Jesse Eisenberg Returns

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Speaker 1 The fact that you can just order concert tickets through her, that's that's crazy. Yeah, exactly.
You didn't know that? Even I knew that. Wow.
Yeah. And I fought in World War I and I know that.

Speaker 1 Ready whenever. And yeah.
And you were born in the second Obama administration. This is incredible.
Ready whenever inspiration strikes, amazon.com slash new Alexa.

Speaker 1 The holidays are nothing, nothing without family, friends, and flannel. The flannel you can always count on? Well, for my money, that would have to be from LL Bean.

Speaker 1 It's the shirt you wear when you pick out the tree or you eat a candy cane. It's the shirt when you come down and you look at all those presents under the tree.

Speaker 1 You've got that shirt on from LL Bean, that flannel. All those holiday traditions, I'm going to get on a toboggan and roll down this hill.
Yeah. I've got to wear that shirt.

Speaker 1 I've got to wear that LLB flannel. Oh, look at Santa Claus.
Hello, Santa. I hope I'm wearing that LLB flannel.
It's all things cozy. Ah, it's effortless.
It's made to last.

Speaker 1 LLB.

Speaker 1 They know what they're doing and they have for a very long time.

Speaker 1 Go check out LLB and Flannel. Invited to the holiday since 1912.

Speaker 2 Hi, my name is Jesse Eisenberg, and I feel

Speaker 2 unconflicted. Maybe for the first time in my life about something, but in this case, about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

Speaker 1 That's so sweet. Yes.

Speaker 1 Fall is here. Hear the yell.
Back to school. Ring the bell.
Brand new shoes.

Speaker 1 I can tell that we are going to be friends.

Speaker 1 Yes, I can tell that we are going to be friends.

Speaker 1 Hey there. Welcome to Conan O'Brien.
It needs a friend. Sona is giggling away uncontrollably.
I don't know what's happening.

Speaker 1 Sona Masesia, and I see, of course, Matt Gorley. The whole gang's here.
And

Speaker 1 Feeling the holiday vibe. Are you feeling it? Oh, I love Christmas.

Speaker 3 You do?

Speaker 1 I truly do. You're a Christmas guy? I am, yeah.
What do you, I'm guessing, do you go all out with the traditional stuff? Do you have lots of stuff you put out, little holiday trinkets?

Speaker 3 I think so, yeah.

Speaker 1 You do. What do you mean, I think so? Are you okay? Are you afraid to admit it to you? I don't know.
I'm afraid of what you will tear into.

Speaker 1 I'm a sentimental old sap about Christmas. I really am.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Are you, Sona?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 You have our, first of all, I know you celebrate it a little later on.

Speaker 4 No, no, we celebrate American Christmas too, but we, you know, we have a fake tree, which you guys got mad at me for when we were doing summer s'mores.

Speaker 4 And then we like put a few things on, but we're not like the house people stop at when they're driving down the block and be like, oh my God, look at this.

Speaker 1 I don't want to be that house. You don't know the house that has.
Oh, they have a thing now I saw an ad where they project. You can put little projectors that project like candy canes

Speaker 1 and snowflakes and little Santas and reindeer and they crisscross your entire house. And I think I would go insane.
What?

Speaker 1 If I was in my house and that was being projected and coming in through the window, I think I'd lose my mind. I don't know.
You know, and you step outside to go get the paper, and

Speaker 1 these lasers are firing candy canes into your eyes. You get your paper in the nighttime? Yeah.
I get it delivered at night.

Speaker 1 When there's bad news, I want to hear it right away.

Speaker 4 The guy, the little guy, the paper boy comes back at night just for your house?

Speaker 1 I might pay him a little extra to come by at night. It makes me feel so weird.
I don't want to read news in the morning. I want to read it at night.

Speaker 1 And it's the only way to get it through the newspaper, I'm told.

Speaker 1 Hi. I don't know much about the internet.
But anyway, I don't, I don't, that looks like way too much to have something projected on the house. But I have a brother who's a fully adult man.

Speaker 1 He goes all out on Christmas on the inside of his house. And I think that's really sweet.
I love that. I'm all for people going for it.

Speaker 1 You know, it's funny, every now and then someone gives me an ornament. I put it on the tree and then kind of forget about it.

Speaker 1 And then it just shows up because it all goes into a box and then it it goes back on the tree the next year. And a couple of years ago, Zach Brath was here and he gave me an ornament.

Speaker 1 It's him and Donald Faison hugging each other. And I remember just coming home and like it was in my pocket.
And I'm like, what's this? And the tree was up and I went, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 And I just put it on the tree. Like three years go by.
And I, the other day, I passed my tree.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'm like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 Why is Zach Brath and Donald Faison hugging each other on my tree? I want that ornament.

Speaker 3 Is there any Conan ornaments? Did you ever make an ornament?

Speaker 1 There was a, you know, it's, it is actually a sentimental memory, but our first season,

Speaker 1 we premiered September 13th, 1993, when I was a 30-year-old kid and every, the reviews were pretty much this won't last.

Speaker 1 And there was a late night with Conan LeBron Christmas ornament that someone made and gave to me.

Speaker 1 And I remember to hang it on the tree in Christmas of 93 and kind of thinking, well, at least I got this.

Speaker 1 No, seriously. And then all these years later, I look at it, it's,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I'm like, you showed them little ornament. You know, it's got, it's this nice little feeling.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I want to break that ornament. I know you do.
I know you smash it.

Speaker 1 When I go to your house, I'm just going to break it. Yeah.
Throw the Zach Braff Donald Faison ornament at it, smashing it.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so I mean, I get sentimental. I'm, I pretend I work really really hard at not being sentimental, but I'm very sentimental.
Do you like to play the Scrooge?

Speaker 1 I like to try to, but then I'm a total mush about Christmas time. Here's the big divisive thing.

Speaker 3 Where do you guys fall on tinsel on a Christmas tree? Tinsel can go fuck itself.

Speaker 1 You've chosen a side. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm not. I'm not a bit of an opinion.
I'm not a tinsel person. Growing up.

Speaker 1 There'd be some tinsel on our family tree, but I've never wanted it on our tree.

Speaker 1 It just looks like shredded aluminum to me.

Speaker 3 And also, pets often eat it it and you find it later.

Speaker 1 Ew.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it looks like someone left you a beautiful present of shit.

Speaker 1 I try to get my dog to eat a bow, a red bow, so that later I can put it under the tree. Say, look what I got you, honey.

Speaker 1 It's a shit bow.

Speaker 1 A what?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The really hard part is getting the dog to swallow a card that says, ha ha,

Speaker 1 this is shit. But if you can get it to swallow a bow and a card and the dog, and it all stays kind of together, it's fantastic.
It's such a good prank.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Anyway, happy holidays.

Speaker 1 Aren't you glad you listened? Hey, Merry Christmas, you two. Merry Christmas.
Hey. And happy holidays.
Well, that's taking all-inclusive. Oh.

Speaker 1 Well, just everyone. I just want everyone to have a good holiday.
Be they Christian, be they not. Did you want to give us like Christmas bonuses in cash right now or anything? Oh, I could Venmo you.

Speaker 1 Okay. And Sona will probably tell you I know exactly how to Venmo people.

Speaker 1 That's the hardest I've seen Sona laugh in a while.

Speaker 1 Says the guy who calls his wife when she's in New York and I'm in LA and goes, come,

Speaker 1 can you Uber eats me some

Speaker 1 of the chicken salad?

Speaker 1 I got better, but there was a while there where I was petrified. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 It was new technology for a very old man. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Or she'd be in Seattle visiting her parents, and I'd be like, um, I really like that turkey burger.

Speaker 1 And she'd be like, yeah, yeah, you just get it. It's, you know,

Speaker 1 you know, it's on, what is it called? Chomp, chomp, chomp.net. That's what? Chomp.net.

Speaker 4 Chomp.net.

Speaker 1 Throw a couple my way, and I'll tell you which one.

Speaker 1 Grubhub. Grubhub.
Shorty. Postmates.
Okay. Postmates.
There it is. I'd say, hey, honey, I like that turkey burger.
And she'd be like, well, I'm in Thailand right now in a meeting.

Speaker 1 And I'd be like, yeah, yeah. And I'm asleep.
Yeah, yeah, I like that turkey burger. Can you get it on trumptromp.gov? And she'd say, do you mean postmates?

Speaker 1 And I'd go, yeah, just send it over to the house. The turkey burger, no barbecue sauce.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I will say, for anyone listening who thinks that Conan is joking, I remember teaching you how to right-click back at late night. And you were like, oh, that button does something else.
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's true.

