Bob Odenkirk Returns

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You didn't know that? Even I knew that. Wow.
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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.

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Speaker 2 Hi, my name is Bob Odenkirk.

Speaker 2 And I feel chocolate chip

Speaker 2 about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

Speaker 2 Fall is here, hear the yell. Back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens.
I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

Speaker 2 Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

Speaker 1 Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Slightly different situation today.
I am in New York City. I made up a name for it.
I call it the Big Apple.

Speaker 1 Just came up with it yesterday.

Speaker 1 And I'm sitting here with David Hopping. How are you, David? I'm good.

Speaker 1 David, of course, grew up in a cornfield,

Speaker 1 completely unfamiliar with the city.

Speaker 1 But it's overwhelming for you. He keeps looking up at the skyscrapers, clutching his cardboard suitcase and saying,

Speaker 1 How did they build them?

Speaker 2 They're so tall. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Anyway, he said they're like silos with windows. And I said, just take it easy, David.
You'll get used to it. And this is nice.
We have a a connection back to LA

Speaker 1 with my perpetual chum for life, my ride or die buddy.

Speaker 2 Hell yeah. Sona.

Speaker 1 Move Session.

Speaker 1 No Gorley today because he's off at a, I think, what is he doing? He's at a, oh, it's like a festival where everyone just looks at their old 45s. Is that what he's doing?

Speaker 3 Wait,

Speaker 3 is he at like the Renaissance Fair?

Speaker 2 No?

Speaker 3 Where is he? What do you mean he's at a fair? Is he at a fair?

Speaker 1 Are you mad?

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, you're probably new to me. I made something up.
Sona, just to have a sound.

Speaker 3 I thought, like,

Speaker 3 I thought, oh my God, did he miss work? Cause he's at the right time.

Speaker 2 You know what I'd love to do?

Speaker 1 I'd love to do improvisation with Sonam Ovesier.

Speaker 2 Like, hey, welcome to my ice cream shop.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. This is an ice cream shop? I thought we were on a stage.

Speaker 1 Curtain comes down.

Speaker 2 Boo, boo.

Speaker 1 Conan was good, but who was that lady?

Speaker 3 No, they'll be like, oh, she just redefined improv.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Possible.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You could be the Oppenheimer of improv.

Speaker 2 Oh, just say, like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 This is not.

Speaker 1 No, we're on a stage. This is not an ice cream shop.
Yeah. Audience.

Speaker 2 She just blew through my mind, man.

Speaker 3 Or I could say, like, can you list all the flavors for me? And then it just derails the whole sketch because you're just like strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, Rocky Roll.

Speaker 2 Oh, you're good at this. Rainbow shoes.
You're a good improviser.

Speaker 3 Now I'm out. Okay.

Speaker 3 Mint chocolate chips, pistachio, hazelnut, coffee, coffee with chocolate chips.

Speaker 1 David has one

Speaker 1 corn flavor.

Speaker 1 Good one, David.

Speaker 2 Was that your impression of it?

Speaker 1 Corn flavor.

Speaker 2 I like corn flavor. I'm going to go see the Broadway show Smash.

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 2 I went last night. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Was it much like the TV show?

Speaker 2 It was, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 There's so much he's not saying.

Speaker 1 Anyway, what's that, Sona? Do I work out?

Speaker 2 Yes, I work out.

Speaker 3 Oh, I didn't ask that. You did? Are you working out when you do you work out? Like, do you go to the gym when you're on the road?

Speaker 1 I've been too busy. There's been a lot to do.
And so that my schedule gets thrown off.

Speaker 2 It feels like you could squeeze in like a half hour of work if you really were serious about it.

Speaker 3 What?

Speaker 2 What? Kind of hard to do. What's that? What's that? What's that?

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 1 I gotta get to the gym.

Speaker 2 I'm gonna go to the gym.

Speaker 1 People, when they meet me on the street, they expect me to be Jack.

Speaker 1 Sona? Yeah.

Speaker 2 We got a big show today.

Speaker 1 Big show. We got a really big shoe.
Remember Ed Sullivan?

Speaker 2 No. Okay.

Speaker 1 Can we put crickets in?

Speaker 2 Oh, wait. Sorry.

Speaker 3 We're improving. Yeah, I remember when I used to watch Ed Sullivan as a kid and we had a big shoe.
I remember that.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Very good.
Good improv, Sona.

Speaker 1 Remember the time you and Ed Sullivan went to that ice cream parlor and you got strawberry, vanilla, coconut, pistachio, hazelnut, creme de caramel, Oreo crunch, vanilla flipple, sab-dab, dab-a-dab.

Speaker 2 Flipple? Haba-ba-daboo.

Speaker 1 Okay, Sandler came in.

Speaker 2 Suck at improv. What?

Speaker 1 What's that? Greatest man who ever lived?

Speaker 3 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 I said, I said you suck at improv.

Speaker 3 You're welcome. What? I can give give you notes.
I'll give you notes.

Speaker 2 It's all right. You know what? You should do this.
My guess today. What?

Speaker 1 What's that? My guest today.

Speaker 2 You're the worst.

Speaker 1 Why are we. You know what I love? Whoever invented the technology that allowed us to talk in real time to someone in Los Angeles, it leads to this.
They think, oh, this will be amazing.

Speaker 1 People will be doing surgeries from across the coast. No.

Speaker 1 Two idiots. Two idiots are going to be talking over each other.

Speaker 2 What's that? Huh? What's that? No,

Speaker 1 I know you are, but what am I?

Speaker 1 I'm rubber.

Speaker 2 you're glue.

Speaker 1 My guest today is a writer and actor who stars in the new movie, Nobody 2.

Speaker 1 He is a very old friend of mine, and it's really meaningful that I get to talk to him today. Thrilled he's with us.

Speaker 2 Bob Odenkirk, welcome.

Speaker 1 Last night, I'm here in New York. I went last night to see your guys' production of Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.
Blown away. Really fantastic.
Michael McKean is in it with you, Bilber.

Speaker 1 Who are we talking about here?

Speaker 2 Oh, Kieran Colton. Kieran Colton.
And of course. And Brown Jr., Howard Overshow.

Speaker 1 I mean, really.

Speaker 2 And John Pirichell.

Speaker 1 It is just a spectacular cast. I mean, all of you were great.

Speaker 1 It was really special for me because to anyone who doesn't know listening to this, Bob and I met in 1988 when I first came to Saturday Live.

Speaker 1 And immediately we realized you and I have a weird twin language. We're two complete left-brain weirdos who are cartoonish and silly.

Speaker 1 And so Bob and I would just hide in an office and talk gibberish to each other.

Speaker 2 Oh, see, that was what that's why I called your producer about today. I was like, what does he want to talk about? I know.

Speaker 1 No, no, well, I want to get to a bunch of things you know.

Speaker 2 Because I thought this would just be gibberish.

Speaker 2 I have a weird thing.

Speaker 2 I've had so much fun doing podcasts with friends, David Cross's podcast and things, and letting it devolve into gibberish. Right.

Speaker 2 But there's something weird, Conan, I've been feeling about like not wanting to do that in public anymore. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, it's called you don't want to be medicated by the state. You know, you don't want to be taken away.
And I understand that

Speaker 2 completely.

Speaker 1 But you know what it triggered for me last night in a nice way was you and I had this, we just loved being weird together. And we had all these adventures.

