annoyed.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:33Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, God, you know.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  He's actually starting underwater, actually, you know.

• 1:00:41Conan O'Brien?

  Well, he talks about the iconic Dancing in the Dark video, where he pulls Courtney Cox on the stage, on the stage at the end. In his biography, his autobiography, he talks about pulling her up on stage and he does the dance with her. His kids finally saw that years later and they were horrified.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  At that dance move.

• 1:01:00Conan O'Brien?

  At his dance move. And they just relentlessly gave him shit for it. Like went back on it and kept showing it to him and going, what the fuck are you? But, you know, in 1985.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:01:12Conan O'Brien?

  That was the, that was it.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:01:14Conan O'Brien?

  It was amazing, but, and he was Bruce Springsteen, but no, it doesn't matter anymore. Now it's just this embarrassing footage you found of your dad.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  How, how old are your kids?

• 1:01:22Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, my son is 19 and my daughter's 21.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  And how, how, so then when you started doing the, the, the late night show, that was, what was that?

• 1:01:33Conan O'Brien?

  93. So I was 30 years old. Uh, I didn't meet my wife. I hadn't met, I didn't meet my wife for another 10 years.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  So how would they, I mean, when they started, when they were old enough to kind of intellectualize that, that's my dad up on that billboard, how did that go?

• 1:01:51Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, I think they just, they took it really well, but I'll never forget, I did it, shows at Comic Con, Spreckles Theater, huge theater. My wife, Liza, came down, she brought my son, who's kind of interested in sci-fi. He was a little kid at the time, maybe five.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09Conan O'Brien?

  He sat in the theater, he saw the band playing, he saw fans.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:02:14Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, place is packed, three-tiered theater.

• 1:02:18Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, uh.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  And up until now, you've just been just that annoying dork around the house.

• 1:02:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and so he's watching it and then I come out and I do the show and he sees people getting really excited. Uh, and laughing and having a good time and then he's walking out with with his mom, my wife. And we're walking out, he's, he's walking out and he said to her, when I grow up, I want to do something where there's no stage and no audience. And it was just like, I want to do the opposite of what that guy's doing.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  Cause he thought that was sort of, it was scary.

• 1:02:54Conan O'Brien?

  I, I think, or whatever reason, he just knew, whatever that guy's doing, that's not what I'm gonna do. And he's, uh, he's highly intelligent and very good and has a completely different skill set than I do.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  Not interested in doing.

• 1:03:08Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, not at all, but uh, he'll actually have a legitimate life.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  Right, exactly. Exactly, one that's built on credentials.

• 1:03:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, and, and actual knowledge, knowledge of real things, not like us, not, um. No, we're show folk and, uh, and I've always, I've always kind of liked that for some reason, bizarre reason, in the mid 20th century. Um, being in show business started to have cachet and then it has only grown. And I'm someone who reads a lot of history and I studied history, uh, in, before the 20th century. For hundreds and hundreds of years, people that worked in show business were thought of as, you just use the back door. And no, you're not, you cannot, you, you can't come in, you do your thing and then get the fuck out of here.

• 1:03:59Conan O'Brien?

  And take your little, you know, and I've always thought, I do think that's the way we should be treated.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Instead of throwing ourselves award shows.

• 1:04:07Conan O'Brien?

  No, exactly, I've always thought, no, we're, we're show folk, we're damaged.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  Entertainment, we're the jesters, you know, that should come in and out through the back door. Yeah, right after the food comes.

• 1:04:17Conan O'Brien?

  I should not be, I should, I should not be given the food that the people, other people are getting, I should get some cold food.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, you're right. I mean, we're not doing anything that complicated. You know, we're not doing things that are vital. We're not building infrastructure. You know, we're like, we're not solving problems.

• 1:04:37Conan O'Brien?

  We're creating problems.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  We're creating problems. We're pacifying people in between their thoughts. Aww. You know?

• 1:04:44Conan O'Brien?

  I'm glad I got you to admit that your life is a sham.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Oh my god. But it's certainly not like...

• 1:04:51Conan O'Brien?

  No, you've gone too far. You've gone too far. Uh, I think what you and I do is vitally important, and I'll also posit more important than anything being done in science, in medicine.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  You're right about that.

• 1:05:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. So, you've completely changed your mind from fifteen seconds ago. I want to, uh, I want to wrap this up, but I do want to tell you that you started off this interview by selling yourself very, uh, short in a way that I found kind of appalling, which is, I think, what you do on Smartless and is, and also, uh, what you did so beautifully on Arrested Development and what you've really done in your career is, you're channeling something that, to me, is very essential. You're fucking so smart as a performer, as an actor.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  Well, thank you.

• 1:05:43Conan O'Brien?

  And seriously, I, I, I think, I mean, Arrested Development is a great example of where you're holding, you are the center of all of that. You're seeing everything, and, yes, that is a huge job. That is, and that could have been done wrong a billion different ways, and so...

• 1:06:00Speaker 02

  I, I appreciate you saying that, for sure.

• 1:06:03Conan O'Brien?

  But I also think, I would know if, if, you know, Arnett and Hayes babbling, the two of them, I couldn't listen to that for six seconds. You know?

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  Without, yeah, without the third color going in there, you've just got red and green.

• 1:06:17Conan O'Brien?

  You've got red, and then also a very annoying red and a very annoying green. And then you're this, like, essential taupe.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:06:26Conan O'Brien?

  It's surrounding it.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  It's soothing azure.

• 1:06:30Conan O'Brien?

  No, I'm, uh, I, we, we fuck around a lot and, uh, but I, anytime, uh, that you would come to my home, be at a Christmas party, or anytime would be a big deal. It'd be a huge deal, a huge deal.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  It's a fun bit for me to run it.

• 1:06:45Conan O'Brien?

