Stephen Merchant

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Hi, my name is Stephen Merchant.
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And I feel overqualified about being Conan O'Brien's friend.
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You know, I'd have to agree with you. Thanks very much.
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I seriously would have to agree with you. Fall is here,
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hear the elk.
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Hello there and welcome to Conor O'Brien Needs a Friend,
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a podcast that, well, I think we keep.
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Hitting new heights.
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Oh.
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If I do say so myself. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
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Each- Lows. Well, lows are heights if you look at
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them upside down. What? But I'm joined as always by
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Sonamab Sessian and Matt Gourley. And I'm going to start
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this episode with a complaint, something that's been rankling me
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a little bit lately. Oh. which is icy drinks. Now
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we do a podcast and we work with these very
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sensitive microphones. I don't know when this is gonna be airing,
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but- It won't. Oh, this will air. This will see
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the light of day. I will be heard. I was
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talking to, let's just knock it off. I was talking
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to a comedy icon, someone who I really adore, and
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I was looking forward to this interview. And throughout the interview,
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you were the worst offender, Matt. You kept, you have
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what looks to be an iced, That's like a pink drink.
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What is it?
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It's just a unsweetened passion tree.
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Yeah. Passion tea. But it's mostly ice. And I'd be
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talking to this person and she'd be saying something really
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emotional like, yeah, I went through this really tough time.
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And then I'd hear, here, do it, Sona. And then
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I'd hear this. I'd hear that in the background and
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I'd look over and you're taking a big old gulp.
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I saw you look at me.
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Oh, I looked at you several times and it didn't
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stop you.
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Well, I couldn't tell if you were just looking to
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see what that was or you're trying to send me
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a signal.
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So I have a request. I know plastic straws are out.
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We don't want to be killing any dolphins with plastic straws,
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but I will pay for you two to get metallic
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straws of your choice. Oh.
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This is a tough thing for me because when you
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say something bugs you, I just want to do it more.
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Yeah. And I know you have a legitimate complaint. Let
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me see this. This is literally, we do a lot of,
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we do a lot of jokes and a lot of
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fun stories on this podcast. That's really nice. But sometimes
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you're talking to somebody and it gets real and they
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start talking about something. They start talking about something like, yeah,
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it was really rough for me because, you know, I remember,
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I'm like, um, I was really close to my grandfather,
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and I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then one day, I
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went to his room, and... He's doing the laundry. I just...
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And I'm like, what? And my grandfather... Can't hear? That's
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what's going on. And I'm having trouble even understanding what
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they're saying and I'm so distracted. Put a goddamn straw
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in the drink. Can I say something? You work in audio.
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In my defense, I waited until that guest drank her
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own iced coffee.
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And I felt like- I cannot control the guests. Okay,
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but- If a guest shows up and has an iced coffee,
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there's little I can do. I think it might be
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a smart idea and I think you're the behind the
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scenes whiz putting this whole thing together, Matt. So if
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you maybe had thought to have some straws here and
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supply the guests with the straws, so they at least
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have the option, but I can't control them. You, I
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can control. I didn't know there were going to be drinks.
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I didn't even ask for a drink. It was nice
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enough to David to bring one in the first place.
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David brought this? Yes. David, get in here. David, this
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is David hopping because we all know Sona needs an
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assistant to do the work she's not doing. How dare you? David,
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have a seat right here, if you will. That is true.
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Is Mike on?
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He's not. He's not. Sam! Our engineer ran away? He's
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printing your ads. Oh, actually, he told me to say this. Okay,
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that's great. David, no one asked you for icy drinks
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and you supplied them? Well, the guest that was on
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requested a drink. Right, and then you saw it. I'll
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just get Matt. Well, this is what Matt got Wednesday,
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so I thought he might want it again. I'm not
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throwing you under the bus, David. Oh, no, no, no.
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That's a sweet gesture. You made it quite clear. I
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always call you. I said, do you want any Starbucks?
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Then I call Sona, and then I didn't have your
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number in my phone, but I just got you one. Yeah, well,
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I have had his number for a long time, and
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I know what he's up to. He's up to, it's
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called pulling focus in show business. Matt wants to make
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it about himself in some small way. And you saw
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me really vibing with a guest. We had it, we
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were in the groove. It was gonna be, This is
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probably the interview that's going to get me a Peabody Award,
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and you couldn't handle it, could you, Matt? I could
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handle it. It was probably no big deal. Literally, it
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sounds like three lab skeletons falling down a flight of steps.
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I don't want to make excuses, but this is literally
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my 10th podcast this week, and I'm a bit fried.
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So get off my back, the man. Yeah. You know what?
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Adam brought something up. Slash, he said Slash was doing
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it during his interview.
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He's Slash. And you called him out on it.
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And how fucking dare you call out Slash on anything?
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First of all, I don't care who it is. Oh, no, no, no.