Speaker 1 We were just talking about when we were in the show Happy, Happy, Good Show together in, you know, back in the day at Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago, summer of 88, Robert Smeigel, and just this really fun thing that we tried to do.

Speaker 1 And then we had some time off and you and I drove down to Springfield and visited the house, Lincoln's house in Springfield. And then I'm the exact height that Lincoln was.

Speaker 1 And you became obsessed with I I should talk as Lincoln, and you should talk as his law partner, Herndon. Yes.
And Herndon had big mutton chops.

Speaker 1 And this is one of your specialties: you can go into these great characters, as everyone knows. And you and I walked around Springfield together.

Speaker 1 And then you were like, I tell you, Abe, guys, if you're going to run for president, you're going to win. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and I was going to say, well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 And it was just, why are, who are we amusing? We're amusing no one. I think we're just making ourselves happy.
But I think we did that for a couple of hours.

Speaker 1 Last night was special for me because you're in this.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm so glad it's been acknowledged. You got a Tony nomination playing Shelly Levine in this classic David Mammet play, and you killed it.
You absolutely killed it.

Speaker 1 And it was so, because I flashed back to, wait a minute. I remembered, I think in 1990 or 89 or 90, you did a one-man show called Half My Face is a Clown.

Speaker 1 And again, we were still writers trying to figure out, do we get to be in front of people? Should we be in front of people? Are we too weird to be in front of people?

Speaker 1 And I went and saw you do your show. There are bits in it that are still, I have such fond memories.
And I remember at the time watching you and thinking, Bob's doing it, and he's really funny.

Speaker 1 This is great. I was telling you last night, it's kind of, you didn't make a break with your past because I can see moments where you're accessing.

Speaker 2 Oh, there's no question. There's things in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross that I'm doing physicalizations or

Speaker 2 to get sort of conceptualizations of a moment

Speaker 2 of an emotion or

Speaker 2 that are that could be in Half My Face is a clown or Happy, Happy Good Show or any of those early things. Or Mr.
Show.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like there are things you're doing that you're accessing that people would think, well, this is really funny, but it can't belong on Broadway in front of a sold-out crowd, and you can't be Tony nominated for it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yes, you can.
And also, I mean, clearly you built up these incredible chops

Speaker 2 doing

Speaker 2 Saul. Saul.
Yeah. Saul.
Yeah. Better call Saul.

Speaker 1 And before that, Breaking Bad. And you were around these masters and

Speaker 1 you worked it and worked it and worked it.

Speaker 2 And it was, I mean, well, you know, Smigl, Robert Smeigel, our friend, who's the reason I even got on Saturday Night Live, and I think the reason I was able to stay there for any length of time

Speaker 2 he came to the dress show and I said to him, because I've been asking this question, am I being too silly in this role? And he said,

Speaker 1 for Glengarry, yeah. Glengarry.

Speaker 2 And he said, yes, Bob, you are. And you got to chill out.
You got to tone it down. And I'd been waiting for someone to give me that response because that's what I felt.

Speaker 2 But our director, who was, to his great credit, let us run free. Yeah.
You know, I think he maybe hesitated. He didn't, I don't know.
He didn't want me to feel hemmed in.

Speaker 1 Hemmed in editing yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he was like, no, it's fine. It's great.
And he very much wanted to do a humorous version of the play. He wanted as much comedy to come from the play as he could.
He said that multiple times.

Speaker 2 So, but I think Robert was right.

Speaker 2 So after Smigls saw the show and called me and we talked, then I just kind of dialed it in more because obviously at the end of that play, Shelly asks for for your empathy. Yes.

Speaker 2 And if you've been too ridiculous and I get close to it,

Speaker 2 it's hard to say that to the audience and now feel

Speaker 2 some degree of impact for this guy's,

Speaker 2 you know, destruction, self-destruction.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so Robert helped me. dial that in.
And I think

Speaker 2 I'll tell you one of the things that helps me to be as fun and big as I am in this play is the size of the room. Yeah.
Like that is a big room we're in with a play. And there's not

Speaker 1 unlike Saul, there's not, or the nobody movies, there's not a camera three inches from your face.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 some amount of

Speaker 1 projecting and being big, but I just thought whoever had the idea, I don't know how it happened, but and particularly you and and Bill Burr, you're both playing these characters that you feel like Mamet wrote them for you.

Speaker 1 That's how it felt to me. And I was so happy because I was watching you on this huge stage on Broadway.
Everyone, you know, applause when the curtain comes up. You have this scene.

Speaker 1 Your opening scene is incredible, like nuclear energy from you that, and I'm just thinking, how did Bob remember all this?

Speaker 1 I mean, that's what I'm, I'm just amazed by it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I, I got good at that doing Saul. I mean, Saul taught me how to learn a script.
Yeah. And I had no choice.
And I was so scared.

Speaker 2 And Conan, I was going to be scared of my voice out of sort of stress. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The first week of Saul. And Ray Seehorn was so great.
And we spent so much time together, she and I. And she really helped me through those early weeks.

Speaker 2 And yeah, so I learned that the ways to do that, which is essentially, I mean, if it's well written, if the thing is well written, even with the repetition that Mammet likes to use that feels like people slipping and tripping over their thoughts.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 even with that, it's a story. It builds.
It has one thing goes to the next.

Speaker 2 Even the trips in there, the vocal and the words that repeat themselves feel like they make sense, whether the person's nervous or excited or whatever.

Speaker 2 That's why there's a reason, there's an emotional reason.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 it's really kind of, it's weird, Conan. The first thing I did with the Saul script and really with the Breaking Bad script was I just deconstructed it like a writer.

Speaker 2 Like if we were going, if someone had said to you, rewrite this. And, you know, that's what I did as an actor.
It was like, what is he trying to say? What is his subtext? What is he,

Speaker 2 where is he going down a dead end? And then he goes back and starts again. And so it all comes from writing.
And I got good at that. And I got, and there is also a kind of a weird muscle training.

Speaker 2 that your brain, it gets better at memorization.

Speaker 1 Well, also, there's, it's music. Yeah.
When I, as When I'm watching, and the thing is, in comedy, we know there's a music to it.

Speaker 1 And sometimes we have these ideas and thoughts, and it's just because you and I love music, and we've always been kind of fascinated with wanting to play music and do music.

Speaker 1 And then it's that thing that so many comedians want to be a rock star.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, early on in our lives, people assessed our skills and said, you should try comedy.

Speaker 1 And it was, there's a music to this stuff, and there's a music to, and if you tune into that, I would think that would help because the patterns in Glen Gary, Glen Ross, and Mammoth is just, it is, if you can hear the music in your head, and I can tell that you guys all are hearing that.

Speaker 1 And it is a, it's a, you could, it could be a vocal performance. That's what it is.
It's a vocal performance.

Speaker 2 And sometimes when I was learning it, actually, I would sing it into my little recorder to help memorize it. And you, and while you're singing it, it's not a

Speaker 2 it's not the most melodic thing you've ever heard,

Speaker 2 but it, it's got a, it's got this like lyrical rhythm and kind of like melody that you find that helps you to memorize it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I also would say Kieran of all the people is the one I most think about when I think about that kind of a sing-song version of his words and how he does it.

Speaker 2 By the way, Kieran never saw the film, never saw the play. So his performances are.
He's just lazy.

Speaker 1 He's lazy.

