Nicholas Hoult

Actor Nicholas Hoult feels truly happy about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Nicholas sits down with Conan to discuss bringing back “huzzah” as Peter III in The Great, receiving an early education in film acting from Hugh Grant, exploring his passion for car racing, and working with visionary director Robert Eggers in his latest film Nosferatu. Later, Engineer Eduardo is taken to task during a particularly bruising Team Coco staff review. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

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

• 0:03Conan O'Brien?

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• 1:30Speaker 01

  Hi, my name is Nicholas Holt.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  And I feel truly happy about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

• 2:00Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, joined by Sona Movsesian. Hi, Sona.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 2:04Conan O'Brien?

  You done coughing? It was a lot of coughing.

• 2:06Speaker 02

  I always have to clear my throat.

• 2:08Conan O'Brien?

  My grandfather used to say, "It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in." Fun guy. Anyway, uh, then he'd say, "Good night," and shut the door. We have to go to sleep. Uh, Matt, how are you? Matt Orley? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I have a little pet peeve. Oh. Uh, my pet peeve is that sometimes we gather around these mics, these microphones, these holy transmitters of our wise words, and we're supposed to do a podcast, and then you guys start yammering, mostly, I think we know who the criminal is here, it's Sona. Yeah. You'll start yammering about something, and we haven't begun, and you're like, "Yeah, before we get started," and you'll yammer sometimes for 20 minutes, and I'm thinking, "Why aren't we making this the podcast? Why can't you control yourself?"

• 2:52Speaker 02

  This is part of my process.

• 2:55Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, I'm sorry, Marlon Brando. I didn't realize you were...

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Wait, you have a process? I have a pro- this is my... Can I say something, though? I think you always forget, out of the three of us, I'm the least professional.

• 3:08Conan O'Brien?

  Never forget that.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 3:10Conan O'Brien?

  Never for a second do I forget that you are an unprofessional person.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Yes, okay, so...

• 3:15Conan O'Brien?

  A total loose cannon.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Sometimes you might forget that.

• 3:18Conan O'Brien?

  You're cuckoo in the cabeza.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  So you might forget that sometimes.

• 3:22Conan O'Brien?

  It's never, never left in my mind.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  So sometimes you might forget it.

• 3:24Conan O'Brien?

  Never, ever. I never forget that. And so, what, all I'm saying is, there are times where I'm thinking, "We're here, uh, we're here to, to do our, our job, which we also love, it's fun, but you'll start gabbin', and gabbin', and gabbin', and I'll say, "Well, why don't we just say, 'Hey, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend,' and we can, whatever this is, we can talk about what you're talking about," and you'll be like, "Hold on, I'm not done yet."

• 3:48Speaker 02

  What did he just say? What did he just say?

• 3:50Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, just now?

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Shut the fuck up. Monetize it, or... Monetize it, or shut the fuck up.

• 3:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. I do think, um, you know.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  I know, maybe that was, you know, okay, sorry, go ahead.

• 4:02Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, please, continue.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  I think you know, okay, la, la, la, la, la, we have to like talk when the microphones are on. But sometimes I just want to catch up with you guys. Cause I'm, I'm actually your friend.

• 4:14Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, no, no.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  You're, we're friends.

• 4:16Conan O'Brien?

  No, no.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  And sometimes it's okay to just catch up.

• 4:18Conan O'Brien?

  And when we're in this room, everything must be monetized. Everything must, Adam, help me out here. When we're in this room, everything, uh, must, you know, is, is part of the product. The team Coco product.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Can I offer a suggestion? Especially if it's coming from Sona, that she should be paid more because the product is being monetized is primarily hers.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Better ding, doo, ding, doo.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't say that. I did not say that.

• 4:43Conan O'Brien?

  Adam, do you want to weigh in?

• 4:44Speaker 01

  That does not represent me.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  I agree with you that it's a waste. It's inefficient for there to be conversation happening off mic. But in Sona's defense.

• 4:53Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  I think you're often guilty of the same thing, which is telling stories, chatting when we're not actually recording. So I agree with you in theory, but I have to say, I think that it's not just Sona.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  I love you, Adam. And can I say something to, what, to bounce off of what Adam just said?

• 5:14Conan O'Brien?

  Can we just let this moment sit?

• 5:15Speaker 02

  No, I, cause I have something to add to it.

• 5:17Conan O'Brien?

  I invited Adam. He sits way in the corner. He's over there.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:23Conan O'Brien?

  Calculating, scheming.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:25Conan O'Brien?

  Um, and.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  You're waiting in Steve's.

• 5:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and I bring him over into this holy, holy area of the table with the mics and I, he, and, and then you stab me?

• 5:35Speaker 01

  He crucified you.

• 5:36Conan O'Brien?

  Through my toga?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I crucified you.

• 5:37Conan O'Brien?

  He crucified me.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I just have to be, I just have to be my honest self. I just have to, I have to be true to myself and that's, that's the truth.

• 5:45Conan O'Brien?

  So you think sometimes I spin a yarn after we're done?

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Well, now, I hate to do this, but can I add a, most of the time when you do that, it is unmonetizable.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Because it cannot go public.

• 5:59Conan O'Brien?

  That's true. I tell some real corkers.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Um, did you just get on me last episode about using the phrase cock of the walk? And you just use corkers?

• 6:08Conan O'Brien?

  I tell, you know, sometimes I-

• 6:10Speaker 01

  A real Lulu?

• 6:12Conan O'Brien?

  Sometimes I lay out a real Lulu of a story. No, I, I do tell some stories that are not for public consumption because maybe they include a name and I, I don't like to sell people, you know, sell people out. But, and so we have some delicious conversations in here. But, um, yeah, I guess I'm guilty of the same thing.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  But I, I do think Matt's right, though. A lot, I, I think you are usually thoughtful about if you're gonna tell a story that is appropriate for the podcast, you will save it for the podcast.

• 6:41Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, what I'm saying, Sona, is that I want, don't, how dare you harumph.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  I was just breath, I was breathing.

• 6:48Conan O'Brien?

  That was not breathing, that was a harumph.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  If that's your breathing, I'm worried about you.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  I'm breathing.

• 6:54Conan O'Brien?

  I think all those years in the coal, the coal mine have hurt you. I believe, Sona, that you should be a little more disciplined here about your work and you should tell your tales into the microphone.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Off of what Adam just said, how often during, when we were taping the show, did you hold up rehearsal because you were noodling on your guitar so much? And isn't that kind of the same thing? We both have a process.

• 7:18Conan O'Brien?

  We do.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 7:19Conan O'Brien?

  You know what, that's a fair point.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 7:21Conan O'Brien?

  There are, I want to say, over, there are 28 years of, of, there's 28 years where I'm making late night television. And I think there may be easily 2,000 hours-

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 7:34Conan O'Brien?

  -of me playing whatever guitar song I want to play that day while people in headsets desperately try to get me to rehearse a sketch.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  What was even the conversation that you were supposed to save for the mic? We don't even know it.

• 7:46Conan O'Brien?

  We don't even know anymore. I don't remember.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Look, it's just because I like, you, you don't like it when I have a good time sometimes.

• 7:53Conan O'Brien?

  It is true. When Sona's having joy, I feel like I'm having a heart attack. When Sona's experiencing true joy-

• 8:03Conan O'Brien?

  I have all the symptoms of a major aortic aneurysm.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  It does feel like before you enter the room, we have to hurry up and get our catch up sessions.

• 8:13Conan O'Brien?

  That's right.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  We do.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, just otherwise you're gonna yell at us.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  We talked about a lot in about seven minutes before you walked in today.

• 8:19Conan O'Brien?

  What did you see? So you guys are afraid before I come in the room that once I show up, I'm gonna shut everything down, right?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  You're gonna monetize our little anecdotes about how we've been and what we've been doing over the past.

• 8:30Conan O'Brien?

  That's exactly what I would do.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  This is a bigger conversation about how you, the work environment you've created.

• 8:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  And how we can't comfortably speak. So I'm glad you brought this up.

• 8:40Conan O'Brien?

  Can I just say that if someone is struggling in a situation like this, BetterHelp is probably... With BetterHelp, you can get online counseling.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Fucking thumbs up. Come on, Adam.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  He's not wrong. He's not wrong. But just use offer code Conan.

• 8:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 8:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, exactly. And you know what?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Rap.

• 8:58Conan O'Brien?

  You can, listen, you can, if a therapist isn't a good fit, you can cut off that session right away, and it's no hassle to start another one.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  This is kinda like us having Miller time.

• 9:09Conan O'Brien?

  You know what? It is like Miller time. You know how it's like Miller time? When you're a bunch of buddies standing around, and you know what you want when you're with buddies? You want beer that tastes like beer. Do you know what I mean?