Speaker 1 You were a young fellow. That's right.
This is back when I had a steam-powered computer. We had to wait for it to heat up.
That's right.

Speaker 1 You also used to make me say, permission to come aboard before I could go into your office.

Speaker 2 Even though your desk was literally like a foot and a half from the door and I could put something on it, I had to say permission to come aboard.

Speaker 1 And you would say, permission denied. And then I'd have to walk.
You'd have a piece of paper and you'd go like, I got the research notes. And I'd say, what? And you'd say permission to come aboard.

Speaker 1 And I'd go, permission denied.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 I think that's quality leadership.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 shitbo. That's the way to go this Christmas.
Get your dog to eat a bow and then give that to someone as a present. Shitbow.
Coming soon to a theater new you. Theater? No, it's not a movie.

Speaker 1 I've lost my mind. Merry Christmas.

Speaker 4 You put that up and if you put it up again, it's a double wrap.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, we call it in the podcast industry a double wrap. Yeah, you just, you just slid the wrap at me another it's a wrap sign that you slid to me a second time, and I just keep ignoring it.

Speaker 1 That's what I'd do if I was a teller and someone slid a piece of paper that said this is a robbery, I'd say, Yeah, and another thing, shitbo, and then they'd slide it again. This is a robbery,

Speaker 1 triple wrap that shit, get your dog to eat some tensor, and you've got some shiny shit.

Speaker 1 Look, we got families we got to get home to for Christmas, and I'm trying to rob a bank.

Speaker 1 Happy holidays, everyone, Christmas,

Speaker 1 or whatever.

Speaker 1 Yeah. All right, you guys, let's get serious.

Speaker 1 Shit, you deserve shippo, like four

Speaker 1 times. Quit screwing around.
And Sona, enough with the poo-poo jokes.

Speaker 1 My guest today is an actor, director, author, and playwright who's probably left after that intro, who has starred in such movies as The Social Network and Zombieland.

Speaker 1 Now you can see him in his new movie, A Real Pain, which he also wrote and directed, and it's fantastic. I watched it and I love it.
I'm very excited he's here today. I'm a big fan of this gentleman.

Speaker 1 Jesse Eisenberg, welcome.

Speaker 1 I'm going to quickly recap that I met you many, many, many years ago.

Speaker 1 You did the squid and the whale. I think it was the first time I met you.

Speaker 1 You must have been, how old were you then?

Speaker 2 I was 21.

Speaker 1 21 years old. I just adored you immediately.

Speaker 1 I think, and then I've mentioned this before, but several days later, one of of the loveliest notes I've ever, handwritten notes I've ever received, showed up. I've mentioned this the last time, but

Speaker 1 and I thought there's something different about this person. He's oozing with like character and

Speaker 1 gentility in this kind of old world way. And then you've gone on and you've had this extraordinary career.
Thank you. And

Speaker 1 I'm just so happy for you. Thank you.

Speaker 1 And I feel like

Speaker 1 to pat myself on the back, I feel like, I called it. Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 This is about me. I thought you were going to say you did it, but you called it like you knew it wasn't.

Speaker 1 This isn't about, it's, this is what I'm really good at, pretending it's about, you know, Jesse. Right.
But then it's about me. Okay.
I called it. That's right.
Okay. I called it.

Speaker 2 And me, I'm just the horse.

Speaker 1 Bluebell came in first.

Speaker 2 But I will say, like, just to that point, I remember right after, I was so, first of all, I grew up watching. Oh, maybe, sorry.

Speaker 2 I grew up like obsessed, obsessed, obsessed with you to the point where like literally my mom would sneak out after my dad fell asleep to to go into my bedroom to watch your show with me and um so your dad's not a fan yeah no no no this is how my mind works yeah yeah yeah yeah why did he hate me yeah huh well my new worst enemy barry

Speaker 1 barry eisenberg of his friendship new jersey um no but like um and you know it's even sicker my immediate thought is he saw the real me yeah yeah exactly that's how i feel but anyway i guess he's the only one that truly knows um but anyway like um after we did the segment on your on your show um you leaned over to me and you said you seem like such a nice person.

Speaker 2 And I remember it was so odd because that doesn't seem like one of the compliments you get in the entertainment industry. It doesn't seem like one of the boxes you might check.

Speaker 2 You know, you're a nice person. It gets you nowhere.
Oh, it does.

Speaker 1 I mean, it means a lot to me. And you've gone on.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'll mention this up front and we'll talk. There's so much I want to talk about.
And we're going to get to this film you made.

Speaker 1 You, I mean, let's take it off. You wrote,

Speaker 1 directed, you co-star in it with Kieran Culkin and this extraordinary cast.

Speaker 1 You made this film, and it's absolutely beautiful. Thanks for watching.
And it's got people ranting and raving in a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've had people ranting and raving in not a good way.

Speaker 1 It's called A Real Pain, and we'll talk about that. But what was special for me was to watch this movie and see that, oh, you are a consummate artist.

Speaker 1 You've made this beautiful thing with such aplom, aplomb and it will endure.

Speaker 1 I always have this connection with you from that time that you sent me that note and I had that nice first meeting with you. And then

Speaker 1 here you are all these years later and you're doing extraordinary work.

Speaker 2 And I'm just so happy for you. That is so nice of you to say.
Thank you so much. Do you ever root for mean people?

Speaker 1 It's funny.

Speaker 1 Occasionally. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I, you know, Stalin did a lot of bad stuff. Right.
No, no, no. But I was, no, but I would, sometimes I'd be like, come on, you can do it, Stalin.
You can turn this around.

Speaker 2 And you were really young at the time.

Speaker 1 I was very, I'm older than people think. Sure.
I was born in 1911. Do the math.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I can separate.

Speaker 1 There are people who do excellent work and are not good people. And I do believe in separating the two.

Speaker 1 You are

Speaker 1 a man who's, I think, has real character and you do exceptional work. I like it when the two come together, but they don't have to.
Got it. Do you know what I mean? And how many artists can you see

Speaker 1 whose work is hanging on the wall and they're, you

Speaker 1 later learn, or amazing athletes who were absolutely deplorable human beings, but I still applaud their athleticism.

Speaker 2 Of course, perhaps even more so because you don't want them to hurt you.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 McStalin's been dead a long time, and I still talk him up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think he could still get me. Justin came.
He could still get me. It's funny.

Speaker 1 We probably have a few things in common. I grew up

Speaker 1 with my share of anxiety and hated going to school.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to leave my house, but

Speaker 1 I still to this day can remember the

Speaker 1 carpool ride from my house on Kennard Road to the Michael Driscoll School every second thinking, okay, we're not there yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like just filled with that kind of,

Speaker 1 like your mouth tastes like aluminum. You're saying you have so much anxiety.
Yes. And I've later thought, well, I hate to say it, but it probably contributed some things to me.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 And I know that you've have this struggle too. Yeah.
I've had many therapists and many people tell me, well, you didn't need that. You'd have been,

Speaker 1 and I don't trust them.

Speaker 1 It's like Dumbo's feather. I think I needed that.
I don't know where you come down on all this.

Speaker 2 The exact same kind of confusion as you do and the exact same conversations with therapists as you've had.

Speaker 2 I always think,

Speaker 2 yeah, there was like maybe a parallel universe version of me that was kind of happy

Speaker 2 and is an accountant. And so,

Speaker 2 but you know, the painful thing is the thing that person told you is, no, you didn't need that. And that's even worse.
Yeah. You know, because then it was just for nothing.

Speaker 1 It was a waste of time.

Speaker 2 I just feel like we got into jobs that no one was asking us ever to do. Like no one wanted you to host a TV show.
No one asked me to do it.

Speaker 1 They still

Speaker 2 retroactively trying to.

Speaker 1 Still, people are trying to like, can we delete that 30 years?

Speaker 1 No, but more and more, I think I'm here out of a weird compulsion that I don't have a control over. And I think about you and your anxiety, and you are not the typical, hey, put that light on me.

Speaker 1 Right, exactly. Because I'm ready to shine.
See, I've got a song for you. But

Speaker 1 something

Speaker 1 pushed this young, anxious kid. I mean, I know that you were so anxious as a child getting on the bus to go to school.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You would cry. That's right.
And they had to kind of come up. Well, you tell me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, no, I would cry.
Well, I cried every day when I got to school, but they didn't want me to cry on the bus.

Speaker 2 The bus driver did not want me to cry because I guess it was probably dangerous for me to be weeping in the back of a huge moving vehicle.

Speaker 1 But basically, I don't see why that's a danger.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to do the math, and I don't see how it affects the operation of the vehicle. Oh, no, it could, yeah, see leap down into the transmission drive.

Speaker 2 I would use her sleeve as a tissue.