Speaker 1 You're putting him up on a pedestal, but Kieran is famously just doesn't prepare.

Speaker 2 Well, he's sleepy.

Speaker 2 It's not the same.

Speaker 1 I also love, I said to him once, it was on this podcast that I was talking about him on succession, his character on succession, and I noticed that I said, am I wrong or is your character just completely unable to sit?

Speaker 1 He can't sit on a couch. He can't sit for a minute.
And he was like, no, no, no, that's it. That's it.
He, you know, not the,

Speaker 1 but I noticed a lot that he's constantly squirming and constantly, and he uses his body so well. And last night in the play, there's a really funny moment where he's trying to get away from someone.

Speaker 1 He's headed for the door. And then finally, he gets to the door and the person says something that stops him.
And he just slumps. And it's, I mean, it's like a Buster Keaton Charlie Chaplin thing.

Speaker 1 It's really funny. We, you know,

Speaker 2 there's, we get so many laughs with this thing. Yeah.
And a lot of it, I give a lot of credit to Bill Burr because, and that first scene with Bill and Michael. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So my scene comes on and there's laughs in there, but it's desperate, desperation. Yeah.
And then you get Bill Burr and Michael McKeon and great laughs written in. Mammet wrote these jokes in.

Speaker 2 And these guys are nailing every single one, not to mention, you know, finding other moments along the way.

Speaker 2 And the audience, because it's Bill, especially know like oh well he's a comic i i think this is pretty damn funny well that's definitely funny i'm allowed to laugh yeah and so from that point on they're looking for us to provide some comedy and it's it's been so much fun and i i don't think you'd ever see a funnier version of this play but at the same time i think we're we're getting at the core of what it's about yeah you know yeah i don't think we're dropping the the meat of it just because we're finding all the humor within it yeah it's funny because just as we were talking about music and stuff, I remember one of the first things I heard you do when we were first meeting each other and we're in our early 20s was used to do this character called Rocker.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he was a heavy metal rocker. And it was that, it was such, it was so,

Speaker 1 I forget what he did, but he'd be like, no, he'd be like, ha, ha, ha,

Speaker 1 ha, because he sang sort of like, he talked sort of like Axel Rose sings. And I always wanted you to do rocker.

Speaker 2 And he'd be like, ha ha,

Speaker 2 rock and roll.

Speaker 1 And I I just delight in my life.

Speaker 2 Well, every time I see a guy, the other day, I saw a guy walking down the street in Greenwich Village, and he just looked like an old English rocker.

Speaker 2 And all I could think in his mind, all day long, he's just saying, rock and roll, man.

Speaker 2 All day long. That's the only thing going through his head.

Speaker 4 You also did it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Smichel used to do old people. Oh, yes.
I'm old.

Speaker 2 I'm old.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm old. And now we're getting old.

Speaker 1 It's not so funny funny anymore, is it?

Speaker 2 I'm old. I'm old.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there are so many little things that we would go into.

Speaker 2 So mean to people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But comedy should have a little bit of.

Speaker 1 I do a thing where I'll be driving around. David, you've seen me do it.
I'm in a car and I'm driving around and they're just people.

Speaker 1 You're in Manhattan and you're in an Uber and people are all over the place and I'll be like, better than him? Better than him.

Speaker 1 I'll be in a car.

Speaker 1 And it's a guy who just is constantly making sure that he's better than everyone. And someone, better than him, and then they're pushing a baby carriage.
And I'll go like, better than the kid?

Speaker 1 Better than. yep, yep, still good.
Better than, better than, and, and like, literally, you know, anyone else heard it out of context? You'd be a monster.

Speaker 1 No, no, there's so much stuff I do, which is my take on a monster. And then sometimes you can think, is he a monster or is he doing his take? I hope he's doing his take on a monster.

Speaker 1 And I think I am, but who sits in a car and goes better than him? And the one thing I did that only you tuned into was the Miso soup horse.

Speaker 1 I used to go, one of my characters was the Miso soup horse, and it was a horse that just went, Miso,

Speaker 1 miso soup and you would laugh and like every other writer was like would you fucking shut up miso miso soup and Bob would get that have that great laugh and I'd be like well at least he'll be my friend what if this is all over um I got to uh watch you came out with um nobody

Speaker 1 and one thing I would not have guessed if you had told me, okay, I meet this guy, Bob Odenkirk, and Future Man came to me and said, let me tell you about Bob in the future um he's going to be on broadway he's going to be tony nominated i'd be like yeah that tracks uh i i can see all of that happening he's going to have a sketch comedy show that becomes the formative sketch comedy show for a lot of people along with david cross called mr show i'd say like yep tracks he's going to be an action star i would say you know i like you future man

Speaker 1 but clearly you have a brain tumor because

Speaker 1 um you know and when nobody came out i was like oh i got it because you told me about nobody before it came out. And you said, Conan, there's something I want you to see.

Speaker 2 There's something I want you to see.

Speaker 1 You're going to, and you said, there's something I'm doing now that I think is going to surprise you. And I was like, whatever.
I didn't know what you were talking about. And nobody came out.

Speaker 1 And when it came out, I was just, oh, he's, he's so good at this. And the bus scene was this thing that really got me where you get.
beat up and thrown off the bus. Yes.

Speaker 1 And then I think you, I don't know if you take a belt off and you tie it around

Speaker 1 and you get back on the bus.

Speaker 1 And I thought, this is

Speaker 1 tapping into something that's always in Bob.

Speaker 1 There's a rage. There's a determination.
We were all at one point low men on the totem pole at SNL. And there was a, and feeling like we don't belong or maybe feeling like we're not going to last.

Speaker 2 A chip on my shoulder. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And chocolate chip. And,

Speaker 1 but I see it. And then I think, you know, but what's amazing is this role came along when you're completely established as a great actor.

Speaker 1 So you've got that part, and then you're kicking ass, and there's a rage, and the, I saw Nobody 2 and really loved it.

Speaker 2 You saw it.

Speaker 1 I saw it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. How did you see it?

Speaker 2 Because I haven't.

Speaker 2 They've been very protective of it.

Speaker 1 Oh, they are really protective. They sent me a link.
I was trying and trying and trying and trying to watch the link. It wasn't letting me and clicking on it.

Speaker 1 And there's all these codes you have to put in. And it's like getting into the Pentagon.
I think I'm, I feel like I'm trying to access nuclear weapons.

Speaker 1 But anyway, long story short, I finally get in with a lot of help from young people who know how the internet works and how computers work. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And they know the whole alphabet. Oh, that was low.

Speaker 1 Just because I'm an ape?

Speaker 2 I don't know the alpha. An Irish ape?

Speaker 1 When Bob sees me, he sees me. He sees one of those immigrant cartoons of a dirty Irishman from 1870 who looks like a giant gorilla, but has like red mutton chops.

Speaker 2 This is why I was nervous about the podcast is because I thought you just make me laugh for an hour. And I would

Speaker 2 that people would see is Bob as a gibbering, giddy,

Speaker 2 gibbling fool.

Speaker 2 Is that a word, gibbling? It is a girl. I'm a gibbling fool.

Speaker 2 You're a gibbling. But I honestly, you, Tony, you make me laugh so hard, and it's such silly stuff.
And

Speaker 2 I have to say, the thing that I'll never forget laughing so hard at is the impersonation of the alien from the movie oh enemy mind enemy mind yes and it was 2 a.m.