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Oh, my god. You know what you've done to our friendship? You've fractured it.

• 9:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yes! There's a blast. Jesus, there's a blast from the past.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  If you are unhappy, you should check out LinkedIn Jobs.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  I hear they have a good B2B model.

• 9:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. Okay, we just made, yep, eighty-eight dollars.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Worth it.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Oh, my god.

• 9:40Conan O'Brien?

  All right, you guys. My guest today starred in the Hulu series The Great. Now you can see him in the new movie Nosferatu. I'm very excited. He's here. He's incredibly talented.

• 9:54Conan O'Brien?

  Nicholas Hoult, welcome.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Have we started?

• 10:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, this is it, yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  I was thinking about friendship on the drive here.

• 10:04Conan O'Brien?

  Were you really?

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I was thinking about how LA is quite a lonely town in many ways. Anyway, we don't have to get into it too deep.

• 10:10Conan O'Brien?

  Well, no, we should, because you live in LA now.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, technically down in Long Beach, yeah, so LBC. I've lived in Long Beach for 20 years. Oh, whereabouts? Belmont Shore. You live so close to me. I'm on Naples. Oh, my God, I lived in Naples for a little bit, too. Oh, my gosh, do you want to be friends? Yes.

• 10:25Conan O'Brien?

  Wait a minute. Hello, this is a field, you're dismissed. I'm gonna go have a coffee.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  You still live in Belmont? What are your spots? No, I live in Pasadena now, but I'm just... Oh, you went the wrong way, okay.

• 10:34Conan O'Brien?

  Friendship, ah, it's over. Man, it was so... He wanted to get far away from the water and closer to the sun and just be miserable.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  I do like Pasadena. Well, there's a Huntington Library and Gardens. Yeah, you want to be friends? Well, we don't go there anymore because it's too far now, so I understand. If, uh, if I ever end up there, I'll think of you.

• 10:51Conan O'Brien?

  I think I've lost control of this interview completely.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Basically, I'm here looking for friends.

• 10:55Conan O'Brien?

  Well, uh, you'd be an amazingly cool friend to have.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:58Conan O'Brien?

  I have to say, I am a massive fan of yours.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 11:03Conan O'Brien?

  And I, I, you seem like a very normal, healthy person, and I'm sure you don't love compliments ladled on you.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  No, I do.

• 11:10Conan O'Brien?

  I always liked your work. Oh, you do? Okay. Well, then you're like... Well, first time I saw you was in About a Boy, which is such a great film, and you were so good in that movie with Hugh Grant, and it holds up. I think I've watched it many times since then. It's one of those movies, whenever it's on, I love you in it, I love the story, I love Hugh Grant. It's just so well done. I love the soundtrack, blah, blah, blah. And then I, I saw you kill it in many roles, and then you started doing The Great with Elle Fanning.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:42Conan O'Brien?

  And my eyeballs fell out of my head because I, I thought Nicholas Hoult is one of the funniest actors alive. You are so good in that role. And here's the thing, you're walking this insane line of a terrible murderer who, you know, who is constantly on the verge of killing his wife and... And by today's standards, just an inhuman barbarian and incredibly likeable.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:14Conan O'Brien?

  And I thought, what, what kind of judo move is that? But I loved your character in that. I thought you were absolutely hilarious in that, in that role.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  It was a dream of a role because Tony McNamara's writing is so smart.

• 12:26Conan O'Brien?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  And that was the thing. I kind of discovered that character along the way as everyone else did because he, he wrote The Favourite as well.

• 12:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  That I was in. And, and then after that, he said, oh, I've got this other script. And it was, it was at that point a feature script for, for The Great. And I'd worked with L before. He said he was gonna ask L to play Catherine and she's wonderful, as you know.

• 12:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Um, and I knew I had a fantastic time working with her previously. So I was excited about all the components and then he turned it into a show. But when we started shooting, we only had like, um, a couple of episodes, two or three episodes. So then it was kind of as we went, we would get more of the episodes as we shot. So it was kind of like, I breathe it in, I'd be like, oh, this is terrible. Very funny, but terrible. Horrible character.

• 13:04Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Who's just punched his wife and all these things. But then, but then you'd start to eke out all the things that made him human and tick and the way, the way, the way he is and, and how ridiculous he is in very humorous ways. So it was kind of, it was definitely all down to him, his writing, basically.

• 13:18Conan O'Brien?

  Okay. Yes. Great writing. But I thought you and L together, one of my favorite couples I've seen on TV in memory and, uh, and also, uh,

• 13:29Speaker 01

  We had the best time.

• 13:30Conan O'Brien?

  You, well, you could tell you guys have such a great chemistry, but also, um, Huzzah became, I, I think you, you put Huzzah on the map.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  It's back.

• 13:39Conan O'Brien?

  It's, Huzzah is back. Oh, Huzzah. And, and also, um, just that self-assurance, constantly obsessed with your cock and sex. And, um, and, and I said, I just, I'm just watching this and thinking.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  The segue?

• 13:55Speaker 02

  I know.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Is this in your journal again?

• 13:57Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:58Conan O'Brien?

  No, but just like.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Cock was so aggressive.

• 14:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  It's a very aggressive word.

• 14:03Conan O'Brien?

  It's a very aggressive word.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Strong sounds. Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  It is.

• 14:06Conan O'Brien?

  Um, but, uh, but also just this kind of musing about sex and what he's going to do next. And just like, it was just hilarious.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  And a foodie.

• 14:16Conan O'Brien?

  Hilarious.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  A real foodie.

• 14:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, a real foodie.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  One of the redeeming things about him is, is his foodie nature, but also he's very, he's very open. It's exactly what you see is what you get.

• 14:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  It's, and I think that's one of the things that people can appreciate about him. It's like not very common that you see someone who tells you exactly what they're thinking.

• 14:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  When they're thinking it.

• 14:34Conan O'Brien?

  And he's the kind of person who might say, hmm, I may have to murder you now. But would say it out loud.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:40Conan O'Brien?

  And then go, well, probably shouldn't have said that out loud. That's the kind of, I think that show. I mean, first of all, the acting across the board, uh, who plays the, uh, I mean, such terrific acting, but the, the, the minister of war, the general.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Oh, Douglas Hodge.

• 14:58Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my god.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that is truly incredible, his performance, because, you know, the characters aren't described. There's not like any of the, the bellowing and breathing and all those things that, that Douglas added. And I remember being in scenes with him when we first started shooting, you'd hear him constantly like.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Swallowing his own burps and stuff. And none of that was in the script. It was just something that he brought to the character.

• 15:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  And was so hilarious that there were times that we had to like cut, cut and stop scenes because the rest of us would be giggling so much at just how he breathed.

• 15:26Conan O'Brien?

  He's constantly. But again, he was a great character because he's this, you know, he's this Russian general who's.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Drunk, kind of useless.

• 15:35Conan O'Brien?

  All the time, but also, but also has common sense. I mean, I mean, he, he is the voice of reason often in a scene, but also not.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:44Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know, that, that series was so delightfully surprising and I, I watched that and then. I knew, I knew that I had a Nicholas Hoult obsession when, I don't know if you guys remember, but L. L Fanning came on the podcast and we were talking about the show and I kept saying, tell me more about Nicholas Hoult. And she, you know, and she would indulge me and she was like, well, what, you should talk to Nicholas. And I'm like, yes, I should.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  You tried to get his number from her.

• 16:12Conan O'Brien?

  I did, I did. And she gave it to me and then it was like a suspiciously wrong, it was a five, five, five.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  That's the.

• 16:19Conan O'Brien?

  One, two, three, four.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Been cooling and breathing down the line.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Now I recognize the breaths. You thought it was Douglas Hodge.

• 16:26Conan O'Brien?

  So I just want to go through. I just want to walk you through your your career, which at such a young age, you've had such a range of experiences and so much success. But, you know, I saw, I know that you had worked as a child, but then about a boy is when it's like 2002, I want to say.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, about that, yeah.

• 16:47Conan O'Brien?

  And you're working with Hugh Grant, who, by the way, has had this. I mean, he started out as one type of performer in romantic comedies and now he's become, he's found this whole other sweet spot that I find extremely emerald. He is so good.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  His recent one's coming out soon, right? Heretic?

• 17:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  I saw the trailer, it looks great.

• 17:07Conan O'Brien?

  Looks amazing. I maintain, and I have many people, I think many people will agree with me, Paddington 2, and it sounds like I'm making a joke.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  He's so good.

• 17:16Conan O'Brien?

