Claire Danes Returns

Actress Claire Danes feels blessed about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Claire sits down with Conan once more to discuss her new Netflix limited series The Beast in Me, preparing for her role on Homeland at “spy camp,” raising her kids on-set around the globe, and more. Later, Conan and the team respond to a listener struggling to keep Conan at the top of his feed. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847.

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

• 0:02Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  My kids.

• 0:07Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Or Oki.

• 0:08Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta get them your stuff.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Or my dog.

• 0:09Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:19Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:24Conan O'Brien?

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

• 0:56Conan O'Brien?

  One in four Americans targeted by scams ended up falling for them.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:00Conan O'Brien?

  For me, it would be four out of four. Did you fall for a scam?

• 1:01Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam once.

• 1:03Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  They didn't steal much.

• 1:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, still, you got taken for a ride.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:08Conan O'Brien?

  And you just put it out there that you're easy to scam.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  I am.

• 1:10Conan O'Brien?

  One accident, little click, can expose your information, putting you at risk of identity theft.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 1:15Conan O'Brien?

  Thankfully, there's LifeLock. LifeLock has live, US-based restoration specialists who will be with you every step of the way to fix your identity theft from first alert to full restoration. Join now and save up to 30% off your first year. This is a good thing to have in your back pocket, don't you think?

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I need this.

• 1:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you do need it. You need it fast. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Hi, my name is Claire Danes.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  And I feel blessed.

• 1:52Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  About being Conan O'Brien's friend.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Just so much spit on it.

• 2:19Conan O'Brien?

  Hey there and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I just started the podcast to stop Sona from jabbering. You were jabbering a bit. Sona Movsesian joining me and Matt Crowley, did you see what I did there?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  I did.

• 2:30Conan O'Brien?

  I started the podcast in order to stop her. I saw a slight opening and I jumped in.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  I'm gonna leave in the edit, just the last thing she said right before you spoke, which is, there's so much spit on it.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  I was saying, you rest your, you rest on the microphone a lot. You did that. I remember you had, I wish I didn't talk, no, it was in the documentary.

• 2:56Conan O'Brien?

  It was in the documentary.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  You had pus on your eye and then you kept shoving the microphone in your eye and then I had to like wipe it with a wipey.

• 3:04Conan O'Brien?

  This is going back to 2010.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:06Conan O'Brien?

  I'm preparing to do my tour and there's, we're having lots of problems getting the show up and going.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:14Conan O'Brien?

  And at one point, I remember it, I wasn't feeling well. I had a postulated eyeball.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 3:20Conan O'Brien?

  Don't even ask me what was going on. I had some disease that was eradicated in the Middle Ages. But I wasn't feeling well and it's the poster for the tour, the movie, the documentary, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  I forgot, it's the poster.

• 3:37Conan O'Brien?

  It's, I see it every morning because I had that, someone gave me that framed poster.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:41Conan O'Brien?

  And I put it in my basement and I'm always passing it like on the way to like watch TV and I, it's me leaning my postulating eye on the mic, on the foam cover of the microphone.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  He's, you're holding it.

• 3:57Conan O'Brien?

  I'm holding it and I'm rubbing, I'm wiping pus.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 4:01Conan O'Brien?

  Onto the microphone.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:03Conan O'Brien?

  And then the director, Robyn Flender, got a great shot of you, he inserted it later, of you with a little handy wipe.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:10Conan O'Brien?

  Cleaning pus.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  You had to clean up his pus?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I had to clean up his eye pus.

• 4:14Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  From his microphone.

• 4:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  His eye pus.

• 4:18Conan O'Brien?

  I did bring this up in your interview for the job. I said, "I may, I may have a postulating eye and you will need to clean it off."

• 4:26Speaker 01

  I don't remember that.

• 4:27Conan O'Brien?

  Well, you were pretty high.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was pretty high. Scored.

• 4:32Conan O'Brien?

  Scored.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Crushed it.

• 4:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 4:36Conan O'Brien?

  Goals. What?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  I don't know. That doesn't work. But you have a thing with resting on whatever microphone.

• 4:42Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, sometimes, I don't know what it is, but I find it somehow calming to rest my eyeball on the microphone.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:51Conan O'Brien?

  And Eduardo, you are, of course, the designer of this wonderful studio. This is your equipment. You're very finicky about it. How do you feel when you see me resting my eyeball on this, what I'm sure is a $600,000 microphone?

• 5:06Speaker 04

  It's not. I'm okay with it because we have a bunch of spares, so if you've done it too long, I'll swap it out.

• 5:13Conan O'Brien?

  Do you boil them afterwards?

• 5:15Speaker 04

  They, they can get cleaned, actually, this foam part here, so once, once a year.

• 5:19Conan O'Brien?

  Because I secrete many secretions and they could get on the mic. It just could happen, so.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Also, when people, you're not the only one who uses that microphone.

• 5:29Conan O'Brien?

  I know.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  And the people spit on it and talk on it.

• 5:32Conan O'Brien?

  Ted Danson regularly does a podcast in here, and I've noticed lately he has all these horrible sores around his mouth. I think he has what I have now. And he probably thought, "Oh, there's gonna be no problem me speaking into this mic." Little does he know that I have some kind of scabies from this era of the Salem witch trial. It's coming out my eye and it's going into Ted Danson. And the last time I saw him, he had trouble, he was trying to just eat the softest muffin.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  You're killing Ted Danson.

• 6:05Conan O'Brien?

  I'm killing Ted Danson. He couldn't get the little soft muffin into his mouth because of the giant

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Cankers!

• 6:12Conan O'Brien?

  On his Ted Danson lips.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  The other concern is the earphones, you know, sometimes when you, have you noticed if you picked up earphones, sometimes they've got a little. I, I clean them every pre-session.

• 6:26Conan O'Brien?

  And I will say this.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  I move every time we have a guest, I immediately have to move here.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  And they glisten.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  And sometimes guests' ears glisten.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  They glisten.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  I know.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  I've seen that.

• 6:36Conan O'Brien?

  You're talking about, is it sweat? They're nervous around Conan O'Brien, what's happening?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Or they're oily?

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Maybe they're oily?

• 6:42Conan O'Brien?

  What guest has been oily recently?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  You know, who knows?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Earwax around?

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Just saying.

• 6:49Conan O'Brien?

  Can I just say, and I can say this because he's a friend, when Greg Daniels was here, he walked in and he's just so oily.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  He's a greasy guy.

• 6:57Conan O'Brien?

  And I, at first I thought he was a, an eel from the deepest part.

• 7:03Conan O'Brien?

  The deepest part of the ocean, an oily eel.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  You thought an eel was walking into your studio?

• 7:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and I said, an eel? And then he said, Conan, it's me, your old writing partner, Greg Daniels. And I said, I'm sorry. And I remember I recovered very quickly.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, he took off his headphones and they were dripping.

• 7:19Conan O'Brien?

  Dripping. You heard, and someone's gonna get back to Greg with this, but just, he's an oily, oily man.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Greasy, oily guy.

• 7:26Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I used to, as his writing partner, I had to blot him every day. I had giant, human-sized blotting tissues. Anyway, I wanted to throw him under the bus for no reason, but I thought, I can't go after any other guests, but I can go after Greg Daniels. So I made him oily. And he's not oily at all.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I know.