Speaker 2 I probably ate too much you know Thai food so I had some kind of sugar run

Speaker 2 2 a.m. 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 Lou Gossett Jr.

Speaker 2 is in the movie along with this had nothing to do with the Dennis Quaid and Dennis Quaid this had nothing to do with who was hosting the show no it wasn't anything to do no one was hosting the show at

Speaker 2 In fact, the movie wasn't even recent. Yeah.
And you started doing the alien, the pregnant

Speaker 2 Lou Gossett Jr.

Speaker 1 And he's an alien who you've seen as evil, but then you realize that his species can have a baby, which comes late in the film.

Speaker 2 This is real, because I never realized that

Speaker 1 this is real. And then there's this part where he's becomes, he's gone from like vicious

Speaker 1 monster

Speaker 1 and he's gone from like the, you know, the monster in Terminators, and not Terminator, but Predator, to suddenly it's as if at the end of Predator,

Speaker 1 the monster is like,

Speaker 1 and rubbing its very pregnant belly and making very maternal faces, and it blew my brain, and all I could do was, I mean, we had work to do.

Speaker 1 And you and I are howling because I'm rubbing my belly and making.

Speaker 2 I'm with child.

Speaker 1 I'm with child.

Speaker 1 Which may not even be, I don't think it's even in the movie. I'm with child, because no alien would know that saying.

Speaker 2 If it was in the movie, that would be the movie. I don't know.

Speaker 1 But anyway, to fans of Enemy Line, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 I'm just writing that in and then people being like, this one line, I think we might be pushing it. We got to tweet it.
I'm with Child. Does he need to keep saying that? He says it 12 times.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I counted.

Speaker 1 This really cool, vicious alien is like, I'm doing Kaggles.

Speaker 1 I have a cream I rub through stretch marks.

Speaker 2 I'm eating for two.

Speaker 1 I have to eat two human skulls.

Speaker 2 Burp.

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Speaker 2 The fact that you can just order concert tickets through her, that's crazy. Yeah, exactly.
You didn't know that? Even I knew that. Wow.
Yeah.

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Speaker 1 The point I want to make about, which is really fun, is I love the nobody movies. I love the second one.

Speaker 2 Or the rage. Well, I'd like

Speaker 2 when you access rage.

Speaker 1 But you know what? You're able to access that.

Speaker 2 It's your new business. It's the only gift my father gave me.

Speaker 1 Is that true?

Speaker 2 At some level, yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, my dad was funny, but not in the way I am. He was funny in a

Speaker 2 he was good with a line, like a jokey line.

Speaker 1 But you had a complicated relationship with him.

Speaker 2 Well, we had a distant relationship.

Speaker 2 It was more like a pen pal who never wrote to me. I never wrote back.
No.

Speaker 2 Seriously, he was able to go from zero to 80 in like two seconds. And I think I can do that.
And it actually lends itself to acting and all kinds of things.

Speaker 2 It's kind of a,

Speaker 2 I said to David Carr, the great journalist, once, he had come to see Better Call Saul and he was watching a scene. And afterwards, he said to me, I don't know how you do that.

Speaker 2 I said, I know how I do it. He goes, oh, yeah, how do you do it? And I go, I have poor emotional boundaries.

Speaker 1 You're being honest, but it's funny, too.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but it's kind of true, and it is actually kind of true of not all actors, but a lot of actors

Speaker 2 who are able to can't help but slip between sort of emotional responses that are maybe a little too intense.

Speaker 2 And you could say that that's a wonderful skill that they're putting on display, and it's shocking and surprising, and it grabs you, and it involves you.

Speaker 2 And then, of course, in real life, it can be very

Speaker 2 bad and

Speaker 2 not healthy and really be a sign of poor health, mental health.

Speaker 1 But I have to go from that to this, which is in 2021. I remember where I was, but I suddenly, someone came in the room and they said Bob Bodenkirk had a heart attack.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I'm always hearing about people I know tangentially through this business who've fallen sick or something, but I had a real response of, I know Bob.

Speaker 1 This is ups, this is really upsetting and horrifying. And initially, I couldn't get a read on, are you gone? I started to hear this is really serious.

Speaker 1 And then I know your brother, Bill, who's hilarious. And Bill, love you.
And shout out to Bill, Odenkirk. And I got in touch with Bill and he told me, we think he's going to be okay, but it was bad.

Speaker 1 And I turned out that you were completely out.

Speaker 2 You were out. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a weird thing that happened. And

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 one of the tributaries to the Widowmaker got completely blocked. And I went out.
Were you in the middle of a scene?

Speaker 2 No, we were

Speaker 2 in a break.

Speaker 2 And it was during COVID shooting. So we were separate from the crew.
And luckily, I didn't go to my trailer. If I'd gone to my trailer, I wouldn't be here because they don't bother you.

Speaker 2 When they knock, they wait for up to an hour. Right.
You know, who takes an hour to masturbate?

Speaker 1 You know, when I've had my heart attacks, it was just masturbating. It was that, that's what I was doing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, all my heart attacks happen while masturbating.

Speaker 2 But I sat, you know, where we were sitting. Ray and Patrick were right there.
I've told this story too many times. It's okay.

Speaker 2 And this thing happened, and I went down, I turned gray right away and did worse. What your body does when it stops going, oh, nothing matters anymore.

Speaker 2 Wow. Yeah.
And I was just gone. And Ray held my head up off the cement and they started screaming, but people were far away because of COVID.

Speaker 2 So the crew later told me, you know, we thought they were laughing.

Speaker 2 We thought they're laughing very loudly at something. It took a few seconds to realize people were screaming.
And luckily, we were at the studio and our our

Speaker 2 medical officer was there, Rosa Estrada, and

Speaker 2 she

Speaker 2 came out of her office. She'd done two tours with the Army.

Speaker 2 She immediately did CPR properly, really well, broke my ribs. And the medical officer of the show, the medic, was there too, but he kind of froze up.

Speaker 2 He was very freaked out and later apologized to me.

Speaker 2 But he then also helped out, and they all switched off. Essentially, they weren't able to get an AED for 15 minutes.

Speaker 2 So, because CPR was done so well, and because they also had that breathing mask, you know,

Speaker 2 those two things, as well as my training for nobody, which made some of the other veins to my heart larger, sort of enlarged, like bigger than you would normally see because I did so much training.

Speaker 2 That meant that blood was able to get

Speaker 1 oxygenated blood to your brain.

Speaker 2 And my heart. So the heart starts to die right away, right? It starts to scar up and die.
But because those other veins were feeding blood through my heart, the heart didn't scar up.

Speaker 2 So my heart has almost no scarring at all. That's fantastic.
So 15 minutes of just people doing this. And then they had the AED and it took three hits.
for the AED to work, which is a lot.

Speaker 2 It's kind of super scary. And that's where some of the fear and

Speaker 2 the real, well, everything about it was really scary. And in fact, Tony Dalton, who played Lalo and his good friend, he was there.
They were all there. Everybody gathered around.

Speaker 2 And he said, I saw a guy die from a heart attack

Speaker 2 at an airport. And you, same exact thing is what you, I saw it again.
I'm like, well, he's dead. This guy's over.
And

Speaker 2 so it was the three AED hits that also super freaked people out because that AED device does a thing. It talks.
It says,

Speaker 2 no heartbeat detected, step away from the body, 10, 9, 8, 7, down to one. And then it shoots and then your body jumps off the ground.