  Paddington 2 might be a perfect movie. And I think it has a score on Rotten Tomatoes of just absolute perfection. I've watched Paddington 2 several times, looking for a flaw, there isn't one. But Hugh Grant is so delightfully insanely over that. He's having such a good time.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  It's brilliant. He is, he is truly brilliant.

• 17:37Conan O'Brien?

  You worked with him, you were young, 10, 11, 12, something like that. You're working with Hugh Grant and he taught you by observing him, he, you learned from him.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  I still think the other day I was thinking about, and I think a lot of my sense of humor probably stems down a little bit from him. And also just, you know, how he was on set. He was, he was so dedicated to the work and professional and kind and good with everyone and just really, really deeply cared about doing a good job himself and making the film good. And I think I couldn't have had a better experience at that sort of age in terms of just learning and watching people and being like, okay, this is how it's, how it's supposed to be and how it's supposed to be.

• 18:14Conan O'Brien?

  That you'd have to put in the work.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:17Conan O'Brien?

  To get to the fun part, you need to prepare, you need to be on it.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also it's that thing of like, you know, you end up on set sometimes where people won't come out of trailers and this and that, and there's just extra kind of. Ego business going on and there wasn't any of that. So I think good to have, you know, good behavior around that sort of, you know,

• 18:36Conan O'Brien?

  Well, you lost me with this whole line of reasoning. I had a trailer put upstairs in this office just so I could not come out of it.

• 18:44Conan O'Brien?

  Half the time, no one wants me to come out of it.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  It's a win win.

• 18:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I wasn't familiar with, you know, this, this show you did when you were an adolescent skins. I don't really know that, that show, but it, it became huge in the UK. And that was a little difficult for you to handle because you're an adolescent and suddenly it's this.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think any of us were prepared for how well that show would do. And I, and I stand by this. Somebody was asking me about that show the other day. And I was saying, I think the reason that it did kind of capture the moment so well is because it wasn't expected to be what it was. You know, I feel like more commonly now when shows kind of showing the teen way of life and whatever. And we're, and they're going to show everything and it's going to be hardcore and all this sort of stuff. There's kind of this idea of what it's going to be and how it's going to fit into the zeitgeist early. Whereas that was kind of like, we're just going to make this show. We're kind of messing around.

• 19:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  It's a good bunch of people, um, very talented bunch and great writing, but it's kind of like not, nothing's expected of it.

• 19:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Um, and then it did kind of blow up into, in a way that, um, I feel like it still kind of gets watched some, by some people now. I've never, I've never actually seen it.

• 19:49Conan O'Brien?

  You were young to be experiencing that kind of attention.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  I was, I was 16 or 17 and it was, I guess it was around then that maybe camera phones and stuff were starting to kind of come out as well. And it was just, it was, it was a weird transition because up until then I'd basically most of the time just been able to live my life very normally. And, and I still can mostly day to day. It's, um, being recognized is kind of a weird, it goes in weird waves. I don't know if you find this, but it's like, if you've had something out recently or you've been on people's screens, then maybe they recognize you. Otherwise people just look at me like, maybe, maybe we went to school together. But at that period, because that show was very popular, like with my age group and everything as well. It was kind of, it felt like I was under scrutiny a lot.

• 20:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. So if you're going out, you just want to have a drink, hang out with friends.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:36Conan O'Brien?

  You have to accept. That someone might be recording you.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a weird transition. I didn't particularly enjoy that at all.

• 20:45Conan O'Brien?

  I think it's healthy not to enjoy that.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:48Conan O'Brien?

  I think there are a lot of people who'd be 15, 16, 17 and think, boy, if I could be famous right now and get that kind of attention at an age when you want attention, wouldn't that be amazing? And so often, it's not.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. What kind of attention do people want?

• 21:08Conan O'Brien?

  Well, let me explain my problem. Come to the master.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 21:14Conan O'Brien?

  You're talking about getting recognized. I wear a hat that says I am Conan O'Brien wherever I go. Stop me and ask for a selfie.

• 21:28Conan O'Brien?

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

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 21:32Conan O'Brien?

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

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 21:46Conan O'Brien?

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

• 21:55Speaker 02

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

• 21:59Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5N, which I love.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:03Conan O'Brien?

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

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 22:19Conan O'Brien?

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

• 22:53Conan 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?

• 22:57Speaker 02

  My kids.

• 22:58Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Or Okie.

• 22:59Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta get them your stuff.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Or my dog.

• 23:00Conan 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?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:10Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:15Conan 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.

• 23:46Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, I want to try something different.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  What?

• 23:49Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 23:53Conan O'Brien?

  Every morning.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:54Conan O'Brien?

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

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:56Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Oh, that's good.

• 24:01Conan O'Brien?

  See what I did?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:02Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:06Conan O'Brien?

  They're America's best network.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:08Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Oh, that's weird.

• 24:16Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 24:18Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, that's when it comes in handy.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:20Conan O'Brien?

  Here's another reason. High-speed data in over 215 countries and destinations. I travel a lot for the

• 24:25Speaker 02

  You travel a lot.

• 24:25Conan O'Brien?

  Travel show that I do.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:27Conan 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.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  That doesn't seem like a good idea.

• 24:39Conan O'Brien?

  It's a great idea.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:40Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:45Speaker 02

  My god.

• 24:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  What?

• 24:47Conan O'Brien?

  No, and all these reasons make T-Mobile a great choice.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 24:50Conan O'Brien?

  T-Mobile is stacking up reasons to join. Go to tmobile.com and find yours best, based on analysis by UCLA 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.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 25:21Conan O'Brien?

  You've had this interesting education where you were getting probably attention and working as a child, then you're a teenager, but then you've, I mean, you've handled it all really well. You've done, I was thinking of your performance in Mad Max.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:39Conan O'Brien?

  As, first of all, when I first saw that, I didn't even realize it was you.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, no one will recognize me from now.

• 25:46Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, because you play, you play Nux.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:49Conan O'Brien?

  And Nux is this terrific character. You lost so much weight for that. And the backstory, first of all, I love that movie.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:57Conan O'Brien?

  And we did a parody of it when we were at Comic Con once, where I play the Doof Warrior, who's the guy that

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:04Conan O'Brien?

  We actually recreated, we shot it film style, we recreated that whole giant truck.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:10Conan O'Brien?

  Do you remember this, Sona? Yeah, I do. I'm hanging off the front with an electric guitar and the white face and wearing the red onesie.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:17Conan O'Brien?

  And shooting fire.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Do you still have the red onesie?

• 26:19Conan O'Brien?

  I'm wearing, I'm wearing it now. But I'm wearing it for

• 26:22Speaker 01

  For everyone watching. The red onesie's his new nickname.

• 26:24Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:27Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm wearing it for medical reasons. But I'm shooting fu, they made, they gave me a guitar that shoots fire.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Real fire.

• 26:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And then we were shooting it out in the desert, but they said, I remember just before we started to shoot, they, no, after the first take, they said, uh, when you get near a telephone pole, turn off the fire. And I was like, what? And they were like, because otherwise you'll set the telephone poles off here in the desert outside Los Angeles on fire. And I went, no one thought, like, this is up to me? If I want to, I can take out the power grid with my electric guitar? But anyway, uh, we did a whole parody of that, which was really fun to do, but I absolutely adore that film. And your character, I mean, talk about being able to lose yourself in a character, you lost a ton of weight to play Nux.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:14Conan O'Brien?

  Because you're in this, everyone who's survived that apocalypse is sickly.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And Nux is meant to be kind of essentially on his deathbed the day that you meet him and you're on, at the start of the film. So that was something George asked me to do was to lose some weight. And I got, I did get a strange body dysmorphia through that, where I didn't feel I was that skinny. And then looked back at photos and I was like, oh, you were very skinny. I didn't realize quite how far I'd gone with it.

• 27:37Conan O'Brien?

  And what was the, I mean, everyone has their own technique, but is that a kind of thing where literally you're working with a doctor and they're saying, okay, you can have a Tic Tac today? And then a little soup before bed.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  It wasn't that, it was just not eating as much and just running tons and jumping rope and like, you know, just not eating that much.

• 27:53Conan O'Brien?

  I wish there was a secret.

• 27:56Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, I didn't eat as much. Fuck!

• 27:59Speaker 01

  I think there is now, right? Oh, yeah.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 28:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I'm gonna get an Ozempic colonic.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Oh, jeez.

• 28:09Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know, maybe it'll go even faster if I go the other...

• 28:12Speaker 01

  What that means?

• 28:12Conan O'Brien?

  Go the other way.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  I don't know what?

• 28:14Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just gonna say.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  What a colonic?

• 28:15Conan O'Brien?

  A colonic. For, I want that for other reasons.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  They don't go together, yeah. But the red onesie is gonna be helpful.