Speaker 2 But basically, so, no, right. So, if I, so, so she set up this system where if I didn't cry every day

Speaker 2 until Friday, um, on Friday, she would give out Tootsie Roll pops to all the kids on the bus if I didn't, if I made it through the week without crying on the bus.

Speaker 2 And so, you would hear on Fridays from down the street, windows open on the bus, don't cry, Jesse.

Speaker 1 Don't cry, Jesse. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. But wait a minute.
This is so sick. It's not like the treat's just for you.
It's everyone else which is creating this group thing. It's evil.

Speaker 2 It's the equivalent of if you don't do all the push-ups, everybody in this room has to do 10 more.

Speaker 1 That's insane. Yeah.
And giving me ideas. No, no, no, no.
On how to run a podcast company.

Speaker 1 But, oh my God, that is wrong/slash kind of ingenious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's all that stuff. Listen, that was her wound.
And now she's an an artist too that bus driver

Speaker 1 and an amazing athlete yes exactly and that was her will to power but um

Speaker 2 yeah I was just I was a miserable miserable kid with good parents I feel uncomfortable saying this in public because I don't want to like demonize my well-meaning good parents and good parents.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know. I was just like wired to be absolutely miserable.

Speaker 2 And, you know, performing for me was kind of like an outlet, but not like an outlet. Like, I feel myself here.
It was more just an outlet to literally just get out of school.

Speaker 2 Like if I got into a show, it meant I could leave early from school on various days and rehearse and be with adults, which was the only place at the time I felt like comfortable.

Speaker 1 You have this great quote. When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable as you're given a prescribed way of behaving.

Speaker 1 And I thought, that is, I understand someone's telling you all the anxiety you might have, Jesse, about what am I supposed to say or do in this one particular situation. Right.

Speaker 1 But if you're in the seagull,

Speaker 1 you know, like, no, I'm I'm supposed to enter and then I'm supposed to leave and shoot myself. Right.
Exactly. This is what I'm supposed to do.
Exactly. And there's a calm that might come with that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 And not only a calm, but like catharsis, because the characters are emotional and it's like the thing I feel all the time bubbling under my surface, but is inappropriate to do in public, you know, to have like an emotion or, you know, and also it's a burden on other people, of course.

Speaker 2 So I don't. emote in public, but like to have that catharsis, you know, is really helpful.

Speaker 1 You weren't just drawn to acting, specifically musical theater.

Speaker 2 Well, that was like the thing that was like available. Like, they weren't doing the Siegel in, you know, community theater, New Jersey.
You know,

Speaker 1 they were doing the musical version of it.

Speaker 1 I got to go and commit suicide.

Speaker 2 Everybody had jazz wings.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 so,

Speaker 2 you know, so that's just like what was happening in children's theater at the time where I lived. You know, now I see a wonderful chasm between me and musical theater

Speaker 1 in terms of like performance style that's not where i would shine these days it's funny because now i'm having this other like flashback memory of i don't know if you remember this sona but when we were doing the shows during covid yeah i think you were one of the first yes people yes that's right you may have been you may have been the first guest i talked to covet hit all the shows shut down then we all came back i think on the same day and we were doing um virtual virtual interviews zoom interviews and uh i think everyone else really had their shit together and they were talking to guests who were in their home, but with state-of-the-art Zoom.

Speaker 1 And I was very excited that you were going to be like the first guest back.

Speaker 1 Oh, great. We got Jesse Eisenberg.
This is going to be great.

Speaker 1 And your family had gotten into a van and you were just driving across America, I think, to try and escape COVID in a van in America, which doesn't work, by the way.

Speaker 1 But I remembered you having possibly the worst Zoom signal I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 And this was on television. You could probably look it up and see it.
Yeah. But it looks like I'm talking to, it looks like it's 1962 and I'm talking to a Russian cosmonaut who's in space.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Yuri Gagorian, how are you?

Speaker 1 And then it would go out and then you'd come back in again. And occasionally I could see, you know, like your family in the background

Speaker 1 trying to swat away COVID. And there was a coyote.
Exactly right. It was craziness.
Yes. Wow.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. You know, I was like at a KOA, like a campsite, you know, where we stayed overnight.
Right, right. And the internet, the KOA is known for a lot of things, but not the Wi-Fi.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, it was pretty bad. Yeah, sorry about all that.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, no.

Speaker 1 Hey, I'm remembering it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What I've remembered is I remember those are the things I remember in show business.

Speaker 1 There have been many, you know, flawless, perfectly executed Technicolor interviews that I'll never remember. Yeah.
But I just remember you in a baseball cap and your family trying to outrun

Speaker 1 a virus in a van. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, long story short, it caught up with us.

Speaker 1 Yeah, caught up with a lot of us.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. The only one who didn't get it, Sona, who ate garlic, right?

Speaker 4 Yes, I ate garlic. Lots of garlic, lots of lemon.
But I did eventually get it. Right.
So even garlic can't outrun COVID.

Speaker 1 Wow, not even the root. Garlic.
Not even the root. I know.

Speaker 4 But you know, Gorley, who's not here, has never had it yet. Really? Yeah.
He's never had it.

Speaker 1 Maybe he's out with COVID right now. He could be.

Speaker 4 He could be. And Eduardo never had it up until like a month ago.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Yeah.
I know. Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 2 Are there people who are immune to it?

Speaker 1 Like, actually, like, I have no idea.

Speaker 3 I thought it was a mutant.

Speaker 1 Yeah, of course you must have. And you were around people, right? Who, of course, and he got real cocky about it.
And he said, he kept, he was always shouting, COVID can never get me. Yeah.
Remember?

Speaker 1 That's right. And if someone had COVID, he would, he would grab them and open mouth kiss them.
Right.

Speaker 1 He got me too a couple of times for that.

Speaker 1 And then finally,

Speaker 1 you ordered a hamburger and you said, put a little extra COVID on it.

Speaker 1 And you finally caught it.

Speaker 2 So it ultimately was your fault.

Speaker 1 In my stories, it's always the other person.

Speaker 1 Put a little extra COVID on it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Hey, that's fine.
I said I wanted COVID.

Speaker 1 I want two scoops.

Speaker 1 Make it real COVID-y.

Speaker 1 You call this COVID?

Speaker 1 Amazon is known for its products, but I also really love their customer reviews. Yeah.

Speaker 1 This holiday season, Amazon is bringing the most creative and outrageous customer reviews into the spotlight as part of their Amazon five-star theater.

Speaker 1 Here's a review for the board game Twister. Angela writes, I bought this to play with my other late 20s, early 30s friends.
Our bodies were not prepared for the pain that ensued.

Speaker 1 When all of my extremities ended up on the same color, my body went into full spasm.

Speaker 1 This is harrowing. My arms turned to jelly and my spine broke in half.

Speaker 1 Finally, I fell slowly to the ground in frog pose. The torture was over.
If you're in basic shape and somewhat flexible, this is the game for you. Five stars.

Speaker 1 You know, it's very rare for someone to be doing something with a product and have their spine break in half and give it a five-star review. That is very rare.
Yeah. This person's a very good sport.

Speaker 1 Anyway, whatever you're looking for this holiday, find the perfect gift on Amazon.

Speaker 1 Searchlight Pictures presents Rental Family, starring Academy Award-winning Brendan Frazier, Takahiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Gorman, Akira Amoto, and directed by Hikari.

Speaker 1 Audiences and top critics are celebrating Rental Family as the perfect feel-good movie of the year. I haven't felt good in a while.
I should go see this feel-good movie.

Speaker 1 Screen Rant calls it one of the year's best films, while The Hollywood Reporter calls it a warm and witty delight that balances poignancy and humor with rare delicacy. Huh.

Speaker 1 Critics are praising Fraser's performance with Next Picture calling him brilliant and describing the film as a love letter to Japan. You know, true story, when I was shooting a show in Japan,

Speaker 1 we shot a segment where I rented a family.

Speaker 2 I think we still have a picture framed with you and your family that you rented.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was really fascinating. And it was a great experience.
And I worked out some of my issues between my father and I with my rental father. That's good.
Who I don't think spoke English.

Speaker 1 But guess what? It worked out beautifully. So this would be a movie I should check out.
And so you can rent your own family here. Go see Rental Family.
Only in theaters this Friday. Get tickets today.

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Speaker 1 i gotta ask you i know you did zombie land with him and so i have to ask you about woody harrelson because he's an unsolvable mystery to me uh and i ask because he uh in my little podcast company he does a podcast a very good podcast that he does

Speaker 1 with Ted Dance, and they do it together in this very room. And whenever I encounter Woody,

Speaker 1 I'm convinced he's not real. I'm convinced he's not a real person.
In all the best ways, I adore him. I get it.
I love him.