• 7:48Conan O'Brien?

  But yeah, well, I think, uh, we have a terrific show today. I really do. And I know that because we recorded it before I spoke. This little, so now I'm gonna act excited.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  You were in a whole other state, on the other side of the country for this.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're not in this interview.

• 8:03Conan O'Brien?

  You're not in this interview, and it's only because the guest requested.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 8:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  What?

• 8:08Conan O'Brien?

  Well, she's an avid fan of the podcast, but she said that she goes to great expense to have you two removed from it.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 8:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, audibly removed. No, uh, I was in New York, uh, doing some work there and did a podcast or two. And of course, when I'm there, um, there's no way to get you guys out to New York. You have, uh, both of you.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Airplanes.

• 8:30Conan O'Brien?

  You both have, uh, you know, families.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but my boys are four. Like, I can use a night or two.

• 8:35Conan O'Brien?

  I know.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Away.

• 8:36Conan O'Brien?

  The problem is, you'd probably insist on flying first, and I'm not paying for that.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, you are.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Coach is fantastic.

• 8:42Conan O'Brien?

  I've heard.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  I have your.

• 8:43Conan O'Brien?

  I've heard Coach is great.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll fly Coach. And then.

• 8:47Conan O'Brien?

  Someone showed me a sketch, sketch recently of Coach. They drew it for me.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Your only connection with Coach is someone showed you a drawing of it?

• 8:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Yeah, it was a illustration of what it looked like. You're talking about, I came, I was practically born in Coach. My whole life was Coach. Only recently have I moved up. Now I sit with the pilots.

• 9:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, I have.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. Imagine being on a plane where the pilots are sitting next to Conan. I would be so afraid for my life.

• 9:21Conan O'Brien?

  I'm doing bits, and then the bits get physical, and then I hit a button. And then suddenly we're in a power dive, and I'm just making a bit out of the power dive.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  They have to, what do they do when people are unruly? They tape them to the chair?

• 9:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  They would do that to you.

• 9:35Conan O'Brien?

  They would do that to me.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Can we do that with you here?

• 9:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, you can.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Oh, we should tape him for a full episode to the chair.

• 9:42Conan O'Brien?

  But wait a minute, I'm still allowed to talk?

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:44Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, you just get the same amount of jibber jabber that you always get.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Well, we'll tape your mouth shut.

• 9:48Conan O'Brien?

  You're not removing the problem. If you tape the mouth shut, then you've got something.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  Okay, can we tape his mouth shut?

• 9:52Conan O'Brien?

  But saying, we'll isolate everything about Conan but his mouth. What does my body ever do? My body is.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Your body flails a lot.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  You are flayer. You are. You're very animated.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  And you grab, and you twist, and you noogie, and you hit, and you wedgie, and you.

• 10:08Conan O'Brien?

  I don't hit. Let's, for HR purposes, I don't hit, I caress with purpose.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  For HR purposes, you hit.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do. And then would you be able to have a whole conversation where you don't whip off your glasses dramatically?

• 10:20Conan O'Brien?

  Can I make that sound?

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:22Conan O'Brien?

  When I take my glasses off?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:23Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my God, people love that bit.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to do it.

• 10:26Conan O'Brien?

  I'd do it in my mind, and then I'd make it happen.

• 10:30Conan O'Brien?

  I am, uh, there's so much happening in my mind right now. It's fantastic.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  It would be great to do a segment where you're here, but your mouth is taped shut. And he's taped to the chair, but we just get to talk, you know?

• 10:41Speaker 01

  But we just talk?

• 10:42Speaker 03

  And we can say whatever we want and he has to hear it.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  But then it would just sound like just the two of us talking on the, when people listen to it.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  But we could do things to infuriate him and the listener would know.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  That he was there and can't speak up. He can't defend himself.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm down.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  It'd be fun.

• 10:57Conan O'Brien?

  The worst thing you could do is compliment me.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 11:00Conan O'Brien?

  Say something nice about me and I'm not able to deflect. But you couldn't do that, could you, girlie?

• 11:05Speaker 03

  No, I couldn't.

• 11:06Conan O'Brien?

  All right, I might. What's that?

• 11:08Speaker 03

  I couldn't and I wouldn't.

• 11:09Conan O'Brien?

  You wouldn't.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  It would be irresponsible.

• 11:12Conan O'Brien?

  It would be wrong. What are you doing over there?

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, what are you shooting guns?

• 11:15Conan O'Brien?

  What are you pretending?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Finger guns.

• 11:17Conan O'Brien?

  Why are you doing finger guns?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know. I thought we were wrapping up and I was like, and then I had a mouthful of water. Why did you have to draw attention to it?

• 11:25Conan O'Brien?

  I just want people to know what I'm dealing with.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  You couldn't sit with the pilots either.

• 11:29Conan O'Brien?

  No, you can't sit with the pilots.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  I'm broken.

• 11:30Conan O'Brien?

  You can't be on the plane.

• 11:33Conan O'Brien?

  My guest today is an Emmy award winning actress who starred in the hit HBO series Homeland and the Hulu series Fleishman is in Trouble. Now you can see her in the Netflix limited series, The Beast in Me. Thrilled she's here today.

• 11:52Conan O'Brien?

  Claire Danes, welcome.

• 11:57Conan O'Brien?

  You're such a breath of fresh air. I love seeing you every time you drop in.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Same, a pleasure.

• 12:02Conan O'Brien?

  And you were a great friend to me on the old late night show.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:05Conan O'Brien?

  Back in the glorious late 90s.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:07Conan O'Brien?

  When I think you were, uh, maybe.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  A wee thing.

• 12:10Conan O'Brien?

  Three years old. You came on your first appearance. You cried the whole time.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  I did, yeah.

• 12:15Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, uh, no, um, it is funny. I have this interesting relationship with people who were coming on as kids or just very, very young adults in that time, you know? And these clips come up every now and then and I'll think of others.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  My voice was like eight octaves higher.

• 12:32Conan O'Brien?

  And mine was 10 octaves higher.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Hi Claire, how are you? Good to see you.

• 12:36Conan O'Brien?

  Um, yeah. I went through puberty, I think in Obama's second administration, as I love to say. But it was just, it's always so nice. And then I see you now and it's like, family, kids. You're kicking ass in your career.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Well, thanks.

• 12:52Conan O'Brien?

  Gives me a lot of joy.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 12:54Conan O'Brien?

  All good?

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, all a lot.

• 12:57Conan O'Brien?

  It's funny, you have a thing you do a little bit, which is like, yeah! Which is you're allowing for the possibility of disaster at any moment.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  That's accurate.

• 13:05Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, that I sense.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  That is a very fair description of how I am perceiving my life. Yeah, no, it's good. It's very rich and on the verge of overflowing with life. Yeah, I have three kids. Twelve, seven and two. That last one was a real shocker. I was so pregnant with her when I last spoke to you.

• 13:30Conan O'Brien?

  That's right.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Here.

• 13:31Conan O'Brien?

  That's right.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Deeply pregnant and a little sick. I'm still sick, but because I have three kids, but no longer with child.

• 13:36Conan O'Brien?