Speaker 2 And then there's like some recoup moment and then it goes, no heartbeat detected. And

Speaker 2 so they... They also check you.
Then it's a step away from the body because you can't be near it, right? You can't be touching it or you'll get shocked.

Speaker 2 And so the fact that that had to be done three times made everyone feel that this thing was maybe not working. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so then

Speaker 2 we were very far from the fire station. I'm going to tell this story.
I've told it too many times. I apologize.
Just go to the next clip.

Speaker 1 No one heard the other times. This is the first time.
And we're the first time. I mean, people really heard.

Speaker 2 It was 25 minutes. For the ambulance to get there.
Yeah, jeez. And then, well, they were far.
And then they took me to a great hospital, Presbyterian in Albuquerque. And then at 5 a.m.

Speaker 2 in the next morning, I think they put me in a coma. You know, I think they put me in a stasis state.
And then at 5 a.m., they went in through here, which you can't even see that scar anymore.

Speaker 2 They went through your wrist. And yeah, they went in, pushed it out, cleaned it out, put in two stents.
Jesus. They used just a bristle brush.

Speaker 1 That they got at the hardware store.

Speaker 2 And they don't clean it.

Speaker 2 They don't clean it between procedures. I told them, you know, it's just sitting on the shelf for months.
There's dust on it. Did you wash it? Did you rinse it?

Speaker 2 Nothing.

Speaker 1 They keep it in their glove compartments.

Speaker 2 They said we were in a hurry. Yeah.
I said, well, you were worried about me. And they, no, we had other projects.
They call us

Speaker 1 a toilet that needed work.

Speaker 2 You say that you. Look, everybody was really scared for all legitimate reasons.

Speaker 2 I'm super lucky, Conan. CPR was done really well.

Speaker 2 Three people switched off because you can't do it for, if you're doing it well, you can't do it for more than two and a half minutes, three minutes, because you're exhausted.

Speaker 2 So you need someone to hand it off to. So there's three people who switched off.
Jesus.

Speaker 2 And then this AED device, which every studio there has now, but at the time there was none in any of the studio buildings on the whole lot.

Speaker 2 But our Rosa had one in the trunk trunk of her car that she had been trying to return to her friend.

Speaker 2 She had borrowed it and she had tried to return it, and her friend wasn't home, or it wouldn't have been in her car.

Speaker 2 And her car was parked, you know, as those lots are huge, and she had to run to go get it. So it just, so many things happened that were lucky.

Speaker 2 I have the stories that my friends told me, Ray, of course, Patrick, Vince, the degree to which I could see how shaken they were from having been there.

Speaker 2 I kept asking them, tell me the story, because I had no memory at all. Nothing.
It was just a blank. It was just wake up and I'm leaving the hospital a week later.

Speaker 2 That's my first memory is talking to the doctor on my exit interview. So I was there for a week.

Speaker 2 I was awake the next day at one o'clock, but groggy, but I don't have any memory of any of the hospital at all. And I don't have any memory of the day, the whole day that we shot.

Speaker 2 So we had shot all day. One of the gifts that it gave me, this is so weird, is for the next couple of weeks, I had memory challenges and a lot at first.
Like I didn't know where I was.

Speaker 2 I would not be scared at all. I would wake up and be like, well, wow.

Speaker 2 I mean, honestly, Conan, it was like, if I, it's like, look at this world. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This place is fucking amazing.

Speaker 1 Well, this is Sirius XM in New York.

Speaker 2 It really isn't.

Speaker 1 And so, I mean, you know, you're talking about a blade of grass, grass, sunlight,

Speaker 1 you know, just life, butterflies, but seriously, some New York, no.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 I don't care if you just came out of a death coma.

Speaker 2 It really was. And this happened, and my memory came back a little bit more every day.

Speaker 2 But I didn't wake up the way

Speaker 2 I do normally, which is. whatever I went to bed afraid of, scared about, concerned about, with you right away.
Right there. Not to mention my own brain's natural fallback position.

Speaker 2 What should I be worried about? What should I be worried about?

Speaker 2 Literally going down the list. I think this is something I got from my mom.
How is this person doing? How is that person doing? What can I do to help this person?

Speaker 2 What can I do to help somebody in my life who I'm concerned about? And just who should I be worried about right now?

Speaker 2 You know, and what should I be worried about? And I just didn't have any of that. The world was a wonderful place.
I had people I loved around me.

Speaker 2 I had a job that I can't believe a magically wonderful job that I get to do.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that carried with me for months, for months.

Speaker 1 Here's the question I have, because I've noticed this.

Speaker 1 You know, I lived in New York on 9-11 and

Speaker 1 everybody was on their best behavior after 9-11 in New York City. And it was just a beautiful thing.
And, you know, you'd go to a restaurant. People said, you've got to go out.

Speaker 1 You've got to keep the city going. You'd go places and the person would come over to take your order and you'd ask them how they're doing, where do they live.

Speaker 1 And then you'd make them sit down and they'd join. I mean, it was just this happening.

Speaker 1 And I think it lasted five, six weeks. And then people started bickering.

Speaker 1 And I just thought, oh, I see. This is what humans revert.
Are you able to still access the gratitude, the feeling of

Speaker 2 good? Yes, I am. I mean, I think I have to make an effort.

Speaker 2 But it definitely, especially as my memory came back, because of course the first thing you're concerned is, well, maybe I'm not going to get it all back and then I can't act and stuff.

Speaker 2 But I, you know, I was getting it back a little at a time every day, and I could sense that I'll be okay, you know, but I've got to remember what this state is like.

Speaker 2 I've got to remember the value of this.

Speaker 2 This should be a part of your day. Every day.
Yes. You should feel this every day.
At some point, somehow, you should get yourself here because this is true, too.

Speaker 2 It's true that our world is filled with concern and worry and danger and things you should pay attention and be concerned about. But this also

Speaker 2 should be something you touch base with as often as you can.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've said, I've realized this a bunch of years ago that humility,

Speaker 1 gratitude, these words get thrown around a lot, but it's not something you achieve. It's stomach crunches.
You know, you've got to,

Speaker 1 or stretching,

Speaker 1 you got to do it every day or every other day, or it doesn't,

Speaker 1 there's no like,

Speaker 1 I feel gratitude. Check that off.

Speaker 1 You've got to just keep going back at it because human nature and also modern media is, isn't, I mean, you pick up any device, you turn on the TV, and we are programmed.

Speaker 1 to receive bad news all the time. So yeah, you're absolutely right.
But I mean, talk about, you do have a lot to be grateful for in addition to your career.

Speaker 1 But just if you were looking at your career, I would say, I said this, I heard that people were giving blurbs for your book, your autobiography, which I really loved. And so I wrote on it.

Speaker 1 I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone who's had a more fascinating, unpredictable, like great career arc than Bob Odenkirk.

Speaker 1 And I meant it because I knew you like when you were, you know, you had one jacket. You had that leather jacket and your glasses and

Speaker 1 you were very intense.

Speaker 2 I was really proud of myself that I could put everything I owned in one bag. Yes.

Speaker 1 Well, I remember going to your apartment. We went to your apartment once and it was super small as all of our apartments were.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 just you could like touch all the walls, you know, you didn't have to move, but you had,

Speaker 1 I can remember your brown leather jacket, you know, your jeans, your sneakers, your glasses, and I think that's everything you had. And we

Speaker 1 were hobos.