• 28:26Conan O'Brien?

  Thank god I have that onesie on. When did you become...

• 28:30Speaker 01

  One of my mates had to give himself like a colonic. Like, that's when you shoot the stuff up to loosen everything.

• 28:36Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  He had to do that in a hospital. And then like lost control and they, they said you could do it himself and he was like, okay, I'll do it. But then was like on the floor of the bathroom in the hospital, like cramping with...

• 28:47Conan O'Brien?

  Oh my god! Why did they say do it yourself?

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Oh my god!

• 28:51Conan O'Brien?

  First of all, this is not, this story is much better if you identify your friend.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  I can't, they're very famous. It's gotta be Hugh Grant.

• 28:59Conan O'Brien?

  It's Hugh Grant.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  It's gotta be.

• 29:00Conan O'Brien?

  Hugh Grant cramping, shitting all over the floor. You heard it here, folks! Let's get that out there!

• 29:09Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not, yeah, don't worry.

• 29:11Conan O'Brien?

  Too late, I'm editing your "it's not" out. And we're replacing it with an AI "yes, it is."

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Definitely him.

• 29:18Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, thank you! Now, we're good.

• 29:22Conan O'Brien?

  You got very seriously into motorcycles at some point.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:26Conan O'Brien?

  That was for a role.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  I learnt to ride bikes for, for a role. Um, the, the first thing I did with Elle called Young Ones that Jake Paltrow directed, um, with me and Elle and Cody Smith-McPhee and Michael Shannon, great, a great group. But yeah, my character rode motorcycles and that. Um, so I learnt to ride for that and then got into it for a little while and was riding a lot and getting on track and all that sort of stuff, but I've kind of stopped it. It started to feel a little bit, well, I fell off a few times. So that started to feel a little bit dangerous. And then I got more into car racing. So I've been doing more of that because it feels a little bit safer.

• 29:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, you got just some, you're in a cage.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've got a whole roll cage, helmet. I mean, you wear a helmet, obviously, on the bikes, but you've also got this, this hands device. Have you heard of this? The hands, I think it stands for hands, head and neck saver. So it's like underneath your harness is this thing that then connects to your helmet to stop your head if you do crash from moving too far. So it's saved loads of lives.

• 30:16Conan O'Brien?

  So you have, you have seriously, first of all, as a kid, you were interested in cars?

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I grew up watching it with my dad and racing with my dad and stuff. And he, he would like build cars as one of his hobbies. Um, so I was always kind of interested and excited by them. So now I'm lucky where I got the opportunity to kind of go and race around a track.

• 30:34Conan O'Brien?

  You just took, I mean, a serious course. What's the course that you just took?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Oh, the course at Palota, the Ferrari. Yeah. So now I'm kind of waiting, hopefully. I've, I've done some of their track attacks at the Ferrari Challenge and those have gone well. And then next will be the actual race. But track attacks, like when everyone's out there trying to set the fastest lap sort of thing, time.

• 30:53Conan O'Brien?

  Now, explain to me the appeal because I've never, I, I'm not a gearhead. I, I enjoy a nice car, but um, when I first made money and could buy any car I wanted, just so you know who you're talking to.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:08Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, and I'm a writer on The Simpsons and I, I go out and I buy a a Ford Taurus S H O. That's the Ford Taurus that has the stick shift.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, stick shift's great.

• 31:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, but it looks exactly like a Ford.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  You missed the Ford Taurus part.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Well, I had a stick shift and I was like, okay, having fun.

• 31:30Conan O'Brien?

  It's got a sweet Yamaha six in there. Uh, and, um, but yeah, I remember thinking, this is so cool. And people would say, you're driving around in a Ford Taurus and you're 28 years old. And you told us you were going to get this really cool car. And I went, yeah, but if you look inside, it's got a stick shift. And the common reaction was, uh, who, it's a Ford Taurus. You look like you're going to Whole Foods to buy some, some.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Not even Whole Foods, like Big Lots.

• 32:01Conan O'Brien?

  Okay. Let's not get dicky about grocery stores. But anyway, that's the degree to which I'm probably not a gearhead. But you participated in and won a race recently, didn't you?

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got the fastest time. So I don't know how to describe the feeling of it is something where it makes you very present. Because you have to be.

• 32:21Conan O'Brien?

  You have to be, right.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  And it's a weird, it's a weird mix between having a lot of adrenaline, but then having to kind of counteract that and calm yourself and be extremely focused for periods of time. Where you're doing things that are against human instinct. Because like, for instance, at the track where you're kind of coming up through turns two and three and it's blind. And so you can't see where you're going. And you have to keep your foot pinned to the floor and you're going about 130, 40 miles.

• 32:45Conan O'Brien?

  Accelerating into the, into the curve, yes.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so and you're going up, you're turning left, but you can't see exactly where you're aiming to come out. And then there's walls on either side, so you're going through there at like 140. And it all goes well, luckily for me this time and everything was fine. But it's a weird feeling where you're, you're like, half of the muscles in your leg are trying to pull up and stop you from doing it. And the other half are like overriding it. To be like, no, you have to do that to get quick. And then, and then it's, so there's, but then once you've done it once, you can do it again. And then you keep on building up and you start to get.

• 33:12Conan O'Brien?

  Muscle memory of.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Muscle memory and you start to just, you start to feel the car and it become, you don't become one with the car. That's such a stupid thing to say, but you start to.

• 33:20Conan O'Brien?

  I did with the Taurus. I had sex with my Taurus. Was that not clear?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Wait a minute.

• 33:29Conan O'Brien?

  Never mind. Car was not on when I became one. When my car was not even on and I was not in it when I became one with it.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  This is why you got stick shift? I thought it was fair, I thought it was fairly clear by the way you're talking about it.

• 33:38Conan O'Brien?

  I'm going to keep explaining what happened. Well, okay, but.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  I was gonna go so far with it and I've ruined myself. I'd just like to take this time to apologize to you. It's fine, yeah.

• 33:52Conan O'Brien?

  Don't worry, Nicholas, this never has to air. It's interesting, it's gonna sound like I'm taking, making a joke, but I'm not. I kind of understand what you're saying because if I'm in front of a large group of people.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:03Conan O'Brien?

  I am, there is adrenaline rush and I am sometimes doing things that are against my better nature.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:11Conan O'Brien?

  But I also think this is gonna be really funny if I do this thing that's potentially quite embarrassing or foolish. So there's this. Push me, pull you, but I also like to be in control, but I also like the potential chaotic loss of control and it's all at the same time. That's the closest I've come to that.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's exactly that.

• 34:33Conan O'Brien?

  But it's not going a hundred.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Flow state and it's kind of, and very meditative and it becomes. But let me ask you something then, so when you're about to make a joke or take a risk, how often do you doubt it before you do it? And if you doubt it, do you just abort or do you override?

• 34:49Conan O'Brien?

  This is one thing I found is that if I'm thinking about it beforehand, it's not going to be as good. And if you do it then, it's not as satisfying, it's not as good and for some reason the audience knows it too. I don't know what that's all about.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I get, I, yeah, I get what you're, what you're saying because when you were first talking about the Ford Taurus, I was in my head, I was gonna make, I was reaching for some sort of joke about there being a condom on the, on the gear. And it was there somewhere and then I was like, oh, and then, and then I thought about it too much and I was like, this isn't the time or place, let's just bury it.

• 35:19Conan O'Brien?

  Right, but then, but then I went there.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:22Conan O'Brien?

  So you showed a lot of restraint and caution.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:27Conan O'Brien?

  Um, and you held your tongue and then me, the older man who should know better.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Well, just because I couldn't formulate what the idea was.

• 35:35Conan O'Brien?

  No, I didn't formulate it well either. I have me fucking a Taurus and uh.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  You just said I fucked my car.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  There's some sort of star sign joke in here too.

• 35:43Conan O'Brien?

  There was, there was no, yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Better than a Capricorn.

• 35:47Conan O'Brien?

  I'm an Aries, yeah. My point is.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  What's that, what's that joke, what's the one where it's like, uh?

• 35:52Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Uh, I broke up with my, I broke up with my ex and someone says why and I go, oh, because I'm a Sagittarius and they're a cunt. Sorry, I probably can't say that. Bleep that one out.

• 36:02Conan O'Brien?

  No, you can say it.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  That used to be my favorite for a while.

• 36:06Conan O'Brien?

  You're allowed to say it in, uh, in, in the UK. Yeah, so I say.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Apologies to anyone who's offended by that.

• 36:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  You can change that word for other words. They were, they were.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Cunt, cunt, cunt, that's fine.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  But it's funny.

• 36:16Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, Sona.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  So unexpected.

• 36:17Conan O'Brien?