  I couldn't tell if the sickness was pregnancy related or just my personality.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Yes, and that. It didn't help. A little like the Tylenol, apparently, but, um, uh, yeah. So, no, it's good. It's wonderful. It's just, I'm, you know, kind of eking it out, it feels like.

• 13:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, this is what I remembered when, I have two kids and when they were three and one, I remembered, and I, this is, I feel guilty saying this. I love them, but I was so happy to, oh, I've got to go to work. And I would pretend.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 14:14Conan O'Brien?

  I have to, I just wish I could be here. And my wife saw through it all. She was like, uh huh, yeah, really.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 14:22Conan O'Brien?

  But I have to go to work and talk to Claire Danes. It's like working in the mines. You try talking to her, she's a nightmare.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:31Conan O'Brien?

  And so, and she'll be like, uh huh, really? Okay, well, good luck with that.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  No, no, no, it's so much harder staying put, staying home and just, you know, making waffles for your children. You will get it wrong, you will fail every time.

• 14:47Conan O'Brien?

  You will fail.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  Even if you just put it in a toaster, it's not the right maple syrup, it's not enough maple syrup, it's too much maple syrup, and the response is not commensurate with the

• 14:58Conan O'Brien?

  The effort, the effort that you put into it.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Or the failure, or whatever it is, it's just, it's always at such a high pitch. Literally, it's just a lot of hyperbole, it's a lot, it's a lot.

• 15:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  They're very expressive, and they're beautiful, and I love them, and, and I too, I'm very excited to go to work.

• 15:16Conan O'Brien?

  You gritted your teeth as you said, "I love them." I love them.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  So much.

• 15:21Conan O'Brien?

  It is, you know, I, again, this is kid talk, but I remember my son being so particular that he would call it a bit, if there was a bit, meaning like a little tiny grain of something, anywhere, he wouldn't eat it. And I just thought, who's this little Lord Fauntleroy who won't have a bit? Of course, then remembered me being one of six.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 15:45Conan O'Brien?

  And trying to declare to my parents, "I will not eat this."

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:48Conan O'Brien?

  That didn't go over too well.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 15:50Conan O'Brien?

  In my house.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  I'm sure that's true.

• 15:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Six, one of six.

• 15:53Conan O'Brien?

  I was one of six, we were born three months apart.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Oh, my. Yes, well.

• 15:59Conan O'Brien?

  Which I'm told is never, is not medically possible, but it's what happened.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  My mom was one of five, like, she was four and a half when everybody else was born, three months apart, in very, very quick succession, and was the kind of default nanny, sort of, and I absorbed that through her.

• 16:17Conan O'Brien?

  You absorbed it all.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:18Conan O'Brien?

  And, you know, I don't know if you've ever done this with your kids, but it doesn't work when you try to declare to them, you know, I'm a big deal in my, in the world.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, that's

• 16:26Conan O'Brien?

  You need to understand something. This waffle may not be perfect, but I'm Claire Danes. You give a whole speech about that?

• 16:34Speaker 02

  Rowan was asking me today on the way to school, he said, "Mama, what is the least favorite part of your job?" Um, and I said, huh, I said, maybe rejection. There's just a lot of rejection and the heels, the high heels that I have to occasionally wear. Um, anyway.

• 16:56Conan O'Brien?

  No, I, I, uh, first of all, heels, I've worn them. It's, it's, it's killer. Um, I went to, uh, this premiere last night and my wife came with me and she was wearing very high heels. And the first thing that happened when we stepped out of the car and people were taking pictures was her heels went right through a grate and one of her shoes came off.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:15Conan O'Brien?

  And we just both started laughing because.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Her white skirt flew up.

• 17:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, exactly. But we're just not built for any occasion that a normal show business person has to do all the time.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 17:27Conan O'Brien?

  I'm not one of those people. She's not one of those people. She looked absolutely beautiful, but we step out, foot right into a grate, shoe stuck to the grate. I think there are welders right now trying to free it. Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:38Conan O'Brien?

  And that's just the world we're in.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 17:40Conan O'Brien?

  It's interesting. You talk about rejection. You almost didn't make it, you know, here because it's a very high bar to get onto this podcast.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Well, thank you.

• 17:48Conan O'Brien?

  And I had to look, I was up all night looking at tape.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 17:51Conan O'Brien?

  And I finally cleared you.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, okay. Um, uh, and that feels, uh, divine.

• 17:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Because I am blessed. Um, but, uh, yeah, no, it's true. It's just, it's an integral part of it. And, and, uh, and you'll always get reviewed. And if it's a good review, you're screwed. And if it's a bad review, you're screwed. There's just no winning when.

• 18:12Conan O'Brien?

  Also, you have to make that decision. If you're going to not validate the bad reviews, you have to make it.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I really.

• 18:19Conan O'Brien?

  Then you're not allowed to.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  I am pretty good about not reading it, but, but it just seeps through like by osmosis. I mean, you can't really safeguard yourself. There's no.

• 18:28Conan O'Brien?

  I used to have, my mother would, uh, I don't read anything. I just don't. And then you hear.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:35Conan O'Brien?

  If there's some really good stuff, people will tell you and I'll say, oh, really?

• 18:38Speaker 02

  That baits you. That baits you.

• 18:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And then, um, my mom, who meant well, but she would say things like, I'd say, oh, this latest thing I did, people seemed to really like it. And she'll say, yeah, I don't know what's wrong with that right. Later at the Boston Herald Tribune Dispatch. And I'll say, is that even a paper? Well, it's a supermarket circular. And I'd say, oh, but I don't think you have beady eyes and lifeless lips. And it would all be under the guise of defending me.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:08Conan O'Brien?

  I don't think you're completely devoid of talent and a cancer on humanity. And I. Oh, well, OK. And then years later, it'd be like five years later. Well, Mom, they just gave me the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, I'm still angry at that writer. You know what his name was? Brian McElhenney. What? I know where he lives. And but it was her way of exercising it. But yes, you hear about the good, you hear about the bad, you can't hide from it.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:37Conan O'Brien?

  But I am very, very, I don't know, very happy for you. This new project, I have to be, full disclosure, which I love. And I have a little bit of a weird history with.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  A lot of it.

• 19:50Conan O'Brien?

  Which is.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  A lot of it.

• 19:52Conan O'Brien?

  The Beast in Me.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Wouldn't exist if it weren't for you.

• 19:54Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I don't know about that. It's such a good script. And David Kissinger, who was a longtime associate of mine and just a brilliant guy. He said, I found this script. The script came my way and you have to read it. And I read it and it's that classic thing. It was just a page turner. We did our best to shop it around. And this was a bunch of years ago.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  It was a slow burn. It was.

• 20:16Conan O'Brien?

  Very slow burn.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Very hard to birth, but we did it.

• 20:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and then so I am, you know, was some part of the story quite a while ago. And I'm very upfront about this is a terrific project. And Howard Gordon is took the helm. And so many people have come in and done an amazing job. And I take no credit for any of that.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Well.

• 20:41Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I'm happy I was involved early on, but I'm just thrilled and.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  I don't think you're fairly representing yourself, but OK.

• 20:50Conan O'Brien?

  All I wanted was a walk on.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, no.