Speaker 1 And, But I look at you now, and I was like, I was watching the choreographed fight scenes, which are so great in Nobody's. It's fun to do.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to tell you, it's the closest to a comedy writer's room

Speaker 2 is doing a stunt fight and any of the stunt fights I've done.

Speaker 2 It's the most like, oh, this is what we did at 2 a.m. First of all, you trained the fight, you choreograph the fight, and I did contribute to all these fights.

Speaker 2 And in fact, the bus fight, so much of that I pitched to start, which is

Speaker 2 he bangs his head.

Speaker 2 I hit my head

Speaker 2 in the first three moves. I hit my head.

Speaker 2 I miss. I have to miss somebody, punch and miss.

Speaker 1 Because you're also, your character has been out of it for a little bit. Right.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I have to degrade as the fight goes.
I have to get slower and weaker,

Speaker 2 not stronger.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I get thrown out of the bus and I go back in. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I have an opportunity to leave. I could walk away and I don't.

Speaker 1 Okay, and I'm not going to give anything away, but in Nobody 2, and I don't think I'm giving anything away because I've also seen the trailer.

Speaker 1 But for reasons that'll become clear when you see the movie, it's organic, but you end up at kind of like an amusement park kind of place.

Speaker 1 And what's fun is that that's where you are, you're with your family. And so all the fights are happening in this environment.
I mean, there's a scene that you incorporate whack-a-mole

Speaker 1 into a, you know, Jean-Claude Vendame fight scene. And it's, so it's two things.
It's really good fight choreography. It's really fun to watch.

Speaker 1 It's satisfying because the biggest, most important element to me of a fight scene is you really want to hate the dick who's getting beaten up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But part of that was, and it's in the trailer, so I don't think this is a spoiler.

Speaker 2 When the guy whacks the girl in the back of the head, I said, can you make that just as small as like he, even the guy who, let's say the real guy who does that is like, why did I do that?

Speaker 2 That was dumb. What an asshole.
I didn't need to do that. Like, he didn't even think about it.
He wasn't thinking.

Speaker 1 He just swaps her on the back of the head.

Speaker 2 He's like, get out of here, you guys. Yeah.
And it's the smallest thing. Even he probably thinks I shouldn't have done that.
That was a dick move. But he also, it wasn't, I didn't hurt anyone.

Speaker 2 Nobody got hurt. Her hat went like this.

Speaker 1 But that was.

Speaker 2 But you go, fuck no.

Speaker 2 You know, because little things like that do happen in your life and you can't do anything about them. You have to walk away from them.

Speaker 1 I know, but what was so smart about that is it's your daughter.

Speaker 1 And I think what's really smart about that is it taps into something. If you have kids, I don't care how old your kids are.
They can be little, they can be, you know, 25.

Speaker 1 If someone's mean to your kid, or shoves your kid, or does anything to your kid, it awakens something in you. You want to kill that person.
And so you're trying to leave. It's a small thing.

Speaker 1 You're de-escalating, which you use a lot. What's de-escalate? You've clearly like, I don't want to have any trouble.
I, you're leaving. You swats your daughter.

Speaker 1 And it's just this great moment because you're walking out and your wife says, And I leave. You leave as, you know, like, it's your opportunity.

Speaker 2 You could leave.

Speaker 1 You could leave. And then your wife says, there's a look in your eye, which is,

Speaker 1 I've seen that look back at SNL when they didn't put your sketch on. And

Speaker 1 you're, I'm gonna try and let, and you can see he's not gonna let this go.

Speaker 1 They just, it's your daughter, and you go back in and clean house, and it's but using all the stuff that's in an arcade, right, which is really fun.

Speaker 2 And so, the guy who gets it with the claw, and I've got it,

Speaker 2 these stunt actors are so great, yeah, yeah. You see how real he makes that and the punch.
If you watch how he takes that punch, first of all, there's a thing about like he doesn't just clear off.

Speaker 2 He like goes

Speaker 2 yeah. He's like like a like he's got some strength.
He's not just here to take a punch. He's a guy who's like, what just happened?

Speaker 2 You know, like he,

Speaker 2 those guys are so good.

Speaker 1 Is it as much fun to do that as I think it is?

Speaker 2 It is. It is.

Speaker 2 You laugh your ass off. Damn it.
They say cut. Everyone laughs.
And he goes, I can't fucking believe that.

Speaker 1 I got to call you on something because

Speaker 2 you were on the pod.

Speaker 1 You were on the pod. Let me say one thing.
You were on the pod for, now I feel like I'm in, because your character, Shelly Levine, talks over people.

Speaker 1 And I'm doing that to you right now, but it's because it's important.

Speaker 1 After when Nobody One came, when the first Nobody came out, I had you on. I loved it.
We had a great interview, and I said at the end, if you ever make another one, you got to put me in it.

Speaker 1 And you went, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm not in it.

Speaker 1 And that's a crap. Don't be needy.

Speaker 1 But I just want to be beaten.

Speaker 2 I want someone to beat the shit out of me. We'll do one.

Speaker 1 Just, can you do a third?

Speaker 2 Yes. And I don't even have to be me.

Speaker 1 Just, just, I know, but I mean, when there's nobody three comes out, I just want to be, put me in clown makeup.

Speaker 2 It won't be me.

Speaker 1 And I'll be a small, but I just want someone to beat me to death.

Speaker 2 We'll make it happen.

Speaker 1 The last thing I'll say about the nobody franchise that I appreciate is that there are many, like James Bond beats a bunch of people up in a room and then walks into the next scene looking like a million bucks.

Speaker 2 You,

Speaker 2 you

Speaker 1 are a real human who's just fought 10 guys and you've been hit as often as much as you've hit someone. You've taken as many hits as you've given, given.

Speaker 1 And you can tell progressively as it goes through. I mean, Wiley Coyote gets a reset after every scene.

Speaker 1 He can blow up, and then he walks back in the next scene, and it's a fresh Wiley Coyote opening the Acme

Speaker 1 rocket boot, Acme rocket boot box. But you, you can tell, like, you just take a lot of punishment because you're a real person who's fighting all these people.

Speaker 2 You want to do a scene in the next movie, if there is another, where he goes through a metal detector and his body is pins all

Speaker 1 pins and then you fight all the tsa people

Speaker 2 um all right i'm gonna have to wrap this up because we have talked and talked well i this will be heavily added you know i was got to say one other thing

Speaker 2 when i was training for nobody

Speaker 2 and i trained for probably you could say three years and i when i would go do better call saw i would train for twice a week but when i was in la i would train three times a week at the actual stunt gym and i didn't think the movie was going to get made, but they were offering me free training with this great guy, Daniel Bernhardt, who trained me.

Speaker 2 And it was like free, you know, I learned about exercise. I didn't know a shit about it.
And so I'll take that, you know, and then you can call me and say, We're not making the movie.

Speaker 2 And I'll go, All right, thanks for the free gym hours. And the whole time I'm doing it, I'm thinking about you and Smigl and Sandler

Speaker 2 everybody I knew from comedy. And if I were to get to make this movie

Speaker 2 and you were to go see it and Spade, I kept thinking about Spade. I don't know why.
Everybody. He would go see it and go like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 Yep. That's exactly.

Speaker 2 And you know what?