  I just want to make sure people know Sona said that.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt.

• 36:20Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, there you go. Now, okay.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:21Conan O'Brien?

  You know what's funny?

• 36:25Conan O'Brien?

  Why is it you have better material than I do?

• 36:29Conan O'Brien?

  It's just frustrating. But it is funny how, um, I did have an experience that I really loved. We shot a travel show in Berlin.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm going to Berlin in a couple of weeks. Let me know.

• 36:40Conan O'Brien?

  Is it for work?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:42Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, this was a while ago. I won't be going there anytime too soon. Uh, but we were, we shot a segment where I believe I'm in a very, very fast BMW. It's latest model, fastest model, and we go on the Autobahn. And what I always heard about the Autobahn is you can go as fast as you want. There are no speed limits. That's not really true. There are sections of the Autobahn where I would crank it up as fast as I could go. But they're short. And then, then it's like, no, no, no, this part you have to slow down to like 55 kilometers an hour, whatever. And I was, so I was.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  What was the fastest you went?

• 37:17Conan O'Brien?

  I wonder, I'm, I have to look it up.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Fifty-five.

• 37:20Conan O'Brien?

  It was 55. No, no, we went, uh, I think, I mean, it would not be impressive to you. It was impressive for me that we, uh, I'd have to find the speed that we got to. But I was, I was impressed. It was an impressive speed for you.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:36Conan O'Brien?

  They were sweaty anyway.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  A lot of the time on.

• 37:38Conan O'Brien?

  I'm a bit of a pervert, but.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Ever since the Tourist.

• 37:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Uh, no, I want to say it was.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I think you got up to like 121 or 126 miles per hour.

• 37:46Conan O'Brien?

  Which to me, I mean, you, you said you've done two, what is it?

• 37:50Speaker 01

  The fastest we went on track in, in the Challenge Ferrari Challenge car was 170, I think.

• 37:55Conan O'Brien?

  Wow.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Um, but that's weirdly, everyone always.

• 37:59Conan O'Brien?

  I was pulling a trailer.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  The first day.

• 38:02Conan O'Brien?

  It had three horses in it.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  That was through the drive-through, yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  The, the, that's what everyone always asks though, and they're like, oh, how fast do you go on track? And a lot of, a lot of the tracks you don't go that fast.

• 38:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Because the straights aren't that long and it's not, and it's not the sitting going fast in a straight line. That's the difficult bit. But anyway, that's how everyone can put their foot to the floor and go up through gears. It's the bit getting through the corners quickly, which is the scary and difficult bit. And how well the brakes work. The first time using the brakes in a race car, you'd like, just kind of kick your foot to the brake as hard as you can. And it, everything, like, they stop quick. And it's, it's impressive. But then trying to get that right whilst you're turning and releasing them. And then, and then you go into the pits and they're like, look at your time. And they're like, well, this is why you were slow because you. You you hit the brake one car length too early, but traveling at one hundred and seventy miles an hour.

• 38:52Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my god.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Zero point one tenths of a second, but then you didn't release it at the right pressure. So you lost two tenths of a second and then this and this. And suddenly you see why the details of it. And I think that's one of the reasons I like it as well. I've said this before, but in acting and filmmaking, there's lots of subjective things in in racing. It's very objective. They look at it and they go, this is why you're slower. Yes, do that better and you'll be quick and you're like, okay.

• 39:14Conan O'Brien?

  No, it is refreshing because I it's something that I find refreshing about sports. Uh, not not participating in so much, but as watching them is that things can be measured.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 39:27Conan O'Brien?

  And um, in comedy, you no matter what you do, people go like, eh, not my cup of tea.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:33Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, or someone can like it, someone else can hate it. Um, it's just this miasma, it's this soup. You can never quite uh, say, no, no empirically this wins because how can you do that? Uh, but in and that's true of all the arts. Like when sometimes when I watch the Oscars or any award show, I think this is so crazy. How can we be comparing all of these things? And who's deciding and what does that even mean? It always seems uh, ridiculous to me.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Was was let me ask you something. Career wise, was there ever a measurement that you hoped to attain that you were like, oh, if I attain this or reach this or this happens? That'll be a good barometer of like.

• 40:12Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, of course.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Good, I've done it, I've made like, what was it?

• 40:15Conan O'Brien?

  Um, yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  What was it? Is it right now?

• 40:17Conan O'Brien?

  Welcome to the Nicholas.

• 40:20Conan O'Brien?

  If I could get Nicholas Hoult to ask me questions as if I were interesting.

• 40:26Conan O'Brien?

  That's my that's my EGOT. That's my EGOT. Uh, no, I remembered um, my career has been a series of me thinking. If I could get to this point, then I'd never worry about anything again.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:45Conan O'Brien?

  And that goes back to me being twenty two and just thinking if I could just make a living as a comedy writer. And then I did and I'm like, okay, well. Yeah, the minute you attain something, you you, yeah, you have disdain for it, but uh.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  So what's what's next? What's the next? What's the next level then?

• 41:03Conan O'Brien?

  For me, um, I think, uh, I think cover of Men's Health in a speedo.

• 41:11Conan O'Brien?

  Just like supercut.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  You should pivot.

• 41:14Conan O'Brien?

  I can't, my hip will hurt.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  On the bonnet of the Taurus. Washing it.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Making sure it's extra clean.

• 41:22Conan O'Brien?

  I think, I think it's time.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:27Conan O'Brien?

  Sixty-one-year-old men of my complexion, who work out intermittently are seen as sex symbols.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  This country's already going through enough.

• 41:35Conan O'Brien?

  I think this country can handle more. Uh, no, I think-

• 41:39Speaker 01

  It's what the country needs.

• 41:42Conan O'Brien?

  No, it's funny because, uh, I was very young and a writer on Saturday Night Live, and we won an Emmy when I was there for a season that I'd been working on. And we won, and I was in my twenties, and I remember thinking, wow! You know, this, I won an Emmy, this is gonna change everything, and of course, it doesn't change anything. None of these things change anything, really. And so it's just been this constant education and re-education and re-education. It's all an illusion, you just keep, you just keep going.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:15Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, and I think for, I mean, your analogy would be, there is no, there's not gonna be any point in a car where you're gonna say, I'm satisfied, right? You're gonna keep-

• 42:25Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess if you would go and win, it can get-

• 42:28Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's right.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  The trophy or something, then, then you can be, but then, of course, that's-

• 42:32Conan O'Brien?

  Then it's like, you've gotta do it again.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  You've done it, you've gotta do it again, or you've gotta go to a different track and do it again, you gotta defend, like, yeah, there's always-

• 42:39Conan O'Brien?

  Did you stand on top of the car when you won the race?

• 42:42Speaker 01

  No, I didn't.

• 42:43Conan O'Brien?

  What are you supposed to do? There are all these iconic things you're supposed to do when you win.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  We went, uh, we, I got on the podium, and, and they, they gave a bottle of champagne, and, and I, I'd never done that before, the spraying champagne thing, and I did a terrible job.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  I popped it, it didn't really squirt anywhere, and then I saw the guy, the other guy on the podium, like, one of them, like, hit the bottle on the ground, so I kinda did that to try and get it to fizz, but it just kind of, a load fell out, and then it was like, oh, it was just all a bit of a mess. Cause when you see people spraying champagne, it looks cool and all, and I'm like, yeah!

• 43:13Conan O'Brien?

  Did they take your trophy away?

• 43:15Speaker 01

  They should've done. It was an absolute disgrace.

• 43:18Conan O'Brien?

  You could see them taking your car with a tow truck. They took the car back.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  And then I'm like, I can fix this. I can do better. So I'm shaking it, sticking my thumb in there. And by then, like, there's not enough in there. It's not fizzy enough.

• 43:29Conan O'Brien?

  And then everyone's left.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:31Conan O'Brien?

  You're there late at night.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  The sun's gone down.

• 43:33Conan O'Brien?

  You're there with a Diet 7-Up, shaking it. Come on!

• 43:37Speaker 01

  I still do it every morning, yeah.

• 43:41Conan O'Brien?

  Do you, do you, uh, I'll have, this is what I'm saying, I'm curious, does this, does any of this translate? Does your driving ability translate to you on the 405 freeway?

• 43:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:53Conan O'Brien?

  Does, does anything like that translate? Or are you, are you an amazing driver going 55 miles an hour on the highway to get your oil changed?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  No, no, I don't think so. I just get bored sitting on motorways, stop-start and whatever. It's, it's so, it's a completely different, um, I like to think that maybe my reaction time and if something happened, my car control would be good. But luckily I've never had to use it on the road.

• 44:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that's good. You just knocked wood and, I don't think this is wood.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 44:24Speaker 02

  This is definitely wood.