• 20:54Conan O'Brien?

  That never worked out, yeah. I always shoot the camera, look right into lens and wink. And I give the thumbs up and I'm like, Conan here! And you guys are like, cut! You're just the butler, shut up. But, how did this come to you? Because I remember it was quite a while ago.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:09Conan O'Brien?

  But you are very hard to... It's hard to get Claire Danes because you are a busy person.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Sure. Even though rejection was the first thing that came to my mind when my son asked me that question.

• 21:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, we were deep, deep in COVID times. So, we were all in our, you know, respective bubbles. And Jodie Foster reached out to me because she was going to direct it.

• 21:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  At one point. And she and I have known each other for a long time now. Yeah, and I read it and similar to you, just, you know, it was immediately clear that this was a this was a great conceit and, um, and a really vivid character.

• 21:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Um, and I loved the kind of Hitchcockian feeling of it and, but, you know, it's in contemporary time, but it's all, it felt very classic.

• 22:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  I really wanted to know what happened next. And so did everybody involved in making it. And it took us a long time to figure that out. And it went through a few different iterations. Um, and it was, it was tricky defining the, the, let's call him the antagonist. That other lead character that Matthew ended up playing. It cycled through a lot of different names. One of them was Cyrus, which is my eldest son's name. And I said, timeout, no!

• 22:41Conan O'Brien?

  I can't be having a tortured relationship with Cyrus.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  That's gonna be tricky for me.

• 22:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Um, so, anyway, ended up being Nile. Anyway, I think it really works, thank. God, you never know.

• 22:53Conan O'Brien?

  You don't ever know.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Not even when you're making it.

• 22:56Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Maybe especially when you're making it. Um, when you're in the, yeah.

• 23:00Conan O'Brien?

  Well, that piece that was missing was, who is this guy?

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:04Conan O'Brien?

  Playing opposite you. And then one day, David Kissinger called me and he said, um, we're thinking about.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  That's a good Kissinger.

• 23:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, David Kissinger. He's like, we're thinking about, you know, and it was kind of like, what's your take on Matthew Reeves? And I said, uh, only one of the most charming.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:21Conan O'Brien?

  Amazing people.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:22Conan O'Brien?

  I've ever met.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:23Conan O'Brien?

  And, uh, I, a major man crush of mine.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:27Conan O'Brien?

  And so, yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:29Conan O'Brien?

  Um, not that my yay or nay.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  He's very crushy, isn't he?

• 23:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's annoying.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:34Conan O'Brien?

  It's annoying.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, no, he's, he's kind of stupid impressive and charismatic.

• 23:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  It's like uncomfortable.

• 23:42Conan O'Brien?

  It's so funny too, how it seems to be a prerequisite that, uh, actors who are very charismatic and kind and affable can, uh, play sinister so well.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:55Conan O'Brien?

  And I think there's something, I've noticed that in sketches or any time that I've done some version of acting, I really enjoy, uh, being an asshole.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 24:07Conan O'Brien?

  And it's not because I'm not, it's that it's so contrary to the face that I've put out there.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. I've never played like an overt baddie. And to be fair, Niall isn't, there's, it's not supposed to be overt.

• 24:20Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, it's not overt.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Play it that way.

• 24:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  And that's really was another reason why this appealed to me because I thought their dynamic was so surprising and unusual and fun because they're kind of in love with each other.

• 24:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  And they're antagonists, so.

• 24:36Conan O'Brien?

  That happens a lot in love.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 24:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:46Conan O'Brien?

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

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 24:49Conan 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.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 25:03Conan O'Brien?

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

• 25:12Speaker 01

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

• 25:16Conan O'Brien?

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

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 25:36Conan 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 US News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 26:10Conan 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?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  My kids.

• 26:15Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, you gotta get them their stuff.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Or my dog.

• 26:17Conan O'Brien?

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

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:27Conan O'Brien?

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

• 27:03Conan O'Brien?

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

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:10Conan O'Brien?

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

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:19Conan O'Brien?

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

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Because it's family.

• 27:31Conan O'Brien?

  But what about a niece or a nephew?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:35Conan O'Brien?

  Like a walk with an ex-wife.

• 27:38Conan O'Brien?

  I don't know, I mean, they're just throwing, that's a weird, they just made a very specific choice.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:42Conan O'Brien?

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

• 28:09Speaker 01

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

• 28:12Conan O'Brien?

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

• 28:33Conan O'Brien?

  You brought this thing you never know, and that's another thing that, it's a theme that really fascinates me, is you can, you can get all these great, amazing, there's no way we can lose, people together. And I remember early on in this project, one of the first meetings that we took, I took was Jodie Foster came in. And we had this meeting with her, and she's this iconic... Incredible actor, director. And um, meeting's over and I said, that's one of the smartest people I've ever had. I mean, I just was so impressed with her.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  She's impressive.

• 29:06Conan O'Brien?

  And um, you get all these people together, chemistry. There's something about, something magical happens. And I've found it so many times in my career is if I point to the things that have gone well, I couldn't have told you beforehand.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:19Conan O'Brien?

  There's a, there's some kind of uh, little spark that happens that nobody can control.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:26Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, you do the best you can, but it's like the weather. You just don't know.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you try, you do what you can and that gives you a better chance of, you know, finding that elusive, you know, mystical, magical thing that we all are aiming for.

• 29:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  But, yeah.

• 29:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, well, I'm just thrilled for all of you guys.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 29:48Conan O'Brien?

  And.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Go us.

• 29:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I just wish I had a piece of the merch.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Go.

• 29:55Conan O'Brien?

  Beast in Me, uh, action figures.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:00Conan O'Brien?

  I'm always looking for the merch. I, I have to ask you a question about, I was absolutely a fanatic for Homeland.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 30:08Conan O'Brien?

  And um, loved it and found out only later on that you got to regularly meet with.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:14Conan O'Brien?

  People who did special ops, people who did basically spy craft.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:20Conan O'Brien?

  And I thought, oh my God, I would do any project where I get to talk to those people.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  It was, it was amazing. It was maybe a couple of seasons in, one of the uh, writers of the show, Henry Bremel, who actually passed away way too early. He was crazy gifted. Um, but his dad was in the CIA and um, so his uh, I guess his uncle also, you know, anyway, this man who was very closely connected to him was in the CIA and at a very senior position, just retired and so this became his. Project where he would assemble, which we ended up calling Spy Camp every year. And there was a club for spooks and in DC. And and we would meet there for about five days.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Just as the writers were starting to, you know, think about what the season might be. And we interviewed a pretty wide range of people within that universe. People from within the CIA and also ambassadors and senators and, you know, journalists and we we Skyped with Snowden when that wasn't such a kind of common thing.

• 31:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Before he had his own Sirius XM channel.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, and we would get these forecasts and it was dizzying. We were so drained by the end of every day because it would start at nine and it just didn't stop. There was this revolving door of, you know, fascinating people who were telling you horrifying things.

• 32:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, it's almost like you don't want to know what's how the kitchen works. I mean, there are times where I've little moments where I've been brought face to face with the fact that everyone's doing their job the best that they can. But we're human beings and it's a insane world out there. And if you are aware, I think it's one of the problems today is that we're all hyper aware all the time because of 24 seven news. We're all we're all hyper aware of every single possibility for danger all the time. And I think that's not meant to be.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:33Conan O'Brien?