Speaker 1 I had that feeling of,

Speaker 1 it was such a... mind blower because it was as if you heard there's this incredibly sensual movie out.

Speaker 1 It's got really heavy sex scenes and all the women are losing their mind because the guy's so incredible. And you're like, who, you know, who is it? It's Conan O'Brien.

Speaker 1 What? What year?

Speaker 1 He's 62.

Speaker 1 Are his eyes still kind of creepy? And is his lips still thin? Yes. How's his skin?

Speaker 2 It's okay.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. What? Are his legs disproportionately long?

Speaker 2 Yeah. But man, the way he goes at it, he takes his shirt off.

Speaker 1 But only the difference was you completely owned it and it was great. And there's no like, ah, good for Bob when people are buying movie tickets, especially worldwide.
So

Speaker 2 well, I just, I, I promise you, I thought of you guys often. Keep us in our universe.

Speaker 2 I was exercising and thinking, that's, that would, that's just a reason to be doing this is if I could pull it off. Well, Bob, that would blow my friends' minds.

Speaker 1 Here's how I'll, here's how I'll end this.

Speaker 1 You are a really, you loom large in my early career as one of the funniest people I ever got to work with. And it was really meaningful to me back then because I was sometimes

Speaker 1 doing stuff on this frequency that you really appreciated. And I felt like this guy gets it.
And I felt like you were doing the same thing.

Speaker 1 And I've told you, I've memorized moves of yours from your first one-man show.

Speaker 1 But, Bob, I'm so happy for you.

Speaker 2 Thanks for all you do.

Speaker 1 Also, weirdly, even though I'm proud of you, I know that can like sound condescending, but I'm really, I'm like, I know him and he's killing it.

Speaker 1 And just seeing you on that Broadway stage last night, watching your movies, watching your stuff. So go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Have a nice day. Have a nice week.
Thank you, buddy.

Speaker 1 Bob Odenkirk, Tupac. Peace out.

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 2 I really do.

Speaker 1 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 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, coconut, sweet cream, jalapenos.

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.

Speaker 2 Live free.

Speaker 1 Eat Sonic.

Speaker 1 Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. I mean, we've been thinking that.
Why does he'll say it, right, Sona?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Like, who needs a crust?

Speaker 1 You've been saying that since the day I met you 15 years ago, Sona. You said, who needs the crust? And I said, first of all, my name's Conan.
You know,

Speaker 1 anyway, it's the perfect grab and go for all all of life's moments with unbeatable soft bread and a variety of flavors, like, well, peanut butter and grape jelly, peanut butter and strawberry jam.

Speaker 1 Hello, peanut butter and raspberry spread, and so much more.

Speaker 2 No mess, no prep, just thaw and eat.

Speaker 1 Yep, get them in the freezer aisle today.

Speaker 1 Sona, Sona, are you there?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm here. I'm here.

Speaker 1 Okay, listen, there's a reason I'm talking to you right now, okay?

Speaker 2 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Which is, I am in New York working hard

Speaker 1 while you're hardly working.

Speaker 2 Not funny.

Speaker 1 And interviewing people, just interviewed Bob Odenkirk, you know?

Speaker 2 I love Bob Odenkirk.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, don't say it like you don't like me. And take your hands away from your mouth.
What are you doing? What?

Speaker 2 You can see it. I feel like you're mom.
Sit up straight.

Speaker 2 Okay, you can see me. I didn't know you could see me.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 hello, first of all. How are you, Sona?

Speaker 2 Nice to see you. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Second of all, second of all, let's not waste time on that. Second of all, I'm here in New York and I'm working hard, you know, exposed to hardly working.
Funny joke. And

Speaker 1 I am talking to you because

Speaker 1 I worry that when I'm away from our home base, when I'm away from the Larchmont, California studios, that you guys are goofing around and you're not toeing the line.

Speaker 1 And so this is a little drop-in to make sure that you're making it happen. Oh, you're still there.

Speaker 3 Do you think you keep people in line here? You think that you're like you, people get stuff done here in spite of you? I mean,

Speaker 3 you come in, everyone's like working, you come in, and then you just start like saying all these jokes and doing all these bits, and everybody has to just stop working and

Speaker 3 watch you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, it must be tough when the master of his craft comes in the room and delights a crowd with his magical skills.

Speaker 2 Must be awful.

Speaker 1 Oh, shit, here comes Beethoven.

Speaker 2 Fuck.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, he's got his piano.

Speaker 2 What's this?

Speaker 1 A symphony that will endure for all time?

Speaker 1 Oh, God.

Speaker 2 When can I get back on Etsy so I can buy that?

Speaker 2 Buy that.

Speaker 1 Little leather pouch.

Speaker 3 No, I'm going to say morale is high here.

Speaker 3 People just seem to be in really good spirits. Eduardo, we're hanging out.

Speaker 2 Super productive today.

Speaker 3 Since you're not here, can I sit in your chair?

Speaker 2 Sure. Okay.

Speaker 2 Wait a minute. Hold on.

Speaker 1 Okay, she can. Sure.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 3 Now we're talking. Okay.

Speaker 1 That's cool. Now, what does it feel like to be, I mean, in a sense, you know, you're now Conan O'Brien.
What's it like?

Speaker 3 I don't know. I feel a lot more anxious and needy.

Speaker 2 Your skin's breaking out.

Speaker 3 I'm suddenly filled with self-hate.

Speaker 2 I don't know what happened to my skin.

Speaker 3 I just have a hankering for potatoes.

Speaker 2 Okay, I think you went too far.

Speaker 2 This is now hate speech.

Speaker 1 But hate speech, everyone's okay with. People are fine with you going after the Irish.
No one cares if you go after the Irish, not even the Irish.

Speaker 3 But you guys did that. Like, why is the mascot for Notre Dame like this? Like,

Speaker 3 I'll get you. And then there's there's lucky time.

Speaker 1 How to get you.

Speaker 2 How did a puncher?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 we're ridiculous people and we know it.

Speaker 1 Whereas you are a proud Armenian. Yes, I am.
And

Speaker 1 how are your boys doing? I want to ask about them, Mikey and Charlie. Boys are good.

Speaker 3 You know, we moved into a new place and they're adjusting. There's a park.

Speaker 2 There's a pool.

Speaker 3 They just want to do things.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So we let them do things.

Speaker 1 Are you adjusting to your new place? I am.

Speaker 3 I like it. It's cool.

Speaker 3 I know I talked a lot about my parents and how hard it was to live with them, but, you know, they let us live with them for over four months. And all I did was complain about them.

Speaker 3 So it was very like...

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 You're a very ungrateful person.

Speaker 2 And I say that out of love.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's one of your better qualities, but you are ungrateful. You're not gracious.

Speaker 1 And you take things for granted. There's a lot of G's going on here, you know?

Speaker 3 Are you having fun in New York? I miss the trips that I used to take.

Speaker 1 This is great. I'm really,

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 I'm slamming you left and right.

Speaker 1 All these missiles are landing.

Speaker 1 I'm ecstatic. I will say I've been having a good time.
You've been walking around with me. I have.
Talk about Conan in Manhattan. You thrive here.

Speaker 1 And people come up to you left and right. It's selfie central.
It is. I think I've taken 3,000 selfies.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I don't, you know, as I've always said, I like talking to people. I'm cool with it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it it gets very silly because we went and saw Bob Odenkirk's Glen Gary, Glenn Ross last night with Bill Burr.