• 44:26Conan O'Brien?

  This is definitely wood. This shapes like a giant piece of wood. I don't trust Eduardo. I think he cheaped out on us. He found something cheaper than wood. Might be particle board. Yeah.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  It's better for the sound, right?

• 44:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Conan O'Brien?

  He gets it. Yeah. You get it. I don't get it.

• 44:44Conan O'Brien?

  How do you like living in Los Angeles area? We were talking about this a little bit when you first showed up, but it's so interesting. I, maybe it's the grass is always greener, but having 100% Irish genes, I always find myself yearning for it to be cloudy

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:00Conan O'Brien?

  and rainy here in Los Angeles.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:03Conan O'Brien?

  But for years, I've noticed that people from the UK, Brits, they, they want to be here. They are not interested at all in a cloudy day. They want to get red, you know, it faced, uh, I don't know.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Do they?

• 45:18Conan O'Brien?

  I think so, yeah. They love, they love tanning. They love, is that, do you think I'm, I'm onto something here?

• 45:23Speaker 01

  I think you're onto, well, you know what, uh, the reverse of that would be, my wife was like, when we, when we first met, she was like, oh, I love, she's from here. She was like, oh, I love rain. I love cloudy days, whatever. I'm like, oh, cool. And we were back in London for a while, shooting some of the great. For six months, and I think it was rainy and cloudy and cold for most of that time. And she quickly realized that she didn't.

• 45:41Conan O'Brien?

  Didn't like it.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Enjoy that. There's something about if you grow up in the sun where you kind of have this romantic idea of rain and gray and cold and all this, but actually when you put her in it, she was like, no, this isn't.

• 45:51Conan O'Brien?

  And you're happy. You like it here.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  I like being in the sun. I mean, I miss, I miss London. I miss pubs and the theater and friends and, and a lot of the things about the lifestyle. I've been able to walk more places. So I do miss it. But I mean, the thing about my job is I'm always kind of on the road in different places. So I'm finding this a nice base at the moment.

• 46:09Conan O'Brien?

  The, uh, we're talking, I want to make sure we get the word out on Nosferatu.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:14Conan O'Brien?

  Where did you shoot this? Where did you shoot Nosferatu?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  We shot it in Prague.

• 46:17Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my God. See, that, that is why I do a travel show is that for years and years and years, for 28 years, I sat at a talk show desk and talked to people like you.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:27Conan O'Brien?

  Who said, oh, I just got back from Prague.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Have you been there for?

• 46:31Conan O'Brien?

  No, I've never been to Prague. I, I want to go there, but.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  You should do an episode going there.

• 46:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I will.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  In, in like alignment with Nosferatu coming out.

• 46:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Oh, oh, so you want me to travel to get the word out on Nosferatu?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 46:46Conan O'Brien?

  All right, Sona, could you book me a flight to Prague?

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 46:49Conan O'Brien?

  And get me a tea. Good, really good. Your book. Really good acting.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  All done, bye.

• 46:55Conan O'Brien?

  And could you have a shirt made that says, uh, Nosferatu in theaters now?

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's see that. Can you screen print it?

• 47:03Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, wow.

• 47:06Conan O'Brien?

  Whoa, laser printer.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Stupid.

• 47:10Conan O'Brien?

  What kind of machine makes this? Do all your machines make noises like that?

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:14Conan O'Brien?

  Your guillotine probably goes.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  I'd like to hear the guillotine.

• 47:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, let's hear the guillotine.

• 47:24Conan O'Brien?

  Splot.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Splot.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  It needs to be a little bit of.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of a wet, sort of. He landed on his tongue. Um, I don't know what happened there.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  It's kind of a fun joyous guillotine, isn't it? Didn't realize the French Revolution was so humorous.

• 47:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yes. Betty Hill in the French Revolution.

• 47:50Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, you made Nosferatu, directed by one of my favorites, Robert Eggers. I love his stuff.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  He's incredible, isn't he?

• 47:59Conan O'Brien?

  Absolutely incredible, and so, I mean, I'm excited to see the look of the film. I mean, he always achieves.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I agree with you. I'm such a huge fan of his. I love his movies. I love the performances in his movies. He is, I think, a real auteur filmmaker and one of the greatest working and alives. He's just, and it's, you know what, I was thinking about this the other day as well. He's so dedicated to the craft of filmmaking in terms of technically, emotionally, historically, what he creates. There were moments where he was like watching old films to try and figure out what was the best snow we could use. Cause he shot all on film. He's, like you said, the look is so important in terms of telling the story, but he, so he was, he was like, why is the, why is the snow good in these movies, but it's not good in these? And then he found like some old stock snow that isn't made anymore. Fake snow from the 90s or whatever, and they managed to locate.

• 48:51Conan O'Brien?

  That's asbestos.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  And I'm breathing this asbestos in, and I'm like, God, this movie's beautiful. And it's worth it.

• 48:58Conan O'Brien?

  There's a reason they don't use it anymore.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  So I was poisoning myself.

• 49:01Conan O'Brien?

  Nicholas, no.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  But God, it looks good on, on screen. He is, he is like, yeah. It's just his dedication to like the details of historically, but also like exploring the occult and the emotional aspects of this story. It's something he's wanted to make since he was eight years old and there was a play of it he did at school, so no one could have told it better.

• 49:20Conan O'Brien?

  What are the Eggers movies that you were really drawn to?

• 49:22Speaker 01

  I mean, The Witch was the first one I saw, and I met him after that, which I just thought, all his movies feel so real. Which is kind of a weird thing, cause I'm not necessarily like a horror fan.

• 49:32Conan O'Brien?

  Well, this is, it's so funny, cause I had the opportunity to interview Jordan Peele, and he was asking me, what kind of horror films do you like? And I said, I don't like someone jumping out of a bush, stabbing, jump scares, and. Someone chasing someone else with a with a chainsaw. And I cited the witch as an example, and Eggers as an example of there's a wide shot. Early in the film, it's fall and it's New England.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:02Conan O'Brien?

  Six, seventeenth century New England. And you and the wind is blowing and you just see these trees slightly undulating. And it's terrifying.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:10Conan O'Brien?

  Because of the implication of what something malevolent is out there.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:16Conan O'Brien?

  He managed to make trees in the fall in New England very frightening. And I responded to there's so much in the witch that it's it's so much of its tone. And so much of it is and then there are, yes, there are little moments that are frightening. But when you think about it, there's so little violence, there's so little action. But your heart's in your mouth the whole time.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, he's a master of creating tension. I think you're gonna love that. I think I'm excited for you to see it because it's like the the tension he creates. But it is visually stunning. And the score and the sound is like imposing and fills your bones. But then there's this weird thing where it's like you're watching and you're like, you can't take your eyes away because it's it's like looking at a Rembrandt every scene, every shot. But then, but then there's also this thing where you like, don't wanna look away because you're also this is scary. Something's coming, something's happening. And it's it's it's a really interesting exploration of kind of the evil that we all have within ourselves, but also externally coming and how that affects us. So I'm I'm excited by it. I think it's a really good.

• 51:13Conan O'Brien?

  What was the period is, is it eighteen?

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, in Wiesbaden, Germany. And so it's kind of a Gothic.

• 51:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Tale, I guess. Um, but then, yeah, going back to his movies, of course, The Lighthouse was like, and Willem Dafoe's in this one as well. And him and Rob were so brilliant in that movie.

• 51:27Conan O'Brien?

  To do, we did a travel show in Dublin last year.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:31Conan O'Brien?

  And we drove around and we went to Wicklow, which there's this great iconic lighthouse. And I got all made up as Willem Dafoe in the lighthouse. And I have this long, insane speech.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:44Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, that we shot in black and white.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  You're doing promo for the lighthouse then, so you can do something for us for our. Other shirt.

• 51:52Conan O'Brien?

  What I'm saying is, go check out the lighthouse.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Get the costume on as well.

• 51:55Conan O'Brien?

  But what I loved, what I loved about that, I guess what I loved about that movie is the performances are amazing. But also you're paying attention to like the button on someone's weird suit, which is very somehow evocative.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:10Conan O'Brien?

  He manages to get all that stuff right. And I'm thinking Gothic Nosferatu, late 19th century field day with the visuals.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Oh, the costumes, the costumes that she created are all impeccable and stunning, but it is all that detail again. It's like his historical knowledge of everything going on. He, and because he leads from the front with such passion, everyone around just really wants to bring their best and do their best.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  To serve his vision, but then I would text him thinking he'd be asleep about something in like the middle of the night, in the middle of the day here, but which middle of the night in London. And he'd be like, oh, I'm up. I'm researching which cigars you, your character should smoke in this scene and whatever. He'd be like, dude, go to bed. It's three or four AM in London. What are you doing? But he's just constantly so, so in the zone of what's, what's right for the story in every.