Speaker 2 There's something, he is an icon and in some ways, like emblematic of what we think of as like, or for me at least, Americana. And

Speaker 2 we were working together for the last four months up until last week. We just finished doing a movie in Budapest together.
Now you see me three. It was our sixth project together.

Speaker 2 And I still have that feeling that he transcends the species somehow. I don't know.

Speaker 1 The thing I've...

Speaker 1 It is. He's fascinating.
He's a fascinating creature.

Speaker 2 The way I've been able to codify him in my mind just recently is the following. He is a truly eccentric artist masquerading as an everyman.

Speaker 1 Yes. I really think so.
I believe that.

Speaker 2 He's actually an eccentric artist with very unusual taste, but like he's just been embraced. And I think it's not by decide

Speaker 2 by his own decision or intent, but like by America as like the person we can all agree on. Yes.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like him and Paul Rudd are the people that everyone's agreed.

Speaker 1 We love them. They're great.
Yeah. You know, I think so.
Yeah. But

Speaker 2 Woody has a special cultural thing too, because he has a Midwestern, he has a southern twang and a Midwestern charms. He grew up in Ohio and Texas.

Speaker 2 And so there's something culturally, I think, also a little confusing because he's also hippie and, you know, he has a weed store down the block here.

Speaker 2 So there's like, I think there's so many wonderfully contradicting things happening that we all feel he's with us.

Speaker 1 And we've, I mean, mentioned it, but it was a big episode here. But it was, you may not be aware of this, that I was here with Ted and we were waiting on Woody and they said he's good.

Speaker 1 He's, and then we got this message. Yeah, Woody's running late.
He was in a motorcycle accident. Oh, wow.
And I was, I was saying, he was in a motorcycle accident.

Speaker 1 Let's all rush to the hospital and go make sure he's okay. And they're like, nope, he's just going to be 15 minutes late.

Speaker 1 And he showed up 15 minutes late and he had gone like ass over tea kettle over the hood of a car,

Speaker 1 not wearing armor.

Speaker 1 And Ted bandaged him. And then we did the podcast.
Oh my God. And I'm, and he's like, I'll be all right, man.
You know, whatever. Like, no.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're, no, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 A week later, we were shooting a movie in Budapest. That was like right after that.

Speaker 1 Oh, was it right after that?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I'm also furious with him because he pulled me aside and said, Hey, man, you want to go 50-50 with me on a houseboat in Amsterdam?

Speaker 1 And I'm like, to co-own a houseboat in Amsterdam with Woody Harrelson, I could dine out on that for the rest of my life. And so I said, yes, yes.
And he said, don't you have to talk to your wife?

Speaker 1 And I said, no.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying yes right now.

Speaker 1 He said, do you need to see pictures? I said, no. Right.
I, if enough, I've never seen it. Of course.
I'm going to tell people, yeah, Woody Harrelson and I co-own a houseboat in Amsterdam.

Speaker 1 Three days later, we don't talk. He's taping a podcast right in here and he's talking to Flea.
And on Aerie goes, Hey, Flea, you want to go half and half on a?

Speaker 1 And I practically crash the door down and I'm like yelling at him, You never intended. He was just laughing in my face.

Speaker 2 Okay, to be fair, he doesn't know fractions.

Speaker 1 He has sold. It's like that con man who sold.
A million halves. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Delikes get a half. All thousand of you.
Now, if I could just leave town with this suitcase full of cash.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's the music man. The monorail man.
He's the music man. Yeah, or the monorail.
It's Lyle Lanley.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 one of the things I love the most about being in this business is just meeting all these. characters, these authentic people.
And I just,

Speaker 1 and I just,

Speaker 1 to me, that's the price of admission. I mean, it's worth everything.
It makes it all worthwhile.

Speaker 2 Let me ask you this, though. Like, how much eccentricity do you think is manufactured by people trying to be interesting?

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 it's less. Yes.
I know what you mean. I think there's eccentricity that's manufactured by celebrities.
famous people, whatever you want to call them, people of note. There's some eccentricity.

Speaker 1 I think the thing that's manufactured the most is difficulty. I think that's what I've noticed.
Purposely manufactured.

Speaker 1 Purposely manufactured difficulty because it almost creates a sense of importance.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I think when someone's being very difficult or there's a lot of demands and they have a giant entourage and everything has to be just right, I think this person's unhappy.

Speaker 1 This person is trying to create something because they don't feel authentic enough.

Speaker 2 But what they'd be doing would be compromising potentially being liked. And when do those two things come into conflict in a way that still makes them demanding? Right.

Speaker 1 I mean, I wish I could answer the question. I just have seen it a million times.

Speaker 2 And it always feels like it's coming from the same place of needing to feel externally important because something is missing.

Speaker 1 I know that when I was doing the late night show, Bruce Springsteen came to perform and he showed up himself. Right.
And he's wearing a flannel shirt. He's hanging out in the hallway.

Speaker 1 And afterwards, someone bought a case of beer and we all cracked it open. We were standing around drinking beer.
Like,

Speaker 1 because he didn't need

Speaker 1 validation. He didn't need that.
And then occasionally there's someone who they're not even the number one name on the call sheet or

Speaker 1 of the show they're on.

Speaker 1 And there's a lot of demands. Of course.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's always the case.

Speaker 1 I'd like to keep the limo afterwards.

Speaker 1 And I'd also, when I get there, this is what the temperature should be. Right.
Of course. And

Speaker 1 to me, that's the pathology

Speaker 1 a little bit.

Speaker 2 That makes a lot more sense, of course.

Speaker 1 And when you meet an authentic person, there's something, there's a little piece of zinc in our brains as humans, humanoids, where we know, oh, okay, this person is authentic.

Speaker 1 This Woody Harrelson guy is not making shit up. He's real.

Speaker 2 Do you know what I mean? Well, some stuff is made up.

Speaker 1 In the

Speaker 1 cell phone tower, you know.

Speaker 1 Cell phone tower. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 Yes. Well, I think he believes it.
That's true.

Speaker 1 The truth is, he believes it. That's true.
What's made up is that he has a houseboat in Amsterdam. That's the bullshit.
That doesn't even exist.

Speaker 2 What if it's just you and Flea who own this houseboat?

Speaker 1 That's what's going to be. That's cool too, though.
No, it's not the same. Flea's just going to be doing bass scales the whole time, really fast.

Speaker 1 And I'd be like, Jesus, Flea.

Speaker 1 Do you know another instrument? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Wait, you guys are living in the houseboat? I don't understand.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the whole point.

Speaker 1 When Jesse and I get a houseboat, which is going to happen, Jesse,

Speaker 1 we're going to live there together. Oh.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 If you have the houseboat, why would you not live there all the time, even when you have to go visit your families back home? You stay in the houseboat in in Amsterdam.

Speaker 1 This actually leads me to your film. Naturally.

Speaker 1 Well, it does. It does.

Speaker 1 It leads me to your film because Areal Pain

Speaker 1 co-stars you at Kieran Kulkin as cousins. I saw a trailer first.

Speaker 1 for its other film as often happens. And the second I saw you and Kieran together,

Speaker 1 I was just, oh, this is going to be great.

Speaker 1 Thanks.

Speaker 1 Because I adore both of you. I think you're both fantastic actors, but you also both play very well, different registers.
The two of you play

Speaker 1 these cousins who in many ways could not be more different. For a movie that has a lot of dark and meaningful subtext, you two are so funny and real together.
Oh, thanks. It's really beautiful.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's funny because I hadn't like really seen his work ever. I mean, really, I just had this instinct that there was no one else on the planet who could do it.

Speaker 2 I met him at an audition for this movie Adventureland. I was already cast in the movie, and he came in to audition for it.
And in the audition, he like literally grabbed my nipples and twisted them.

Speaker 2 It was in the in the script, in the script, he was supposed to like punch me in the balls.

Speaker 2 And a lot of actors are coming in, and no one touched me that day because it was auditions, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 And like, um, and yet Kieran punched me in the balls and then grabbed my nipples, twisted them, and was so brilliantly funny in the audition that he didn't even get the role.

Speaker 1 But he, um, he actually actually actually wasn't cast, but I remember he left cast because he sexually assaulted. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 There was a whole, he had to do a little time and go away for a bit.

Speaker 2 And Screen Actors Guild, they do take you back after

Speaker 2 a probatory period. But anyway,

Speaker 2 no, but basically, like,

Speaker 2 he left the room, and the director and I turned to each other.

Speaker 1 I was like, that was unbelievable.

Speaker 2 This guy is amazing. And that was like in 2009, I think.