Speaker 2 And it was just

Speaker 1 fantastic production, really great. And then in

Speaker 2 intermission, there's just this line formed to get selfies.

Speaker 1 And I'm standing there doing selfies for everyone. And I thought, I should start, even if I just got a dollar for each one, is that a bad thing to put out there?

Speaker 4 I feel like people would talk.

Speaker 1 I don't think it would go over well. I know, and I'd have one of those little old-time change makers on me that the ice cream man had in the 60s.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I want to do.

Speaker 1 I want to monetize it.

Speaker 1 That's the kind of spirit I'm bringing to selfies.

Speaker 2 A dollar?

Speaker 3 You think a selfie with you is only worth a dollar?

Speaker 1 I think it may, I think that's optimistic.

Speaker 2 I think that's optimistic.

Speaker 3 If you could put any price on taking a selfie, I think a dollar is aiming high.

Speaker 2 But a dollar is a BOGO, buy one, get one free.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Did you say, is there a term for that? BOGO. BOGO? Yeah.
God.

Speaker 1 You guys are amazing. BOGO, Etsy.

Speaker 1 What's that new thing? Internet? It's crazy what's happening.

Speaker 2 YOLO. Sona.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 1 I know about it. And FOMO.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So FOMO, BOGO, YOLO, GOGO.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jub-Jub, flip-flop, chip-chop. Yeah.

Speaker 1 How are you, Sona? I'm glad to see you. I do miss you.
You know that.

Speaker 3 I miss you too. When I see you in New York, I really miss.

Speaker 3 You know, I think I had like a, when I kept, when we kept going to New York, I started getting very like, oh, New York. And now I'm kind of craving it.
I miss it a lot.

Speaker 2 You freaked out.

Speaker 2 True. Yeah.

Speaker 1 When you were my assistant before

Speaker 1 I saw the light and got David involved.

Speaker 2 But God, I don't know. He just knows.

Speaker 1 He just gets this done. But anyway,

Speaker 1 when I, first time I took

Speaker 1 you to New York,

Speaker 1 you flipped out. You hated it.
And you,

Speaker 1 because you just weren't used to New York City, you were very uncomfortable there because you're such an LA person.

Speaker 1 But the one thing I remember very clearly, you needed to go somewhere. And I said, well, just take a cab.
And you said, I can't take a cab. I'll be sitting on a seat that other people have sat on.

Speaker 2 And I thought, what?

Speaker 1 What? What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 What is this narrative you've weaved in your mind? I sit on so many seats.

Speaker 3 I've interacted

Speaker 3 indirectly with so many butts in my life that you think I'm.

Speaker 2 This is a clear memory I have.

Speaker 1 Don't say this didn't happen. I'm not saying you didn't want to take a cab.

Speaker 3 It didn't happen the way you said.

Speaker 2 First of all, cabs aren't gross.

Speaker 3 Like, they're gross. But I also, I take like lifts all the time.
And I don't have a problem with that.

Speaker 2 I think so.

Speaker 1 What was your beef with New York cabs?

Speaker 3 I mean, they're gross. They're like dirty.
But at the same time, I think that you're making it seem like I'm like prissy. Like, oh, I can't sit there.

Speaker 3 It's an, I mean, yeah, I guess to a certain extent, there was a lot of like, I don't like cabs,

Speaker 3 but I think that, uh, I think there was.

Speaker 1 But you say that's improved now. You're better.
You're over it.

Speaker 3 You're fine. Kind of.
Yeah. But I also, I think that I got overwhelmed when I would go to New York.
Like it was overwhelming. It's an overwhelming city.

Speaker 3 And then when you're like me and you just want to go out and do stuff and you don't know what to do and you and you decide to just stay in your hotel, you feel like you're missing out on everything.

Speaker 1 And it just, I think it also, not only are you in New York, which is an overwhelming city, but you're with Conan O'Brien,

Speaker 1 a beloved figure.

Speaker 1 And I think that was overwhelming for you as well.

Speaker 2 I mean, oh, Conan,

Speaker 1 I want to sleep with you.

Speaker 2 Oh, there is.

Speaker 2 what?

Speaker 3 Remember, you think, wait, do I remember random people coming to you and just saying, like, oh, you know,

Speaker 2 you're with me all the time.

Speaker 1 And they're like, oh, my God, I can't believe it. And, you know, I had a sex dream about you just an hour ago, and it's four o'clock in the afternoon.

Speaker 2 You know, you know, that kind of thing. Whatever.
I've never heard anyone say that.

Speaker 1 Just people like, I want to give you money. You're

Speaker 1 a Christ-like figure.

Speaker 2 It was more like, can we take a picture?

Speaker 3 And you'd be like, yeah, sure. And then you'd be like, do you need anything else?

Speaker 2 They're like, no, I got to go.

Speaker 2 That is so me. Is there any other thing I can do for you?

Speaker 2 I could write you a chat. Why don't you join me? Let's sit down and have a drink.

Speaker 1 And they're like, I just want to. Okay, okay.
Now you're making me seem needy. And that's as crazy as you being someone who's a germaphobe.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Sona, I checked in on you. I miss you.

Speaker 1 Give my love to Tak and your lovely boys. Are they still like their Uncle Coco?

Speaker 2 They love Uncle Coco.

Speaker 3 They talk about you all the time. Did I ever tell you I showed them like, oh, you, I sent you a video, you sent them a video back, which I had to play with for them like 150 times.

Speaker 3 And after I did it, um, one of them, I think it was Mikey, went, Uncle Coco's kind of funny, huh? And I was like, Yeah, he is kind of funny.

Speaker 3 Like, I don't, you know, in their mind, you're just like this funny guy, but they don't realize you're, you've been working on it.

Speaker 2 I was taking a ride.

Speaker 1 I was back. I was back from my college reunion and I was in Boston.
And I was in a, I was taking a, I think an Uber and somewhere. And the driver is just driving me, not really paying attention.
And

Speaker 1 I always chat with the people, so I'm chatting back and forth. And then I made kind of a joke, and the guy laughed, and he said, you have a sense of humor.

Speaker 1 He's from another country.

Speaker 1 He's learning the language. You have a sense of humor.
And I was like, whoa, still got it.

Speaker 1 All right, Sona,

Speaker 1 be well. And I'll be checking in with you in about 20 minutes.

Speaker 3 Okay, I'm excited. I like sitting in your chair.
Maybe you can sit in my chair from now on, and I'll just sit in yours. It's like first chairs.

Speaker 1 You're in other people's chairs. I like it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. All right.

Speaker 1 But your fear. Okay, don't say butts.

Speaker 3 But lots of butts set in all these chairs, and I'm fine sitting in them. So, you know, I guess I proved you wrong.

Speaker 2 I got to go.

Speaker 1 Beethoven out. I got to get my piano out of here.

Speaker 2 Not Beethoven.

Speaker 1 You'll see. Beethoven the dog from the movies.
All right. I'll talk to you later, Sona.

Speaker 2 Bye. Bye.

Speaker 4 Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Session, and Matt Gorley. Produced by me, Matt Gorley.
Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Frost, and Nick Liao.

Speaker 4 Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

Speaker 2 Take it away, Jimmy.

Speaker 4 Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns.

Speaker 4 Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.

Speaker 4 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 4 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 4 And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

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