  Just to live your day and get up and make the waffles for the kids. And then say, yeah, exactly, whatever. And I think I'll go get some, I need to get some shoes. Oh, I also need a Bluetooth speaker. You need to exist on that level.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:46Conan O'Brien?

  But for you to be made aware by these specialists of every single insane thing that's happening all the time.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they, you know, they would contradict each other. They, you know, that was, it was, it was fascinating. I don't know. I, there was something kind of consoling about it, too, because I could see that they were all very invested at the very least. Everybody cared a lot. They didn't all agree with each other. But, you know, that was a, that was a long time ago. I have no idea what that environment is like now. I really can only imagine, but I have to say.

• 33:22Conan O'Brien?

  They may have wiped your mind.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  They may have.

• 33:24Conan O'Brien?

  Men in black.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  They may have.

• 33:26Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. But no, I mean, actually, just doing that show was was was an amazing way to metabolize what was happening politically, you know, to be able to kind of reflect on it and make something of it, to comment on it like that was helped me. It helped me feel a little more active, you know, and and now I'm just, you know, I'm I'm in the much more passive position of just, you know, absorbing it and gawking and worrying and, you know, so I miss that.

• 34:05Conan O'Brien?

  I've had a few moments, I'm sure you have too. I think you went to a White House Corresponds Dinner when Obama was president, and you have these moments of meeting these people, and then you see the the people around them. I was at some event years ago, and I believe President Obama was there. And then I went back to use the bathroom at one point. I think I was emceeing something. I went back and I see some military guys, and there's like the nuclear football, and you're thinking, ah, they just seem like people. And they probably are.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:36Conan O'Brien?

  And it's it's more than I want to know.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:38Conan O'Brien?

  I want to think, do you know what I mean, that there's like a golden palace somewhere?

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 34:43Conan O'Brien?

  No. And look, I'm sure I don't even know what I saw, but it's just a feeling of when you get around power like that, when you get behind the scenes, it's why I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Whenever I've had a chance to peek behind the curtain just a little bit, what I see is people like me doing the best they can.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 35:02Conan O'Brien?

  And that's why I, I don't know. I don't think that it's, I don't think they're just masterminds. If there are masterminds, they're probably working at a tech company.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:14Conan O'Brien?

  They're not working.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, there is something kind of unsettling about that for sure. You sort of are like, oh, you look down and there's no net. But, yeah, I don't know. That was that was that was a wild ride and.

• 35:28Conan O'Brien?

  How many seasons was it all told? I'm trying to remember.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Eight.

• 35:30Conan O'Brien?

  Eight seasons.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  And we filmed all over.

• 35:32Conan O'Brien?

  And draining too, I would think, yeah.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was, I never worked on anything for that long. And there was something really wonderful about being part of a company.

• 35:43Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  You know, having, earning that history. And you, you, you then develop a kind of fluency. That is so helpful, like it was, we were so efficient. You know, we, um, and it was so intimate. And, uh, yeah, and I just love that feeling of like efficacy.

• 36:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  And we would parachute, you know, we filmed all over the place. The first three seasons, we were primarily in Charlotte, North Carolina, which was standing in for DC. But they were like a month in Tel Aviv or, you know. But then it became this international show and we shot a season in Cape Town, which was again, standing in for a very different place, but you know, Afghanistan.

• 36:30Conan O'Brien?

  I thought you were gonna say Cleveland.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 36:33Conan O'Brien?

  We couldn't shoot in Cleveland, so we went to Cape Town, South Africa for Cleveland.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then we shot a season in Morocco, we shot a season in Berlin, uh, you know, and a couple of months in Budapest. My, my, we, my son Cyrus went to school in all these places. Like he still can't eat couscous because he ate it every day at his school.

• 36:51Conan O'Brien?

  What a great experience for a kid though, because through osmosis, he's getting a taste of all these cultures at a really good early age.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he, you know, he doesn't really share that with his siblings. Cyrus, I mean, Rowan was, I was also pregnant with Rowan shooting the show, but he was little. He was, you know, he was like a baby, um, by the end of it. So, um, wasn't like, I mean, Cyrus was raised on that set too. And Leslie Lincoln Gladder, our producing director, our primary director, she would literally like cradle him. And, you know, and then eventually, while she was directing, and then eventually he would call action and cut. And yeah, I remember when he was a toddler, he was like three, get really mad at me. He would say, back to one mommy.

• 37:40Conan O'Brien?

  Back to, they shouldn't even know that.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  I know, I was like, what?

• 37:43Conan O'Brien?

  Back to one.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Back to, so, and on the set, you're back to your first positions at the end of a take, but anyway, so.

• 37:50Conan O'Brien?

  Well, it's funny, because my daughter, I remember when she was maybe three, she was really small, and she said something like, uh, we were, I was in the kitchen, and she said, "Yeah, I asked for orange juice," and then, "Cut to you not getting the orange juice," and I was like, "Cut to," because I spoke that way all the time, after just years of being in comedy, and, uh, yeah, I thought, "Oh, my God, a three-year-old is saying, 'Cut to.'" So, yeah, I think that's how I told her bedtime stories. "And then, 'Cut to, evil monster.'" Uh, I just tried to frighten her to go to sleep. But, yeah, I just, uh, they just pick up the lingo, they're around.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he would be on a playground, and he would kind of teeter up to another kid and say, "My name is, I was, I speak English," because it wasn't a given that, you know, the other person necessarily would, and I thought, "Oh, that's cool." Like, he understands that the world is big, and it holds many different kinds of people within it.

• 38:54Conan O'Brien?

  And probably also, he's very fluent in, you know, his percentages. "What do I get from this?" Do I, yeah.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Yes, there's a lot of that, uh, generally. "What do I get from this?"

• 39:07Conan O'Brien?

  "What do I get?"

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:08Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, my kid's very interested, my son, very interested in, "What do I get out of this?"

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, there's a lot of talk of fairness.

• 39:14Conan O'Brien?

  "You get nothing, and you'll like it."

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:18Conan O'Brien?

  It's so funny, because you got started so young, I mean, to me, seemingly, you had success right away. I'm sure that's not how it would feel to you, but you had the success right away, and then you did something that I always think is a great decision, is, um, you decided, "Well, I gotta go to school."

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:35Conan O'Brien?

  You know?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  I mean, I didn't stay there, I didn't graduate, but I sure did go.

• 39:40Conan O'Brien?

  If you didn't graduate, you have to leave right now. We only take college graduates here. You did two years at Yale.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  I did two years. I was very present while I was there. I really did apply myself for those, during those two years.

• 39:51Conan O'Brien?

  You did Romeo and Juliet, I think in 96, is that right?

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was 16 when I did that.

• 39:56Conan O'Brien?

  And then you, you did that and then you went to school? Or was it after?

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yes, I went to, gosh, I don't, I don't even remember. But I took, I deferred a year. I did a movie, I made a movie called Broke Down Palace. And I just also just like had a minute.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  And went. And that first year was just amazing. I was so happy. I mean, I was totally overwhelmed and out of my depths. But I was just so thirsty. And boy, was I, did I find water.