Speaker 2 And I just had this image, I think, in my unconscious, or this feeling of being around a guy who's so funny, who's so magnetic, and who doesn't kind of give a shit about, at that point, like being polite or being like the obsequious auditioning actor of like, you know, so happy to be here.

Speaker 2 And a guy who just immediately manhandled me. And it's kind of what the movie is, like in the movie, I pay for the trip.
I have the family.

Speaker 1 Let's lay it out for people just because, you know, I never like to give too much away, but it is a really lovely movie and like a tone poem, but also

Speaker 1 it's a travel story. It's the story of two cousins that you're taking this very meaningful trip.
Your grandmother,

Speaker 1 who

Speaker 1 she survived the camps

Speaker 1 in Poland. So you guys are coming back as part of this tour to tour Poland, see some of the sites.
You visit a concentration camp, and then you go to see the home where she lived.

Speaker 1 In a kind of Felix and Oscar way, you're so good at being very high-strung and trying to hold it all together and very responsible. And he is so irresponsible in these very funny ways.

Speaker 1 And I was watching this movie thinking, well, there can be more movies where you two, I mean, you can do you two characters can do anything because it's just going to be funny.

Speaker 1 But there's also, it's real. It's very meaningful.

Speaker 2 That's so nice of you to say. And actually, the original script was set in Mongolia.
I was like 30 pages into this script of these two guys going to Mongolia to visit an old friend.

Speaker 1 You're the new hope in Crosby. That's true.
And they travel, you know.

Speaker 1 look it up, kids.

Speaker 1 It's a really good reference. Yeah, next week we're going to the Orient.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 it was basically like,

Speaker 2 it was,

Speaker 2 yeah.

Speaker 2 And so, like, I had this great dynamic. And then the movie, this Mongolia script was not going well.
And it's kind of funny, but like, the script was not going well. I was 30 pages into the script.

Speaker 2 And an ad popped up on the internet for Auschwitz tours. And then in parentheses, with lunch.

Speaker 1 Jesus. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what it said. Auschwitz, parentheses, with lunch.
No, Auschwitz tours. Auschwitz Tours.
Yeah. With lunch.
Yeah. With lunch.
I know. I'm getting it.
I know.

Speaker 1 Should I say it again?

Speaker 1 I can come closer.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So basically,

Speaker 2 and I was like, first of all, I knew immediately what the ad was for.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 2 but the implication of what the ad was for, which was just, you know, you want to. do tours, but you know.

Speaker 1 The ad's a little tone deaf.

Speaker 1 Let's say. You can mention with lunch maybe elsewhere.

Speaker 2 Yeah, maybe put an asterisk there and then address the asterisk after you click the banner.

Speaker 1 But basically,

Speaker 2 but actually what they're appealing to is exactly why the tone-deaf, why the ad is tone-deaf, because they're appealing to yuppies who want to, instead of going to Rome

Speaker 2 this holiday, now you're going to go to Auschwitz, you know, and you're doing your responsible tourism, which is a good thing to do anyway.

Speaker 2 But as soon as I saw that, I chained, I took the characters out of Mongolia and I set them on this Polish trip.

Speaker 2 But that was really the feeling is like you could drop these characters in anywhere in any scene and it will still be amusing.

Speaker 2 And so, like what you said, like they're going to all of these places fraught with, you know, the history of trauma.

Speaker 2 And yet the characters have like an appealing bond that you can kind of just repeat and further uncover.

Speaker 1 There's also this feeling that we've all had. There are moments in the film where you're meant to feel something.

Speaker 1 You're not quite feeling it in the same magnitude that you feel you should be feeling it.

Speaker 1 And I thought that is something we've all experienced

Speaker 1 where you go to a hallowed space or you're learning about something.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm a history buff and I've been to many places where very traumatic things happen. And then you're like, well, we're gonna miss the tram if we don't get movie.
It's very weird.

Speaker 1 It's very weird. It's very weird to lay the two on each other.

Speaker 2 Yes, I've thought about this so much, not just because of making the movie, but because I do the same kind of tourism.

Speaker 2 I've been to the Rwandan Genocide Museum in Kigali and in Cambodia, the killing fields. I'm fascinated with this kind of tourism.

Speaker 2 And yes, there's always the weird part of it, like we have to get lunch on the way there. Do we get bad lunch because bad things happened here?

Speaker 2 Or do we get the lunch we like because we want to have the energy to tour this place? And it's so weird.

Speaker 2 So in the movie, the characters are like kind of trying to reconcile that disconnect, this necessary disconnect.

Speaker 2 Like we're on the train going to a concentration camp and we have first-class seats because the, you know, exchange rate in Poland allows for us to have this, you know, we're on a yuppie tour of Poland.

Speaker 2 And Kieran's character cannot stand the fact that we're in first class. But like coach is not that much better.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 No, he goes, he's, you know, he's saying our

Speaker 1 people were put on trains in Poland in this terrible situation to be killed.

Speaker 1 And here we are,

Speaker 1 70 years later, on a train with really cushy seats, eating this fancy meal in first class. This isn't right.
And he goes storming off to go to another class.

Speaker 1 And one of the characters yells out, it's not going to be that much worse

Speaker 1 there. And so to me, the beauty of the film is when you can kind of dance on a knife's edge

Speaker 1 between

Speaker 1 the darkness, but also the humanity that is people are imperfect. We don't always feel exactly what we're supposed to feel.

Speaker 1 There's always someone in the room who, if you say, oh my God, I just bit into this sandwich and

Speaker 1 it's got mold all over it. This is terrible.
Oh, yeah. Well, guess what? Yeah, exactly.
Some people never got to have a sandwich and they're dead. And so you can't always pull it.

Speaker 1 No, I still want the good sandwich. Right, right.
I don't want mold on my sandwich. I'm sorry that someone else didn't get a sandwich 800 years ago, but god damn it, I want the good one.

Speaker 2 Yes, but also, what if you did also have this kind of residual guilt that other people didn't have the sandwich and your moldy sandwich is not something to even have pity for? You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like there, there could be a version of you that goes like, oh my God, yeah, you're right. I'm feeling bad over something I haven't earned.
You know,

Speaker 2 not that that's a good feeling to have, but I think.

Speaker 1 Well, I had a similar experience. You know, your movie is about, because this is based on something you've done.
You and your wife, your family have taken trips. Poland is very important to you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I mean, my family.
I'm just telling you. I'm not asking you.

Speaker 1 I'm just telling you that Poland is important to you.

Speaker 2 Are there any other countries I should look into as being important?

Speaker 1 You're also into Guam. Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay, so protectorates, yes.

Speaker 1 Man, you're chalking up the points left and right.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I mean, I know that that's something that this is reflects part of your life.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. Like the house we filmed the movie at, but that the characters wind up at the end of the movie is the house my family lived in up until 1939.

Speaker 2 And yeah, my wife and I kind of took this trip, but not on like a guided tour and went to all these cities. And all the stories that the characters tell are basically just stories from my family.

Speaker 2 I just, you know, insert them in these kind of, you know, fictionalized ways.

Speaker 1 Are you, is it right that you're trying to get Polish citizens?

Speaker 2 I have a social security number in Poland, but I don't have my skin right now.

Speaker 1 Yes. 17.

Speaker 1 And then the rest are Polish characters.

Speaker 1 So it doesn't translate.

Speaker 2 It's 17ZWZW CCW.

Speaker 1 Yeah, scammers. Try and use that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I haven't got my passport. And I was supposed to get my passport on Wednesday at the next Wednesday, like in several days, a few days from now, at the Polish embassy in DC.

Speaker 2 And then I was just emailed last night. You're not getting it there.
And so I don't know. I've been like chasing this thing for a while.

Speaker 1 That'd be so cool to have a. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I have some envy here because

Speaker 1 I'm 100% Irish,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 the rule is your, I think your grandfather had to have been from Ireland, and it's my great-grandfather, so I do not qualify.

Speaker 1 But I've always thought, wouldn't it be amazing to have an Irish passport? Yeah. Because I could flee if there's English.
Yeah. And I could escape from my crimes, my heinous crimes.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And don't go anywhere.

Speaker 1 Don't go anywhere. Deal mystic around.
Yeah, I like this job. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Go get another Conan O'Brien. There's always another Conan O'Brien.

Speaker 2 You could do it remotely.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Yes.
Ireland has many wonderful studios. In a van, just like you.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 But I had the experience of going. back to Ireland to shoot a show, this travel show we did for Max.
And, you know, I'm doing shooting a lot of comedy and a lot of very silly stuff.

Speaker 1 And then there was one part where this woman took me to the actual plot of land that

Speaker 1 my great-grandfather lived on.