• 52:57Conan O'Brien?

  Smoking thousands of cigars. He's vomiting. I've got to get the right one. Uh, I am, well, listen, I am a huge, uh, huge fan of yours as a person. But, uh, I, I just think your performances are off the charts great. And this movie is made for me. So, uh, and oh yeah, Bill Skarsgård.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, his performance is magic as well because he's created, you know, this monster, Count Olaf, but he's given it such history and rooted in something very real. So it's, you know, it's terrifying. It's scary, but it's also, it's also real.

• 53:33Conan O'Brien?

  Do you, I'm, I'm curious because my work is always, I make something and then we see it either instantly or 10 minutes later, and then I never see it again. Your work is you work really hard on something, craft it, you make it, you have some control over some facets of it, but and then this long period of time goes by, I would think before you see it, how apprehensive are you about? Okay, now it's time for me to go see myself in Nosferatu.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  I don't like, I don't like that. I always equate it to like when you're at school and you did a test and you're waiting for the results to come in.

• 54:06Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  There's that nerve wracking feeling where you're like, oh. And it depends also how you left the shoot in terms of how you, your overall feeling there. Like, did you feel like you gave a lot of variation on each scene that in the edit, if they want, they're going to have options? Did you feel like? You explored everything you could have done and then that's a different feeling as opposed to if you walk away from something and you go, I think I missed a bit here or actually that could have been better and suddenly then you're looking back and you're like, oh no. So it's an odd feeling waiting for something to come out and not something I look forward to in particular.

• 54:37Conan O'Brien?

  I'll say from my vantage point, your work is excellent and so, and trust me, I think a word from Conan O'Brien carries a lot of weight in the film industry.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:48Conan O'Brien?

  Huh.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  The car fucker. Yeah.

• 54:51Conan O'Brien?

  Web onesie the car fucker. Five stars. Five stars, five stars from the tourist fucker. Absolutely thrilled that you could be here today and I do want to be your friend. I doubt, I doubt it's gonna happen.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  We can definitely be friends.

• 55:10Conan O'Brien?

  No, I have a bad feeling.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  You gave me the sheet. I'm gonna say it.

• 55:15Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm gonna say it's not gonna happen on your end. I'm gonna say you're the one that's gonna, you'll see.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Just keep going and breathing down the phone. I'm always waiting.

• 55:23Conan O'Brien?

  Nicholas.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  It's the only reason I've still got a landline.

• 55:26Conan O'Brien?

  It's me. But congrats on the new film Nosferatu and thank you so much for stopping by and for being so funny and terrific.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

• 55:40Conan O'Brien?

  Peace out Tupac.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Oh god.

• 55:43Conan O'Brien?

  No one, no one expects that.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  What?

• 55:53Conan O'Brien?

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

• 55:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 55:56Conan O'Brien?

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

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 56:10Conan O'Brien?

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

• 56:19Speaker 02

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

• 56:23Conan O'Brien?

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

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 56:43Conan O'Brien?

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

• 57:21Speaker 02

  My kids.

• 57:22Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Or Okie.

• 57:23Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta get them their stuff.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Or my dog.

• 57:24Conan O'Brien?

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

• 57:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:34Conan O'Brien?

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

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:39Conan O'Brien?

  Doesn't matter. Holidays, I would say it's just around the corner, but that's a cliche. It's 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.

• 58:10Conan 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.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Same.

• 58:21Conan O'Brien?

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

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:26Conan O'Brien?

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

• 58:29Speaker 02

  What?

• 58:30Conan O'Brien?

  That's not a weather thing. That's more of a me being, making people angry.

• 58:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:34Conan O'Brien?

  Weather tech 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 grew up with this.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:57Conan 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.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Oh, what?

• 59:06Conan O'Brien?

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

• 59:10Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 59:11Conan O'Brien?

  So get a gift today at weatherTech.com.

• 59:20Conan O'Brien?

  What's up, Matt Gurley? What's the plan?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Well, we're gonna do another staff review.

• 59:24Conan O'Brien?

  I love staff reviews because as the... What is my title at this company? Am I CEO?

• 59:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:33Conan O'Brien?

  Am I chairman?

• 59:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:34Conan O'Brien?

  Am I...

• 59:36Speaker 02

  I feel like you're just talent.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  You're the...

• 59:40Speaker 02

  You're not someone who...

• 59:40Conan O'Brien?

  Are you admitting I have talent?

• 59:41Speaker 02

  I'm saying you're not someone who's like making like, hey, guys, let's wheelin' and dealin' decisions. This is... I'm doin' it.

• 59:48Conan O'Brien?

  I do that, but that's all I do. All I do is come into meetings and go, hey, guys, let's do some wheelin' and dealin'. And then Adam and Federovitch and Ross are all like, what? And I'm like, yes, I'm wheelin' and dealin'. They're like, just... And they just pushed me out of the room. And I've got my shirt buttoned down.

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. You're the face of this company.

• 1:00:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and what a face.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, let's move on. I like, as the grand poobah, I like talking to the employees and telling them how I think they could do better.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Okay, so today we have Eduardo, who is currently hiding behind his monitor.

• 1:00:26Conan O'Brien?

  Eduardo, don't hide. And be a man about this, Eduardo. Can you step away from the machinery that you employ as the...

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Who's gonna watch the levels?

• 1:00:35Conan O'Brien?

  Adam. Yeah, Adam Adams over there checking the levels.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Who's gonna do the levels?

• 1:00:40Conan O'Brien?

  Have a seat, Eduardo, and...

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Is this your first time at the table?

• 1:00:45Conan O'Brien?

  I think for the happening, I was interrogated. Yeah, just have a little seat there, Eduardo and um.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Buckle up.

• 1:00:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, buckle up. Okay, now Eduardo, if you don't mind, this is a very, very large company, huge company. They're literally have tens of thousands of employees. Your full name, please?

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Eduardo Perez.

• 1:01:04Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, Eduardo Perez.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  As I've said before, Eduardo Perez.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 1:01:09Conan O'Brien?

  Let me help you. Eduardo Perez. Um, so Eduardo Perez. Es importante que nosotros. Um, Eduardo, you are, I'm gonna start by buttering you up before I chop you down. You made this beautiful studio that we're in, state of the art. You're a very talented guy and uh, I applaud you for your work.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you. I did it with the help of many other individuals, so I can't take all the credit.

• 1:01:37Conan O'Brien?

  They're not here right now, but you did uh, a fantastic job and you've done, as far as I can tell, mostly a really good job here. Describe, describe your, your duties. You have to make sure that the equipment's all functioning.

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  Duties.

• 1:01:51Conan O'Brien?

  Well, duties, yes.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Hey, your staff review's next. Take it easy. Uh, my duties relative to this show.

• 1:01:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  I uh, I engineer, I make sure that you all sound as great as you can.

• 1:02:07Conan O'Brien?

  And who has the most challenging voice of the three of us?

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Uh, honestly, I would say you do.

• 1:02:13Conan O'Brien?

  What's, what's challenging?

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  You're very dynamic, so you get very excited and loud and then, but sometimes you, because of your bits.

• 1:02:21Conan O'Brien?

  It's called being a rageaholic.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:24Conan O'Brien?

  I explode in rage. No, I know that I, when I, when I have an idea or I wanna push something through and punch it, uh, you probably have to ride all the dials.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  All the time, constantly, exactly, riding your levels the most uh, versus of all three of you. Sometimes a guest will match you.

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  Your energy and I'll have to ride you and the guest.

• 1:02:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, that can happen sometimes.

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, but you're.

• 1:02:45Conan O'Brien?

  That happened with Doris Kearns Goodwin. Uh, she was started talking about Lyndon Johnson and she was shouting.

• 1:02:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Conan O'Brien?

  And then I was doing bits and she was doing bits. You know, it was also difficult to record sometimes. Jimi Hendrix.

• 1:02:59Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:03:00Conan O'Brien?

  The great artists are sometimes hard to capture.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  You've just, you've been doing this for so long that I'm surprised you don't know how to like, talk into a microphone properly.

• 1:03:10Conan O'Brien?

  I don't care about the devices around me. I mean, I do see myself, uh, as a pure, purely artistic cloud that just emanates energy, goodness and, uh, and genius. And then these machines, they aren't my concern. These are the concerns of others.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:03:31Conan O'Brien?

  Like, uh, is it Eduardo Perez?

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  Eduardo Perez, yes, that's right.

• 1:03:35Conan O'Brien?