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I don't care who it is. And I adore Slash.
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I adore Slash. And check out that episode. It's a
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really good one. And you're plugging this podcast. On this podcast.
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They're already listening. You got them. There was so much
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ice rattling. It really did sound like the Titanic had
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just hit the berg. There was ice exploding all over
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the place. And so- The reason I called you in, David,
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is because what you basically did was you weaponized the podcast.
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You brought... Weaponized or brought joy? Yeah. Brought joy. This
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is delicious. It's actually really good. We had never had it.
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We had it because Matt got it the other day
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and it was good. Thank you.
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Maybe you should just try the drink and then we
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can all have noisy ice drinks on.
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No, thanks. I'm good. And also, I live off hate.
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I have a vast reserve of hate inside my body
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and I draw on it at any time. I could
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not eat food and live for a thousand years. That
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hydrates you, you don't need beverages. It does everything. It hydrates,
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it provides caloric energy. Yeah, and I'm talking about just
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about six years from 1972 to 1978. I can live
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off that hate. Good, it's healthy. You know what? It's
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done fine by me. Oh, has it? Okay, and I'll
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tell you something else, David. You are not to bring them, okay?
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You're not to bring them icy drinks anymore. What if
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we get a straw? thinking they have it. All right,
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but I don't want to hear, Matt Gourley, I do
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not want to hear ice rattling around and don't tell me.
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You saw me looking at you, didn't you? And what
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was that glare like?
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Like I said, I think it was like, oh, is
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he just hearing the noise and looking over to see
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what the noise is? But then it was just a
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fraction of a second long enough to go, oh no,
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he hates me.
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Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's why I hold for that
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fraction of an extra second. There's a lot of thought
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that goes into my deadly glares. Yeah. But it didn't
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change your behavior, I noticed. You kept slurping and a-slurping. Well,
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I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. Well,
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you were wrong. I'm just as petty as you thought
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I was. There is no more ice, no more rattling
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ice on this show. I'm shutting it down. Okay. Okay, Hopping?
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Next time they want something to drink, get them some
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maple syrup and a paper cup. Oh my God. Caesar
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has spoken. All right, my guest today is a hilarious writer, actor,
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and comedian who co-created The Office alongside Ricky Gervais. You
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also know him from such shows and movies as Extras,
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Hello Ladies, Jojo Rabbit, and Logan. Now he has a
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new series, The Outlaws, which he wrote, directed, and stars in.
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Episodes are available on Amazon Prime Video. I am very
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excited he's with us. Stephen Merchant, welcome. I'm here because
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I'm an enormous fan of you. Oh, that's so nice. Absolutely.
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That's so nice. Well, chiefly your work on The Simpsons. Oh,
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for Christ's sake. The other stuff I'm not aware of.
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You know what's so funny? I do. I've encountered people.
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I've encountered people on the street. They'll be like, oh
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my God, when you were working for The Simpsons, I just... man,
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that show was firing on all cylinders. I love you.
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I love that stuff in The Simpsons. And then they
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sort of trail off, like don't know what became of
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you after that. Right, yes, exactly. I'm not kidding. They
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really don't seem to know that there's been, they think, oh, yes,
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you've been dabbling in this other stuff, but when are
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you getting back to The Simpsons?
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The other one that's kind of damned with faint praise is, hey,
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are you Stephen Merchant?
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I am. Oh, yeah, my wife's a big fan. Oh, God. Oh,
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she is? Oh, okay, good. Is she here? No, right.
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So why are you not a fan? Yeah. I had
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the other day the flip of that, which, well, not
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quite the flip, but someone came up to me and said, oh,
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my God, I'd love to get a picture of, with
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you because my wife's such a fan. And I was like, sure.
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And I took the picture and he went, yeah, such
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a fan. And I texted you about this and he said,
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he said, me not so much. And I thought, why? Okay,
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I'm not some maniac who expects everybody to enjoy what
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I do, but why throw that in? Of course. That's
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what's so odd.
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Is it because they don't see you as quite a
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human being? You're this other thing, right?
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You're a personality. You're a show business star. I guess.
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There's many reasons. Now, first of all, it could just
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be that he's, I mean, he's being honest. He's got
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good taste. He's got good taste. He's got good taste.
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Yeah.
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He's got good taste. He's got impeccable taste in comedy.
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He went out of his way to say, now, Stephen Merchant,
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he chooses his words more carefully than you. He's less
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needy as a comedian. And I said, I'm going to
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be talking to Stephen in a few days. And he said, now,
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that's someone I look up to.
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So I remember years ago when Ricky Gervais, I was
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working with Ricky Gervais, and he first got very famous
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in the UK. And, you know, we would work and
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we had an office and we would go for lunch.