Speaker 1 And I get there and I'm i'm looking at this beautiful view yeah gorgeous view of the gobbling mountains and like the ice in my heart started to melt a little bit yeah i did i felt very and i said to her i said god look at this view and this is where he lived she said yeah they lived in a the shack is gone now but they this is where they lived and i've looked at the records and it would have been basically a one

Speaker 1 one or two rooms and they lived here and um uh and i'm looking at it and feeling very emotional and i said well this is so beautiful here because it was absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 1 It was like an Irish Spring ad. You know, it was just like gorgeous, you know, leprechaun Ireland and mountains in the distance.

Speaker 1 And foolishly, I said to the woman, why did they,

Speaker 1 why did he leave? Yeah. You know, and she said, because you can't eat the view.
Oh my God.

Speaker 1 And it was.

Speaker 2 There's the tagline for Ireland, I know.

Speaker 1 But I mean, it was very powerful. Yeah.
They had, there was not enough food.

Speaker 1 They didn't, you know, and she's just like, yeah, there are good, that's beautiful mountains. You can't eat the feckin' mountains.
They had to go. I've got to get that in a little list.

Speaker 1 Well, I added feckin'. I'm making her more of a character.
Amazing.

Speaker 1 You can't eat the feckin' mountains, can you?

Speaker 1 And then there was a burst of smoke and she turned into a bat.

Speaker 1 Jesus. Yeah.

Speaker 1 She went,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 2 that's pretty amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Were you surprised that the feeling snuck up on you?

Speaker 1 Yes, I was. Whenever I have any kind of emotion, I am shocked and dismayed.

Speaker 2 Was it something specific? Like, did you think, oh, that man would have looked at this view?

Speaker 1 Yes. I was thinking that man would have looked at this.
He had to go. I also knew very sad things about him.

Speaker 1 Back then, there was no going back. There was no writing to people.
There was no, I mean, a lot of people left. They went to America.

Speaker 1 My people went to central Massachusetts to farm country and start again. But this relative of mine who left struggled with alcoholism and it was a real problem for him.
And

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 when people have said to me, oh, are you in touch with the people back home in Ireland? Well, no, there was no keeping in touch with anybody. They just went, you know, it was very dark.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was a very, and, and so anyway, I. Your story, your movie had some resonance for me as it would for, I mean, I think so many people, so many of us are

Speaker 1 immigrants we're all immigrants and uh it's much discussed in the news now but all of us have that's

Speaker 1 all of us have moved on and all of us have come here and we're all curious about where we came from and it does sneak up on you it gets it gets emotional in a strange way i had like a similar experience to you I'm like really always on the edge of emotions and maybe you're not.

Speaker 2 And so I think I had almost like the X-ray inverse of your experience. I went to this house.
Again, we filmed this movie there, but 2008, my wife and I went to this house that my family was from.

Speaker 1 And it's the house that I've seen in the movie, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And with a view you could eat. And

Speaker 1 mountains made of meatballs.

Speaker 1 A pastromi volcano. Come to Poland.
A view you can eat.

Speaker 1 Not like Ireland, where you can.

Speaker 1 Not the

Speaker 1 it is. It basically is candyland.
Yeah. Not the Oh, it's not the Yogram Mountain.

Speaker 1 Not those gross views.

Speaker 2 Look at all those an inedible view. Anyway, nonetheless, there's

Speaker 1 Poland, better than Ireland. In terms of the views you can eat.

Speaker 2 But basically, like, so my wife and I went to this house, and I knew so much about the house. And forgive me for, like, taking this and- That's okay.

Speaker 1 Go for it.

Speaker 2 Like, forgive me for taking this in, like, kind of like a, you know, bleak direction.

Speaker 2 But, you know, what happened in the house was like, my family owned this dry goods store on the corner of this, uh of this um town square in in this nice very nice town in poland and they were friends with the poles i i mean i know this from because i'm i they are survivors um they were really good well liked in the town uh and in 1939 they were taken out of their house they were taken to the cemetery which is like two blocks away and they were shot like point blank and then my like you know um we actually parked our trailers when we were shooting there outside the cemetery so this whole town was kind of fraught with not only memories that uh um i had let me put it this way in 2008, I went to this house and I expected to have very much the experience you just described, that I would be overwhelmed with this feeling of catharsis and a kind of like immediately, you know, resonant feeling of connection.

Speaker 2 And I really didn't. And what was interesting like about that strange disconnect for me was like, I just had this feeling of like, oh yeah, we don't belong here anymore.
You know,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 that was kind of depressing. And like, I was standing out there for a while, like with my wife.
And then we're just basically loitering, you know, in front of this building in this town square.

Speaker 2 And I just had this feeling of, oh, right,

Speaker 2 none of us are here anymore. And then I had this other weird feeling is when I was going into that town, I guess I assumed I would see people that look like me.
And I didn't.

Speaker 2 And, you know, there are no Jews left in the town. And so it was this weird thing.
It was an emptiness I was left with, not the catharsis that I was expecting to have.

Speaker 1 Well, it's always difficult to feel the pressure to have an emotion because that's not how it's supposed to work. That's true.
And this is reminding me,

Speaker 1 I've shot a bunch of shows around the world because I'm just very fascinated.

Speaker 1 I, you know, have a real wander of lust. And I, I loved my talk show days, but I was always very jealous when someone like you would sit down next to me.
And next to, you know, Jesse Eisenberg,

Speaker 1 Jesse, how are you? Well, I'm good. I just got back from Budapest where I was before.

Speaker 1 And I would think, I've never been there. Wow.
And I have to be in this seat. I get to.
I loved it.

Speaker 1 So the minute I started to invent this way to go to these different countries, and one of the countries that we went to was Armenia. And Sona came with me.

Speaker 1 And we were shooting all this very fun stuff in Armenia and

Speaker 1 silly things. And you and I are dressing up as shepherds.
And we're in fields. And we're wearing, you know, so we were.
shooting all this stuff. And then we went to

Speaker 4 the genocide memorial.

Speaker 1 The genocide memorial. And suddenly, I mean, we're not idiots i didn't go thinking oh that's gonna be fun you know

Speaker 1 we'll get some good comedy i'm not a monster hey why am i feeling these feelings

Speaker 1 how is this water coming out of my face

Speaker 1 but but we went there and it was um

Speaker 1 Well, you take

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 4 It was really heavy. I mean, I'd never been to Armenia.

Speaker 1 I am Armenian. Oh, oh, oh.

Speaker 4 I felt a lot of what Conan was saying about how you get that. I was crying the entire time I was there, I feel like.
But then I saw my dad's village engraved

Speaker 4 in the wall of all the villages that were affected by the genocide. And I, it's like I instantly just felt some kind of connection to my grandparents.

Speaker 4 It was like, I'm feeling emotional talking about it now. It's, it was amazing.
It was one of probably the most like. heart-wrenching moments of my life.

Speaker 2 Were you also not expecting?

Speaker 4 I wasn't. I was not expecting to feel that overwhelmed about it.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 I mean, I think that something just like got very triggered in me and it was, you suddenly feel very connected to your past.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 4 Yeah. It puts you, it puts everything into a very different perspective.

Speaker 1 Also, I always have, I don't know if you felt this or you felt that, but I'm so lucky to be here. Of course.
That's the feeling I have. Of course.

Speaker 4 We're lucky.

Speaker 1 That, yes, that I'm enraged by people. We live in this world where, you know, we're in this business, we're extremely fortunate.

Speaker 1 And the thing that really angers me is when, when people act entitled, I just, it makes me insane, except when I do it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But no, I get very angry at entitlement. I profoundly understand that I'm here because a lot of

Speaker 1 people, you know, this relative of mine, and it's not that long ago, late 19th century, said, I got to go

Speaker 1 and walked out of that town, made it to central Massachusetts. And there's all these other people that come after that that don't get one one billionth of my opportunities.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 And then I'm here and standing on millions of shoulders, you know? And so that's the feeling I have. And I do think without getting overtly political, people forget that.

Speaker 1 People think I'm here because I made this happen. Of course.

Speaker 1 I know. I didn't, I've made some things happen in my life.

Speaker 2 Right. But in the context of opportunity.

Speaker 1 In the context of amazing opportunities that everyone else provided for me.

Speaker 2 And you especially.

Speaker 1 No, but

Speaker 1 all right. Eisenberg!

Speaker 1 Okay, I don't know what it's like to be blessed with talent,

Speaker 1 but I did what I had to do.

Speaker 1 But no, it's like,

Speaker 1 it's such a, you know, going back this film you made is about a lot. It's it's interesting.
It's a it's a very lovely film that's a very, and it sounds crazy. It's very enjoyable to watch.