  Eduardo, um, you know, you do a very good job. You did, we were, recording certain celebrity recently. I believe it was, uh, I believe it was Kaitlyn Olson, uh, of course, and, uh, very talented, wonderful. And she comes in and we were all excited to talk to her. And then there was an issue. And I hate to bring this up in your review, but, um, it felt like you weren't ready to go when it was time to go. What happened?

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  That is correct. Uh, right as we were about to get started, um, the software program that I normally use just completely froze. I got the, uh, Gourley would know this well. Anybody who's used a computer before.

• 1:04:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And I'm, I'm actually pretty fluent in this. I was doing a bit before, but which, which one is it?

• 1:04:16Speaker 04

  It's called console.

• 1:04:17Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, console, yeah.

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:04:18Conan O'Brien?

  So, and so what happened? Be specific and, and really get into the minutia because I can match you.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  Sure. So the, so the spinning wheel of death appeared.

• 1:04:26Conan O'Brien?

  Well, we all know what that is. It means it was buffering.

• 1:04:27Speaker 04

  Exactly, exactly. And it wouldn't go away.

• 1:04:30Conan O'Brien?

  Why are you talking to me like I'm a child?

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  Wait, what, what? I'm sorry. What was buffering?

• 1:04:34Conan O'Brien?

  Excuse me?

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

• 1:04:35Conan O'Brien?

  Can you seriously use the real terminology? Because I, I, you're talking to me like I'm an idiot. I have worked in show business for a long time and I know a lot about, uh, television. I also know about the audio aspect of things. So let's have a real.

• 1:04:48Speaker 04

  It's not even that complex.

• 1:04:49Conan O'Brien?

  Well, just please, let's get into it.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  The computer simply froze.

• 1:04:54Conan O'Brien?

  That's all you've got?

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  That's all that happened.

• 1:04:56Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  And I had to just hit re- I had to restart the whole system. Yes.

• 1:05:01Conan O'Brien?

  That's all you did?

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  That that was it. And then I had to load up Pro Tools. I had to load up Console again.

• 1:05:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you have to load Pro Tools, you have to load Console. But my question is, did you try anything else before you went to what anyone would do, which is unplugging it and then plugging it back in again?

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  I tried to force quit it and tried to reboot it.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Did you try the force?

• 1:05:21Conan O'Brien?

  There is no try, there's only do.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Do you know how to force quit?

• 1:05:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, of course you do.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  What's the shortcut? What's the keystroke for force quit?

• 1:05:26Conan O'Brien?

  Control, Alt, Force, Quit. Listen, can I tell you something? I believe you, that was the easy thing to do, and it took a long time. Kaitlyn had to sit here for a little bit because-

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  I feel like it was a minute.

• 1:05:37Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, excuse me. It was longer than a minute. It was at least a minute and 15 seconds.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  It felt like eternity for me, I'll tell you that.

• 1:05:43Conan O'Brien?

  And I could tell she, she's a lovely person.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Conan O'Brien?

  But she was thinking of leaving. I could tell.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  She handled it like a champ. I was more nervous about your energy than I was about her, to be honest.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  This guy's never had a single hiccup for how long has he been working here?

• 1:05:58Conan O'Brien?

  Can I say something? Prince, anytime anyone in his band hit one note that was a little bit off, he would find them. He would find them.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  He's a psychopath.

• 1:06:07Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's not the-

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  Are you comparing yourself to Prince?

• 1:06:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  You do podcasting.

• 1:06:12Conan O'Brien?

  What are you talking about?

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  I'm just saying, you wouldn't know what's wrong because you don't have-

• 1:06:16Conan O'Brien?

  I hear the music just the way Prince did, and I think in our, each in our fields, I'm every, I am the prince of podcasting.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  You're the prince of, you're certainly a little prince, I'll say that.

• 1:06:30Conan O'Brien?

  And, and I'll tell you this. I just question, did you panic and force quit? Because there are other things you could have tried first.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  Like what?

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know. You could have gone to Ultra, you know?

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Sorry?

• 1:06:42Conan O'Brien?

  Ultra.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  What's Ultra?

• 1:06:44Conan O'Brien?

  I'm talking about Ultra. It's a, it's a parallel system that you can use. You can access it. And then you can go to Hibernet. If you had used Ultra and you had gone to Hibernet, don't, hey Sona, you're just laughing because you're embarrassed you don't know anything. You could have knocked it all down like three generations.

• 1:07:01Speaker 04

  What was I thinking?

• 1:07:02Conan O'Brien?

  And did you try compression?

• 1:07:04Speaker 04

  Compression?

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:06Speaker 03

  Compression.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  Plenty of compression.

• 1:07:07Conan O'Brien?

  Well, listen, next time, look to me, and I can help you.

• 1:07:10Speaker 04

  You got it.

• 1:07:11Conan O'Brien?

  Okay?

• 1:07:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Conan O'Brien?

  Um, I do like the work that you're doing.

• 1:07:13Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:07:14Conan O'Brien?

  I'm very lucky to have you.

• 1:07:15Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:07:16Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, and I'm very fortunate that, uh, you've done such a beautiful job. And this table, you, this is your baby.

• 1:07:23Speaker 04

  This is one of my babies, yes.

• 1:07:24Conan O'Brien?

  You put this table together, and anytime one of us, it's happened, Sona's always bringing various soups from home, soups that your mother made, soups from the home.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  She's never once brought soup.

• 1:07:36Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just trying, you know, when you come in with your soups from the old country?

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:07:41Conan O'Brien?

  And, listen, and you spilled.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  How did it turn into this?

• 1:07:44Conan O'Brien?

  Have you noticed that when you're, when, when, just back me up on this. Admit, first of all, you're bringing a lot of soups from the old country.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  Throw yourself under the bus. Just admit it. It doesn't mean you bring soups from the old country.

• 1:07:53Conan O'Brien?

  But listen, but listen, uh, it spills, whenever a liquid spills, you freak.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  I do freak out.

• 1:07:59Conan O'Brien?

  Because there's a lot of very, uh, expensive electronics underneath this beautiful table.

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  Under the hood, yes.

• 1:08:04Conan O'Brien?

  Under the hood. Did you know, when you were building this table, did you know that, first of all, I get clumsy sometimes with my drinks? Sona, of course, ubiquitous soups.

• 1:08:15Speaker 04

  I had a feeling.

• 1:08:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Speaker 04

  I tried to impose a rule that would prevent drinks, uh, but I was quickly outnumbered, so.

• 1:08:23Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I in, I ingest a lot of fluids.

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Conan O'Brien?

  To keep, uh, the old pipes lubricated, so to speak.

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  You, you were the first one to spill all over this, and you, it was like a full glass of water.

• 1:08:35Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, I did spill a full glass of water.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Conan O'Brien?

  However, how many times have you been in here with, and she drinks it out of a stone bowl? And it's some Armenian stew or potash, right? Am I wrong? And you come in and you've got that big spoon, it's crazy big, like the Flintstones.

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  You know what's funny is I'm thinking of hash, which would come with like a hoof.

• 1:09:00Conan O'Brien?

  What? How many times? Oh, I said once, she was having some of this hash, and I said, "What you got there?" And she said, "You want some?" She said, "You want the hoof?" "You want the hoof, remember?" And I said, "No, I don't want the hoof."

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  I'm trying to share with you. That's all I'm trying to do.

• 1:09:18Conan O'Brien?

  Well, anyway.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  Great staff review. So you're welcome.

• 1:09:21Conan O'Brien?

  I finally got you to admit that you do bring tons of... You bring hash in, in a big stone bowl that's been frozen for years because it's from the old country. Gotcha, Sonu.

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  Years. Oh, my God.

• 1:09:32Conan O'Brien?

  Eduardo, thank you for all your work, and you are impeccable.

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  Thank you very much.

• 1:09:36Conan O'Brien?

  My only question is, how valuable could your job be if you can walk away from it completely? And everything's fine? I built it so that... Oh, you built it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you're such a good surgeon that halfway through the surgery, you can walk away for a peer review.

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, you know what? I'm with you on this because he did plug in and plug out and plug in. That's what I would have done. I could do what you do.

• 1:10:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:02Speaker 04

  Oh, and also, what do I do? I guess I'll reboot the whole thing.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonu Movsesian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. 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.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:11:21Conan O'Brien?

  When you hear Alka Seltzer, you probably think heartburn, right? Yep. Well, did you know Alka Seltzer has a line of cold and flu medications known as Alka Seltzer Cold? Ooh. Did you know that, David? No, but I feel like we need it. Why didn't you know that, David? I know, you expect me to know everything. I knew this. Did you? 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. Yeah. 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.

• 1:12:06Conan O'Brien?

  Among oral products used as directed.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

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