  It would be a big deal for me and, and my son's, uh, hair would fall out and his teeth.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  You, um, you, and before you kick me out, I would like to thank you for being so nice to us at Smartless and helping us out repeatedly. Um, it's really, you know, you, you learn a lot about people when it's, it's so easy to say no in our business. You know, there's, there's layers of people between the ask and the answer that you can easily slide in a no or I'm busy or something like, you never have.

• 1:07:12Conan O'Brien?

  I'll be honest with you, I love playing with you guys. It is that simple. I've never had a real conversation with Will Arnett.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:07:23Conan O'Brien?

  We only play to the point where we were scolded once.

• 1:07:29Speaker 02

  By one of your wives?

• 1:07:30Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:31Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, yeah. Knock it off, you two, before we even got started.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:35Conan O'Brien?

  It was knock it off, you two.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  My wife says the same thing. It's with the fucking bits. Do you guys ever really, guys just suck. Do you guys ever really, she'll, I'll come home all the time and she'll say, yeah, what, what did Will feel about, uh, the, the party last night or the dinner yesterday or something like that? Uh, I don't know, he liked the food. No, no, no, did he talk about, no, you guys never, you guys never process anything. It's like, well, that, but like dudes don't really process shit. Like if there's a problem, we figure it out.

• 1:08:01Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  But we're not sitting in there just like kneading the bread, you know, about yesterday, you know? And figuring out what the side door might think of it. It's just always through the front door on everything, right?

• 1:08:13Conan O'Brien?

  That's why anytime there's been any kind of Smartless ask from the very beginning, I thought, that's being asked to go play, go play ball with three people who you love to play ball with. And I'm using that analogy because I'm a terrible athlete.

• 1:08:28Conan O'Brien?

  And so I'm being very vague about play ball.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Which ball?

• 1:08:34Conan O'Brien?

  Shut up, Sona. Go pa- go pass the old puck around. With your mitt. But anyway.

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  You've always been an easy play. Like, you were always my favorite talk show to do because you can do those pre-interviews till the cows come home, and most shows stick on them. Always when you sit down and start talking with you. You would just start a conversation.

• 1:08:54Conan O'Brien?

  We just want to have fun.

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  And then, all of a sudden, the 10 minutes would go by.

• 1:08:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  You know, it's such a nerve-wracking thing for me doing talk shows. It's like, crazy.

• 1:09:02Conan O'Brien?

  That's why this format, this format's so much fun.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Truly, starting to do your show was like, oh, it can be like this. It was, it was great. It was great, great, great.

• 1:09:11Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I'm glad we like each other now.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh...

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  Let's just throw a two-man party.

• 1:09:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, just the two of us.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  Make sure everyone knows about it.

• 1:09:21Conan O'Brien?

  And it's just you and I.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  You and I.

• 1:09:23Conan O'Brien?

  Even Aniston can't get in.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  No. She can serve us. She can bring us the food.

• 1:09:29Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, Jennifer's outside. Yeah, yeah, tell her we're good. We're good. Uh, God bless you, Jason Bateman.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:09:37Conan O'Brien?

  Go forth, continue to do amazing stuff. My best to the gang over at Smartless.

• 1:09:40Speaker 02

  I will tell them. I'm feeling now even better about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

• 1:09:45Conan O'Brien?

  Wow, we've notched from a 11% acceptance of me to an 18%.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  Even better now.

• 1:09:52Conan O'Brien?

  All right, take care.

• 1:09:55Speaker 03

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

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

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

• 1:11:06Conan O'Brien?

  When you hear Alka-Seltzer, you'll probably think heartburn, right?

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:11:09Conan O'Brien?

  Well, did you know Alka-Seltzer has a line of cold and flu medications known as Alka-Seltzer Cold?

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 1:11:15Conan O'Brien?

  Did you know that, David?

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  No, but I feel like we need it.

• 1:11:17Conan O'Brien?

  Why didn't you know that, David?

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  I know, you expect me to know everything.

• 1:11:21Conan O'Brien?

  I knew this.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Did you?

• 1:11:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I've tried it, it's really good. And I like that fizzy, fizzy, fizzy when you drop the Alka-Seltzer Cold into the water.

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Conan O'Brien?

  Alka-Seltzer Cold, fast dissolves tablets are designed to deliver cold and flu relief, fast! Just drop the two tablets in water and hear those bubbles bursting into action, ready to work faster than pills. Bubbles faster than pills. Pills take time to dissolve, not bubbles. Next time a cold or flu strikes, quick! Alka-Seltzer Cold, nothing works faster for cold and flu symptom relief. Among oral products, use as directed.

• 1:11:58Conan O'Brien?

  Have you ever had a cat, Sona?

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:12:00Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, I have had multiple cats.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Conan O'Brien?

  I had a cat growing up, it was my cat. My wife and I now have three cats.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  That's a lot.

• 1:12:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, we have three cats and two dogs. And, I have to say, the dogs are so appreciative. Cats hard to win over.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Conan O'Brien?

  Cats are cats, they're tricky.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:16Conan O'Brien?

  Sometimes I feel like I'm working for them, you know? Well, Temptations Classic Cat Treats is the solution, okay? Temptations Classic Cat Treats are the crunchy outside, soft inside treat any cat obsesses over. Each treat is under 2 calories per treat, it's 100% nutricially complete and balanced for adult cats.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 1:12:36Conan O'Brien?

  That's important. And to appeal to cats with finer palates, Temptations Lickable Puree has a perfectly creamy texture they can't get enough of. Some say the Roman Empire collapsed because the Romans became too obsessed with their own pleasure. Is this a sign of things to come? I don't think so. Look for a way to make bonding with your feline friend even better? Try America's number one cat treat brand, Temptations Cat Treats. Cats can't resist.