Speaker 1 It's a really good movie

Speaker 1 and it's beautifully scored and it's beautifully directed. And you guys are terrific actors and it's got so much lightness in it.
And it's got,

Speaker 1 obviously it has some heaviness in it as well, but it's,

Speaker 1 you know, it's about, it's about so much.

Speaker 1 And it's not, and it's, it's not overt in that way, but it's just, it's one of those films where I watched it and I just thought, okay, I have, this is making me feel all kinds of stuff in a very good way.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's so nice. I'm an unfeeling man.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Says a lot

Speaker 2 that you had any experience of sentience watching it.

Speaker 1 It's just the goal. Why do I invite you back?

Speaker 1 I don't understand. I think I like the punishment, don't you? I really

Speaker 1 do. I really like grounding.

Speaker 1 It is. Yeah, I need grounding.

Speaker 4 Yes, you need some humility.

Speaker 1 I do.

Speaker 2 I've been sent in here by your wife.

Speaker 1 I saw on our MX bill a $200,000 charge

Speaker 1 for,

Speaker 1 it said Eisenberg therapy. I didn't know.
It's a speaking fee.

Speaker 1 I'm treating this like a state college.

Speaker 1 Well, listen,

Speaker 1 congratulations on a real pain. And this is not just me.

Speaker 1 Everybody is talking about this film.

Speaker 1 And I know it's awards season, but people are abuzz about this film and rightly so. And congratulations.
And

Speaker 1 also just,

Speaker 1 you know, I'm. I'm very proud to know you.

Speaker 1 No, I really do. I'm proud to know you.
You have a lot of character. And I know you're tough on yourself.
And you're a real human being, which doesn't always happen in this town.

Speaker 1 And so just a joy to have you here.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much. That's so nice of you to say.
Thank you for always being supportive of me.

Speaker 1 Well, we're going to edit all this out.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 1 Okay. And then we're going to add it.

Speaker 1 Once you leave, I stay for an hour and it's just Eisenberg singers. Got it, got it, got it.
And then we tape in you going, oh,

Speaker 1 well, I can't keep up. I can't keep up with Koenak.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, yeah, another thing, Eisenberg. You know, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing.
And so he taught me. How did he know?

Speaker 1 He's probably the funniest guy I've ever met. Hey, why does he sound like Jimmy Stewart? I don't know.

Speaker 2 You only bought the Jimmy Stewart AI voice.

Speaker 1 We all just get real. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, I made this movie. It's called A Real Pain.

Speaker 1 I go back to. I've got a polling, you see.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Man, Conan, you're the funniest, funniest character I've ever met. And I swear to God, I've met them all.

Speaker 2 I just love the idea that Jimmy Stewart's from anywhere like Poland.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my people, we had a, you know, how to lay stettel.

Speaker 1 We're in a shtetl.

Speaker 1 You got any borscht on? Yeah,

Speaker 1 I like a borscht. Mr.
Smith goes to cross the stage.

Speaker 1 God bless you. You too.
Jesse Eisenberg. Man, thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 With the U.S. Bank Split World MasterCard, all purchases are automatically divided into three payments and placed in a payment plan to be paid back over three months.
That's a nice little buffer zone.

Speaker 1 Yeah. If you're looking for additional flexibility, you can extend your plan to six or 12 months with equal monthly payments for a low monthly fee.

Speaker 1 So whether it's concert tickets, a new sofa, or an unexpected vet bill, pay later. on every purchase with the U.S.
Bank Split Card. Why do they always say an unexpected vet bill?

Speaker 1 There are expected vet bills.

Speaker 1 I got my golden retriever a facelift. We talked about it for a year.

Speaker 1 He was very unhappy. He wasn't doing well on social media.
So we had a little to nip and tuck. Yeah, it was a good time.

Speaker 1 No, I've never had a time. It was a good time.
I never did that.

Speaker 1 Animals never had a facelift in my home. That's one thing where I will draw the line.
No facelifts for dogs in my home. Cats, on the other hand, need all the help they can get.
I lost my mind.

Speaker 1 Learn more at usbank.com/slash split card. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S.
Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from MasterCard International, Incorporated.

Speaker 1 Some restrictions may apply.

Speaker 1 I'm sure a lot of you out there are plain Coca-Cola people, and that's respectable. Trust me, I'm one.
Yes, I am. You've many times seen me just, I like to order just a regular Coca-Cola.

Speaker 1 You really do. I really do.
But if you haven't tried a Coca-Cola from Sonic, now is your chance because right now it's completely free with any purchase.

Speaker 1 Now, if you're a regular Joe, you're thinking thinking to yourself, I can get a Coca-Cola from anywhere, Conan. Why would I go to Sonic? Well, I'm going to tell you.

Speaker 1 Sonic has all the flavors and add-ins to make the perfect Coca-Cola for you. I'm talking strawberry, cherries, coconuts, sweet cream, jalapenos? Oh.

Speaker 1 Second of all, let me say this again. It's free.
But I like an add-in. I like to have a little flavor.
And you know what? Coconut in your Coca-Cola is delicious. It really is.

Speaker 1 So create a Coke Your Way, any size, any flavor, free with any purchase in the Sonic app for a limited time. Live free.
Eat Sonic.

Speaker 3 Sona, recently you met someone out in the wild, and I think that's about to lead us into an interesting journey.

Speaker 4 I need to talk about what happened to me on Saturday because I hosted all day, and it was so much fun. I hosted the Pasadena Armenian Festival.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Oh, God.
No, no.

Speaker 1 No, I was just curious.

Speaker 1 I was just curious who they got after I turned them down.

Speaker 1 And then I turned them down. Yeah.
Oh, then you? Yeah, they called me, and I was like, well, I can't do it. And then Gorley was like, no, thanks.
Which was really rude. No, thanks.

Speaker 1 I had a legitimate excuse. So this is exciting.
What happened?

Speaker 4 I had posted it up on Instagram that I was going to be at this thing to just kind of help promote it. And I had a few of our fans who aren't even Armenian come to the festival to come meet me.

Speaker 4 Oh, that's cool. Which was honestly really cool.

Speaker 1 So these are non-Armenians coming to an Armenian festival. Yes.
Wow. And

Speaker 1 see, what did I tell you long ago?

Speaker 1 I have no idea. We unify people.
Oh. We do.
We bring people together. Okay.
Just say, yes, you're right.

Speaker 4 Sure, yeah. Okay.
Yes, you're right.

Speaker 3 Country evidence is there because the country seems pretty unified.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I brought us together.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 can I give a shout out to a couple people who came?

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 4 Daniel came with his girlfriend, Michelle. Daniel's a fan.
Michelle doesn't listen, so we could just forget Michelle.

Speaker 1 Well, then what the fuck did you bring her up for?

Speaker 1 What's wrong with her? If he's listening, what is she doing? Just plugging her ears?

Speaker 4 And then Marianne and Dean came. This, so they came all the way from, I think, the Midwest.
They, they drove all the way out. No, they didn't.
Not for me specifically.

Speaker 4 They came for something else, but then I was like a stop. So I'm just going to tell myself it was for me.

Speaker 4 No, no, they didn't drive from the Midwest to go to an armenian festival no they didn't but they they did let's just say they did um but they oh so dean and marianne i met them they're lovely people dean i find out writes fan fiction about you

Speaker 1 he writes it about a lot of things but he also writes a lot of conan o'brien specific fan fiction wow i'm not i have to say i am not familiar with the genre of fan fiction i've heard about it but i'm not familiar with what it actually entails so he's writing fictitious things that happen to me.

Speaker 3 You're leaving out a major descriptor.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 It's explicit.

Speaker 1 It's erotic fan fiction.

Speaker 4 It's erotic fat. It's erotic fan fiction.

Speaker 1 That doesn't surprise me. Oh, it.

Speaker 1 I am an erotic.

Speaker 1 I am an erotic character.

Speaker 1 Neurotic. You're thinking neurotic.
Oh, aren't they the same? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think I exude a sexuality.

Speaker 4 It's funny you say that because I was like, really, Conan? And I'm like, he's just, you know, he's very, he's like, I was like, you you know, I was talking to Dean and Marianne.

Speaker 4 And I said, he's just a very kind of repressed, got this repressed Catholic energy. And he said, a lot of the fan fiction that he writes comes from you

Speaker 4 like coming out of your repression.

Speaker 1 Breaking out.

Speaker 4 Breaking out of your repression.

Speaker 1 See, this guy gets me. His name is Dean.
Yes. Okay.
Let me tell you something. When someone's repressed, if anything, it means there's more sexual energy because it's trapped.
It is. I guess.