• 40:31Conan O'Brien?

  Thirsty for?

• 40:33Speaker 02

  I think, you know, I didn't really go to high school. I was tutored on set. And so I really had a deficit. Like, I, I mean, it was.

• 40:40Conan O'Brien?

  Also, you want a community of people your age.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  I was lonely. I didn't realize how lonely I was. So, but yeah, but it turns out like all those, it was unorthodox. But I, those extracurriculars of like working on those sets kind of amounted to something. So I was, you know, that was a choppy initial month. But once I sort of got my bearings and figured out basically how to write an essay, I realized, oh, that's, I, I can kind of do this. And it was just, it was just a blast. I mean, again, it was exhausting and I, yeah. But, but, but, but wonderful. And it was so nice to just think like for the sake of it, you know?

• 41:25Speaker 02

  And be making friends who I wasn't, I don't know, working with formally, you know?

• 41:33Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and that's a connection that you can have the rest of your life.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I, you know, all those cliches turned out to be true. I still, some of my dearest friends. And actually, there's a woman named Sarah Trem whom I'm a writer.

• 41:46Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Who was in my same year. I didn't really know her during that time, but she's become a really, really close friend. So, um, and she kind of insisted that I go to the, I don't know which anniversary it was. Or, um, they didn't call them that, did they? Reunion.

• 42:01Conan O'Brien?

  Reunion.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Reunion.

• 42:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  And I felt like not at all entitled because I didn't have my, you know, my stamp and my certificate of, but it was, it was so great to go. And, and actually Hugh and I took the kids, we kind of went on a staycation to New Haven at the end of our Christmas break this year. We were feeling a little restless and we really wanted Pepe's Pizza. So we went and stayed at like

• 42:24Conan O'Brien?

  Good Pizza.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  The nicest hotel in New Haven, which is, you know, just fine.

• 42:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Um, but, and we didn't even go to like see campus, but you know, of course we, we were there. So we kind of stumbled on, you know, into it and, oh, I was very moved by it.

• 42:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  It was so beautiful and I thought, what the hell did I, what was I complaining about there with my three kids?

• 42:47Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Like, I got to sit in these unbelievably gorgeous spaces and read.

• 42:55Conan O'Brien?

  No, I, I, people that are lucky enough to go to college and not everyone is lucky enough to go to college, obviously, but if you're fortunate enough to go, I say that's, just keep in mind, this is a small period of your life where you get to be, you're not with your parents, you're with these, you know, other people, your age, and your job is to think thoughts and read books.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:18Conan O'Brien?

  And it's really magical. And then of course, all I can think about when I was there was, you know, in college was, I gotta get out of here and get going on my career.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 43:26Conan O'Brien?

  And, okay, what's the hurry?

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:28Conan O'Brien?

  Uh, but that's how it is.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  I, I mean, I, that's, that is why I left because I did, you know, in aggregate, it had been about three years since I had done any acting. And when I went to college, I'm, I'm. I really was giving, I was wondering in a genuine way if that was what I wanted to commit the rest of my adult life to.

• 43:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  And it turned out, sure, yes, in fact.

• 43:52Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  Um, and it's actually interesting, the, the couple of years just following my time at, at college were, were a little, were a little hard because I had to kind of, my academic self had become very developed.

• 44:07Conan O'Brien?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  And I, um, I forgot that a lot of acting is just intuitive, like visceral experience and exercise.

• 44:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  And I had to just, you know, be a raw nerve, um, and not do so much thinking.

• 44:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Um, but when I'm, you know, choosing a, a role or, you know, when I'm trying to make sense of the story and it's, in it, uh, formally, boy, did those, that time in that institution, uh, yeah, uh, it really comes in handy at those points.

• 44:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  And there's plenty of that. But, um, so, but yeah, I had to kind of compartmentalize. Uh, but yeah, I, I thought I could do a movie a summer and like I forgot how much work goes into getting work and I was not able to read a script when I was really immersed in college and.

• 44:59Conan O'Brien?

  It's not realistic, I don't think, to say, what did you do with your summer? Uh, I, I helped out at a camp.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  [laughing]

• 45:05Conan O'Brien?

  And I, I was in charge of the canoes. What did you do? I shot a movie in Budapest.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:10Conan O'Brien?

  Um, it's hard.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:11Conan O'Brien?

  It's hard to.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, if it had worked, I mean, I was actually gonna do something with Jodi and a film with Jodi and it fell apart. I mean, it just, things, it's, uh, there's nothing predictable about our job and you can't say, I'm starting on July 1st and ending August 17th. It, uh, yeah, it didn't work that way for me.

• 45:32Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I want to make sure I hit this because The Beast in Me is out now. And, uh, it is, uh, this project that I first saw a bunch, number of years ago and it just gobsmacked me. It's really terrific. And then the fact that now it's you and Matthew Rees and. Howard Gordon and it's just this incredible team.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:53Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm happy for people to see this.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. I'm so glad we finally get to share it.

• 46:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  You know, that's fun.

• 46:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  I hope they enjoy it. I really do.

• 46:06Conan O'Brien?

  I believe they will.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:07Conan O'Brien?

  I believe they will. And I think I know, I don't think anyone knows more about show business than I do. I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take a second here and say.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  I think your daughter does.

• 46:16Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Cut to. That's true. That's true.

• 46:22Conan O'Brien?

  At two, she knew the language better than I do. Yeah, I'm so happy for you. You're obviously, you're such a talented performer, but you're a really good person.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you, Conan.

• 46:34Conan O'Brien?

  And I love talking to you.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Oh, same, same.

• 46:36Conan O'Brien?

  And very happy for you.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  Thank you, mate.

• 46:37Conan O'Brien?

  And so, all good things.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 46:40Conan O'Brien?

  And I'm coming to your house for waffles.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  Great.

• 46:42Conan O'Brien?

  Are they good waffles?

• 46:43Speaker 02

  No.

• 46:46Conan O'Brien?

  Do you think you could up your waffle game a little bit?

• 46:48Speaker 02

  I know I could.

• 46:50Conan O'Brien?

  Let's get on that.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:51Conan O'Brien?

  Well, thanks for being here so much.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 47:01Conan O'Brien?

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

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 47:04Conan O'Brien?

  Every now and then in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:07Conan O'Brien?

  Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:11Conan O'Brien?

  You know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 47:19Conan 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.

• 47:27Speaker 01

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

• 47:32Conan O'Brien?

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

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:36Conan 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?

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 47:52Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid. It should. 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.

• 48:25Conan O'Brien?

  Who do you shop for first on the holiday, Sona? Was it, do you shop for the kids or do you shop for Tac? My kids. Okay. Or Okie. You gotta get them your stuff. Or my dog. 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? Yeah. And you see pumpkins around, people buying turkeys. Little early to buy a turkey. Yeah. 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.

• 49:10Conan O'Brien?

  Get ahead, start on holiday gifting with Amazon's low prices. Shop now at amazon.com/holiday.

• 49:18Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, LL Bean is celebrating the moments people look forward to all year. The first school drop-off, the first sweater weather day, and the first chilly evening around the fire pit. For over 100 years, LL Bean has been part of these traditions. Crunching leaves in Maine-made Bean Boots, cheering from the sidelines in Scotch plaid flannel, and walking the dog in a rugged field coat. So grab the layers and people you love and get outside because that's what makes fall feel like home. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider.

• 50:01Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, you don't want to go home.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Who, me?

• 50:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Well, I don't mind going home. I already watched The Summer I Turned Pretty today, so I'm all caught up in case anyone's wondering.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  Team Conrad.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  For reals, bro?

• 50:12Speaker 03

  I don't know. I heard someone say that. I've never seen it. I don't want to talk about it.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I was so excited. I can only talk to two other people about it.

• 50:19Conan O'Brien?

  I hope you're talking about character actor Conrad Janis.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  So hard to-

• 50:25Conan O'Brien?

  Went a different way and you couldn't do it.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Is Conrad Janis the dad I'm working, Mindy?

• 50:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yep, that's right, yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  You guys, it's really hard to do this with you two sometimes. It's really hard sometimes.

• 50:33Conan O'Brien?

  Hackiest opening ever of a TV show.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  I'm trying to remember.

• 50:36Conan O'Brien?

  Because the song is like-

• 50:36Speaker 01

  You guys are digging in.

• 50:38Conan O'Brien?

  Dun, dun, dun, dun. And they show, you know, Mork and Mindy and all that, and then they go, and then at one point, it breaks into classical music and Conrad Janis is going-

• 50:46Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 50:47Conan O'Brien?

  Dun, dun, like that, and then they pan over and the old lady, and it turns to rock and roll, and she's got a guitar, and she's doing, and you're like, oh my god, this is awful. What an awful decade.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  All right, let's go.

• 50:59Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Let's do another review the reviewer. This is where we go to Apple Podcasts, we pull out a five-star review. We review the review itself.

• 51:07Conan O'Brien?

  Nice.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 51:08Conan O'Brien?

  You see that? There's a twist.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, they think they're reviewing us, we're reviewing them.

• 51:12Conan O'Brien?

  Exactly.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  They get a taste of their own medicine.

• 51:14Conan O'Brien?

  Good one.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  And this one actually calls back to a discussion we had a while back on the podcast, but I think it's worth revisiting.

• 51:19Conan O'Brien?

  Sure.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  This is from Brian AD86, A-D-E-E-86. It's called "A Losing Battle." Fighting the good fight to keep Conan O'Brien is the first Conan that pops up on my Google search.

• 51:31Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 51:31Speaker 03

  Unfortunately, my teenage daughters are fighting diligently against me and in favor of Conan Gray.

• 51:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, the singer. He's a singer. I'm told he's quite good, but is he?

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is.

• 51:43Speaker 03

  I'm going to put Conan into Google here. Conan the Barbarian, followed by Conan O'Brien, followed by Conan Gray.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:50Conan O'Brien?

  I don't see why Conan the Barbarian is still popping. I mean, that movie hasn't been relevant in 40 years.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  Well, there was a remake with Jason Momoa a few years ago.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was.

• 52:00Speaker 03

  So that maybe that gave it a little steam.

• 52:01Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, man.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  There's two Conan movies, plus a Red Sonja, plus the remake.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, you have so much knowledge.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  And I think there's a new Red Sonja movie coming out.

• 52:09Conan O'Brien?

  So there's a Conan.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Oh, good, oh, good.

• 52:11Conan O'Brien?

  Guess what? There's a Conan and Sona here, but we are still battling Conan and Red Sonja?

• 52:18Speaker 03

  Let's see what comes up first, Sona or Sonja.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  I have to say, by the way, I just asked ChatGPT, who is the most famous Conan? And Conan O'Brien came up first.

• 52:26Conan O'Brien?

  I love ChatGPT, and guess what?

• 52:28Speaker 03

  This is proof that AI is not gonna work.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's broken. ChatGPT is broken.

• 52:33Conan O'Brien?

  We just proved that it will not take over the world. Conan is the superior Conan. Wait, what?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Wait, did you put in Sona? It comes in. It has to be me.

• 52:42Speaker 03

  Well, you guys spell each other. You spell your names differently.

• 52:45Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, she's IA.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  No, she's JA.

• 52:47Conan O'Brien?

  What?

• 52:48Speaker 03

  I think.

• 52:48Conan O'Brien?

  Red Sonja?

• 52:49Speaker 01

  What do you mean, I think? You know.

• 52:50Conan O'Brien?

  That's anti-American.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  Let's see, am I wrong?

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Well, she isn't, isn't she red? Does that mean she's a commie?

• 52:55Speaker 03

  No, she's like a barbarian. Oh, my God.

• 52:58Conan O'Brien?

  She's a redhead. And guess what? I'm a redhead, and I'm a proud patriot.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  I kinda wanna bully you for not being nerdy enough.

• 53:06Speaker 05

  Here's the AI breakdown.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Aw, man. Aw, man, I'm going against. No, I can't do that.

• 53:12Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, you're in there.

• 53:13Speaker 05

  You are in the Son of a Sem.

• 53:15Conan O'Brien?

  Why can't you? Wait, wait a minute. You.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  That's big.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  What is an Indian singer? I can't, I can't go up against that.

• 53:21Conan O'Brien?

  Sona, will you put this in perspective? When you ask AI, who are the famous Sonas? You're number three.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 53:29Conan O'Brien?

  You came from nothing. You were a lump of clay that, and I breathe life into you. You know what I mean? You're like a puppet that came to life 10 minutes ago when it's wondering why you don't have more followers. That's ridiculous.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Man, I just want, I wanna be, I wanna be able to get to like, share where I just am one name.

• 53:47Speaker 03

  Oh, there it is. Okay, here are the bullet points for you. A longtime assistant of late-night TV host Conan O'Brien, not sure who that is. And a popular co-host of his podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. She is the author of the humorous book, The World's Worst Assistant.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 54:00Conan O'Brien?

  Look at you.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  That's me in two sentences. It really is. That's it.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Well, you're more than that.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  I'm proud of, no, I'm proud of that. That's cool.

• 54:07Conan O'Brien?

  No, I'm saying you're more than that. Negative things, but you're more than that.

• 54:12Conan O'Brien?

  I didn't mean good things. But you're so much more. That's like 2%. Most of the iceberg is beneath the water.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna spend-

• 54:20Conan O'Brien?

  And all negative.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  All day Googling Conan Gray so he just beats you as the most Googled guy.

• 54:27Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I really am not familiar with the work of Conan Gray, but I understand he's very talented.

• 54:32Speaker 03

  But I think if he was coming for you, he would have taken you by now.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a handsome guy.

• 54:36Conan O'Brien?

  How can I supplant? I don't want to hear about Conan the Barbarian anymore.

• 54:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:41Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I've been hearing about Conan the Barbarian since I was like 10 years old. I don't want to hear about him anymore. We have to make this a project to diminish Conan the Barbarian and enhance Conan O'Brien. How do we do it?

• 54:52Speaker 03

  Maybe we give you a fantasy comic of your own, you know?

• 54:55Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, that's a way. Or I could start working out. Like, I'm sure I'm at that age where muscle just springs out of me.

• 55:03Conan O'Brien?