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 1 So when you say like, I never think of you as,

Speaker 1 you're so repressed. Yes.
Yes. A volcano just before it blows,

Speaker 1 shooting its hot lava. Oh, girl.
Oh, God. Come on.
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Uh-oh. Now I'm thinking I know what Gorley's up to because he's looking at his phone.
Yeah. And he's either there's a 1940s hat sale in the area.
My erotic. Fixation.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Homburg.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean, I looked at just the descriptions. I said, pass.

Speaker 1 I can't do it.

Speaker 3 I'm going to take us through some of these. For instance, here's one.

Speaker 3 This is a short introduction, but there's a ton of tags on this, like nipple looking. Oh, God.
Not looking for constructive criticism. Smut, porn with feelings.

Speaker 1 Blowjobs. Okay.

Speaker 3 Here it is. Receiving an autograph and a hug from her giant ginger idol following a live taping of Conan O'Brien needs a friend would have been more than enough for Lily.

Speaker 3 But after he waves goodbye to the crowd, she realized Conan left a lot more than his signature behind.

Speaker 4 What does that mean? You don't listen. You know, so you never read.

Speaker 1 I love

Speaker 1 it. Yeah, but what does that mean?

Speaker 3 I think you jizzed on the autograph.

Speaker 4 I knew. I think he left his info and then they had like a dalliance afterwards.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 She's supposed to code his DNA.

Speaker 4 You said you thought you'd be able to do it.

Speaker 1 No, no, you're going down an awful road. I am meeting these people at their level.
Let me remind you of some of these tags. First of all, this is not fiction.
I remember Lily.

Speaker 3 Teasing, dirty talk, blowjobs, face fucking.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait. Don't read these things.
So you can click on any of these and it will lead to something about me in that scenario? Or there's just tons and tons of screens.

Speaker 4 No, there's he's he's got his the website. Is can I just say the website so people can go read it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's help this guy.

Speaker 4 The website is called archiveofourown.org and he's drh paints and he's got a lot of Conan specific fan fiction. Okay.
I do think it's erotica.

Speaker 4 It's a lot of erotica, and it's very explicit because that's the fun part about fanfiction.

Speaker 3 Recently engaged, Conan enjoys a low-key celebration with fiancé Natasha at a Red Sox game where they get frisky in one of the VIP suites. Yes.

Speaker 1 A bunch of things here. I am married.
Her name's not Natasha.

Speaker 1 And I've never been invited to a Red Sox VIP suite.

Speaker 1 Nor what I, the afflex are always in there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 After an aggravating day alongside Detective Terry Seattle, when asked to question another of captivating Keith's former assistants, Conan finds the enchanting Eden has more than a few tricks up Her Sleeve.

Speaker 4 This is fun stuff.

Speaker 4 And I think it's very flattering. I mean, like, you know, there was an entire movie series, the after movie series, that was based on fan fiction written about Harry Styles.
Right.

Speaker 3 Like, it's, I just think there's movie material here.

Speaker 4 I'm just saying, I'm like, I just think it's very flattering when people choose you as like a main character in any sort of literary kind of take they have on anything.

Speaker 1 This might be one of the best things that's ever happened to me. Oh, I don't know.
Maybe it went too far.

Speaker 3 After getting a taste of the submissive lifestyle while filming Conan Without Borders in Berlin, Conan seeks out Dominatrix Miss Andrea to fulfill his fantasies.

Speaker 1 You know what? This person knows her stuff.

Speaker 1 We've talked about it. I shot a Dominatrix segment

Speaker 1 in Berlin and I'm still in pain from it. Oh, I see.

Speaker 3 These are lead-ins to the full. You have to kind of click through to get to the whole story.

Speaker 1 Yeah, these are just the beginning. You're leading just the, these are just the.

Speaker 3 Here's a good one. Conan attends his 40th high school reunion, where he finds out Lolly, a fellow former student turned Brookline history teacher, secretly pined after him in their youth.
Oh, God.

Speaker 3 Wait, it's called Not Too Late.

Speaker 1 It is too late.

Speaker 1 It's way too late. It should be called Way Too Late.
Their hips clicked as they entwined.

Speaker 1 Eventually, my skin hurts, said Conan.

Speaker 1 What was that?

Speaker 1 Said his sexual partner.

Speaker 1 I can't hear you because of my oldness.

Speaker 1 Ow, it hurts!

Speaker 1 Conan yelled, peeing pure blood into the toilet.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 Lolly nodded, eyeliner making her gaze appear smoky yet skittish. Yeah, yeah, that sounds great uh conan's tongue wet his lips my hotel of wet lips i'm done

Speaker 1 i can't i can't i can't i can't read it no no this is terrible i can't hear it hold on we gotta say but i'm glad someone is finally seeing me as a sexual being because i've been ignored too long in that category and that's just what a sexual person would say

Speaker 1 for far too long my sexuality has not been seen said the dynamo the lotario. Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 No, but Matt, if you keep reading it, I'm going to burn this entire building down to the ground.

Speaker 1 I can't do it.

Speaker 3 Stalling at her clavicle.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Conan Rose.
It's

Speaker 3 mouth stalling at her clavicle.

Speaker 1 What does that mean, Sally? Like, I think you're working your mouth. You're working your way.
Oh, I should read the line before I hear. Okay, here we go.
Unsure.

Speaker 1 I'm always unsure in these situations.

Speaker 1 What's happening?

Speaker 3 Unsure precisely when Conan sprang her breasts free, mouth stalling at her clavicle. Conan rose, eyes and ocean churning with uncertainty and craving.

Speaker 1 Can we

Speaker 1 excuse me, ma'am?

Speaker 3 How rough do you like it? No blinking. Exhalations audible.
Lolly studied him in silence, features set. I want you.

Speaker 1 Oh, I came. Can I just say one thing?

Speaker 1 Can I say one thing?

Speaker 3 I just wanted to say that.

Speaker 1 Can I say

Speaker 1 one thing? I always pause at the clavicle.

Speaker 3 Do you? That's your move? That's your signature move?

Speaker 1 My signature move is the clavicle pause.

Speaker 1 Oh my God, this is. Stop it.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to read it. I'm going to stop.
I know you have to say it.

Speaker 4 I'm going to fucking punch your face.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you keep saying it's Matt.

Speaker 1 Matt literally cannot stop it. Matt, you've got to turn it on.
Shut up. He's getting turned on.

Speaker 3 I didn't know you had a forked dick.

Speaker 1 Who gives?

Speaker 1 It's more of a sport. It needs to stop now.
I'm just saying this game is. It's a fork and

Speaker 1 a fork and a salad.

Speaker 1 It's good for if you want yogurt after salad. We'll take a break.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 I'm stopping you. You've got to stop.
I'm not starting me.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to read this. This stuff is.

Speaker 1 Stop. You're keeping.

Speaker 1 You keep doomscrawling. I'm going to read it out loud.

Speaker 3 I want to know what's going on.

Speaker 1 Just put it down. Man, step away from the front.
You have to take command of your faculties.

Speaker 4 I need to leave. I quit.
I have to quit right now.

Speaker 1 First of all, you brought us up. I'm Douglas.
And you gave this person a forum.

Speaker 4 I know.

Speaker 1 So now he was really nice.

Speaker 4 And his girlfriend was really nice. And I thought, hey, this is fun.

Speaker 1 You know what? It's nice to be appreciated. Let's put it that way.
Okay. And can you you guys just be quiet? I'm trying to read.
Oh, God. Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm going to end the segment. Yes.
But thank you. I'm glad that you hosted the Armenian Mama Ma event.

Speaker 4 It's the Pasadena Armenian Festival.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 4 It was a lovely day.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it sounds like these people really care about your culture.

Speaker 1 Sonas there. We can read her our smut.

Speaker 1 Well, anyway, thanks for caring and for sharing to our fans. Put that down.
Put the phone down.

Speaker 1 I want to hear the the whole page turner. Oh, God.

Speaker 3 Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonoma Obsession, and Matt Gorley. Produced by me, Matt Gorley.
Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Frost, and Nick Liao.

Speaker 3 Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.
Take it away, Jimmy.

Speaker 3 Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns.

Speaker 3 Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent Booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.

Speaker 3 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 Cocoa Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message.

Speaker 3 It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at seriousxm.com slash Conan.

Speaker 3 And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

Speaker 5 Tis the season for tangled lights, traffic jams, never-ending to-do lists, and unannounced drop-ins from your in-laws. Or that one cousin that can't explain how you're related.

Speaker 1 And the result?

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Speaker 6 Hey guys, it's Brian Baumgartner here from We Need a Forth, here to tell you that we are joined this week by Sebastian Manascalco. You don't want to miss it.

Speaker 6 Listen to the latest episode of We Need a Forth, wherever you get your podcasts.