  Doesn't, as you get older, isn't it easier to put on muscle? I forget which way. I think it's easier.

• 55:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  You should play Conan the Barbarian.

• 55:10Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Then it's just like an Ouroboros.

• 55:13Conan O'Brien?

  And you're red.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  You're eating yourself.

• 55:15Conan O'Brien?

  You're red Sona.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  And I'll be red Sonia. Oh, wait, Sona. We'll Sona her up.

• 55:19Conan O'Brien?

  Red Sona, yeah. You know what? We should start doing a thing where I'm like, I don't know, we, yes, we want to skim off their fame without feeding them. How do we do that? I don't want to feed their fame in any way with our fame.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  I think you, what I'm saying is you eat the fame. You become Conan the Barb- You beat, like, you can totally beat out Jason. I can't even finish saying that sentence. I'm so sorry.

• 55:40Conan O'Brien?

  I've met and talked to Jason Momoa many times. Wonderful guy. But I have said to him, I could take you in a, in a second.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  You can't, though.

• 55:47Conan O'Brien?

  I could.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Why do you think you could take him?

• 55:50Speaker 03

  You could take him to lunch in a second.

• 55:52Conan O'Brien?

  No, okay. That's not, okay. I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing. You're saying take you in two different ways. No. I know how I would do it. I know how I would do it. It's important that he's asleep when I attack. That's the first thing.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Okay, then you have a shot. You do.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  And sedated.

• 56:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, and sedated.

• 56:08Speaker 03

  And sick.

• 56:09Conan O'Brien?

  And that the, the part, the font now-

• 56:11Speaker 03

  And restrained.

• 56:12Conan O'Brien?

  I'm hoping that he hasn't, he doesn't have a closed font now, that it never closed. His skull never closed when he was an infant.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 56:18Conan O'Brien?

  I need a weak spot.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:19Conan O'Brien?

  But I think of all those things are true.

• 56:20Speaker 03

  Here's what you have to do. You have to enlist your legion of listeners to start just Googling your name and not Conan the Barbarian.

• 56:28Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  Right now, ask them to just Google your name multiple times a day.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yes.

• 56:33Speaker 03

  For the next 10 years.

• 56:34Conan O'Brien?

  And you know what? People's, can I say something? Sometimes there's this misconception that the important things right now are, you know, trying to get some resolution, you know, between Ukraine and Russia or global warming, anything like that. And I think, no.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  No, no, that's important right now.

• 56:49Conan O'Brien?

  We start with Googling Conan O'Brien several times a day. We really could do this.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  What is, what is your fan base called? Do we have a name? Do they have a name?

• 56:57Conan O'Brien?

  Team Coco.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Is it? Is that what it is?

• 57:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Your fan base is just the name of your company?

• 57:05Conan O'Brien?

  I mean.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  It would be like if Taylor Swift's company was called Swifties.

• 57:08Conan O'Brien?

  No, it started with fans being Team Coco. And then we just said, let's just name the company that.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:14Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  That is fun.

• 57:16Speaker 06

  Well, it started where.

• 57:18Conan O'Brien?

  It was a movement.

• 57:19Speaker 06

  Team Jacob and Team Back in Twilight.

• 57:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 57:23Speaker 06

  And then Tom Hanks said, I'm Team Conan.

• 57:25Conan O'Brien?

  Oh.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Team Coco.

• 57:26Speaker 06

  But he said, I'm Team Coco.

• 57:27Conan O'Brien?

  He said, I'm Team Coco.

• 57:28Speaker 06

  That's right. But it was Team Edward, Team Jacob. And then Tom Hanks was like, I'm Team Coco.

• 57:32Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, during a little fracas I was having at the time. And he said, I'm Team Coco. And that took off. So thank you to Tom Hanks.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:40Conan O'Brien?

  For the whole second half of my career. Seriously, he did us a solid.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:46Conan O'Brien?

  Always a good friend.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  So Team Coco, rise up.

• 57:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. And so then, you know, it was a great, powerful grassroots movement that I then monetized.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Let's see if we can do this.

• 57:59Speaker 03

  For the next week.

• 58:01Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, this is really heartfelt and pure. Let's attach a money wheel to it. Or a Boris. Or a Boris. Yeah.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  So let's try and experiment. For the next week, if every listener would please Google Conan O'Brien as often as you think you can.

• 58:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  And then we'll check in to see if it's beating Conan the Barbarian.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the project, beat Conan.

• 58:25Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Yeah. And remember, just put global warming.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Everything else on hold.

• 58:31Speaker 03

  Turn off your AI mode on your Google search though, so you don't burn all of the energy of the world, but.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  What?

• 58:39Speaker 03

  Google has an AI search mode that it does on its own. And when you use that, it burns up all this water just because all the servers.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  It does. I don't get it. I don't understand computers.

• 58:49Conan O'Brien?

  We had something really good going here and then you got us into this. Conserve water.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want to hear more about your commentary on the summer I turned pretty. Oh, we were doing that before. Sorry, just kidding.

• 58:59Conan O'Brien?

  Wow, okay.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Team Conrad, that's, that's, okay.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  I only learned to say that because someone else said it. I have no idea what it means.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Did you hear that somewhere?

• 59:06Conan O'Brien?

  Michael Sarah getting impatient.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Because it is the real, it's, it's good. I, I am Team Conrad.

• 59:11Speaker 03

  I'm Team, who's the other guy?

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Jeremiah.

• 59:15Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  His brother.

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. Can you believe it?

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Can you believe it?

• 59:18Speaker 03

  So Team Edward, Team Jacob, Team Conrad.

• 59:20Conan O'Brien?

  I'm gonna do my taxes over here on my phone.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  All right.

• 59:23Conan O'Brien?

  Doing my taxes here.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  All right. We're done?

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're done.

• 59:29Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, we were done a while ago. I've, I've left. This is just a hologram. I'm in my car.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  People are gonna be really excited to hear about that.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  About what?

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Team Conrad. They are. They're really excited. You don't get it.

• 59:40Conan O'Brien?

  Just, I thought we were out and you pulled this back in.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Hey, Team Coco, Google Team Conrad in the summer I turned pretty.

• 59:47Conan O'Brien?

  No, no, don't get them Googling anything else.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  What do you mean? Oh, what?

• 59:49Speaker 03

  You're taking resources away from it.

• 59:50Conan O'Brien?

  Can you clean this up in editing, please? For God's sake.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Of course, no.

• 59:53Conan O'Brien?

  This one's out of control.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, you had it right.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 59:57Conan O'Brien?

  Peace out. Shadrack.

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

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

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

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

• 1:01:10Speaker 07

  Mr. Monopoly here. Miss me? Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. A 2027 Jeep Cherokee. A Carnival Cruise vacation. Gift cards from DoorDash and Best Buy. Feel the play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag.

• 1:01:28Speaker 08

  No purchase necessary. 50 U.S. and D.C. age 18 plus. See playatmcd.com for rules and playatmcd.com/amoe for info and playing without purchase by mail by November 2. Chance card game ends November 8. Game ends November 22, 2026. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro. KitchenAid knows you came to win this family gift exchange with a gift that's gonna cause a stir. The KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Tis your season to mix it up. Gift a KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Make more than meals.