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And on the way back, you know, he'd get stopped
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once or twice for photos, you know, kind of always
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very gracious and did photos with them. And one time
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we were walking back and we were kind of a
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bit hurried. We had a meeting or something. And a
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couple of tourists came up and they said, excuse us,
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can we get, their English wasn't great. So they said,
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can we get a picture? Can we get a picture?
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And Ricky was like, yeah, sure. And he put his
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arms around them and they said, no, can you take
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picture of us? He went, oh, right.
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And he had no idea who he was. And so
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he just had to awkwardly take the camera back and
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just take a photo of these two.
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That's one of those things. There's an analogous situation to that,
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which is I've had someone come up to me at
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a restaurant with a pen and And I say, and
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who do I make this out to? Meaning to Martha, to,
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and they're like, it's the check. I love it because
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you just, you shrink instantly to one one thousandth your size.
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The pen stays the same size. So you're a tiny
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little person with a massive pen. That's right. Yeah.
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I was back in my hometown of Bristol and I was, again,
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that thing where you, you know, again, in Bristol where
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I'm from, you know, I'm fairly well known because it's
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like local boy made good.
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The same sort of thing.
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A few people had said hi on the day. Went
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in a store, came out. Guy came running out.
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Oh, excuse me, excuse me. I went, sure. What do
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you want me to sign? He went, no, you left
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your credit card. Yep, okay. Yep, no problem. No problem.
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Okay.
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You probably want to tell me that I'm your favorite.
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That's right. No, not at all. Anyway, these are such
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relatable stories to start the show with, aren't they? Do
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you ever go to buy a Porsche? And this is something,
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if you're listening, we've all been there, right? And you
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know you have a choice between... The mahogany trim.
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It's easy how quickly a little taste of a glamorous
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world or exclusive world, how quickly you acclimatize to that.
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Because I... I've been lucky. I'm not going to boast,
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but I made a little money over the years.
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And I flew my parents from England to LA business class.
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Not first, you know, come on. I'm not made of money,
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but business class. And my mother, she got to the
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house and I said, how was the flight? And she said,
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it was wonderful. We got off the plane before all
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the ordinary people. She'd never been on a business class
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flight in her life.
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And suddenly they were the ordinary people. Yes.
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Amazing how quickly your head is turning.
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I love that you are trying to come across as
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a guy who still understands what it's like outside the bubble.
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I'd like to tell people that you drove up in
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two Bentleys. Two Bentleys, which I don't even know how
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you did it. One for me and one for my iPhone. Yes, yes. Oh.
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Because of your height, you were able to straddle both
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of them. You were working the wheels of both at
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the same time. It looked like it was very unpleasant
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to drive two Bentleys at once.
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I once heard a story, I would love to know
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if it's true, that supposedly Bono was, you know, touring.
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He was like in Madrid doing a show and his
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favorite hat hadn't come, it had been forgotten.
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And he had it flown in a business class seat
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to Madrid.
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Just the idea of like a chaperone and Bono's hat
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in a chair.
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Yeah.
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I don't know if that's true, but I love that image.
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I would love it also if they gave the hat
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one of the exits where you need to know how
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to use the emergency. And the woman says, are you
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happy to do this in the event of an emergency?
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And because the hat didn't say anything, she took that
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as a yes. That's right. And then the plane had
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some difficulty. People had to get out and the hat
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was just sitting there. That's right. Everyone choked on the smoke. Yeah.
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A stewardess threw it down the slide. Oh, yeah. Oh,
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my God. Well, I have been really looking forward to
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talking to you because we've crossed paths many times. And
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your friend, Ricky Gervais, our mutual friend, but I think
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he really likes you. I think he respects you. But
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he brought up this image once. He said, my favorite
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thing in the world would be to see, I think
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he said this on air. He said, I want to
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see you and Stephen Merchant fight. Yeah. And he said,
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it'd be like two praying mantises. That's right. And I thought,
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because now I'm considered quite tall as comedians go, I'm 6'4.
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And if there's some product in my hair, 6'6. You
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are 6'7. I remember being 6'4. Conan, I don't know
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what that was. And then you turned seven. I was
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around 13.
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But it is a very, in all seriousness, it's very
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odd because I have, when I walk into a room,
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I've been most people's height at one time or another.
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I've been your height, probably most of the people in
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the studio's height. I've been through there and carried on going.
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And I would say, and I speak with confidence here,
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I think 6'4 is the optimum height for a man.
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I think it's a great height. I think it's a
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masculine height. I think the problem is you can still
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buy clothes off the peg. You can still get shoes
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to fit. Once you get to 6'5, 6'6, now you're
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getting silly.
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Yeah. There's not, furniture doesn't fit. You can't get into cars. Yes,
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I agree with you. And 6'7 is absurd. It's a nonsense.
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It makes life miserable. No, no, you have to have
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furniture specially built. Specially built. You probably, like your home,
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everything is specially designed. I know you have a, and
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this is well known about you- Special toilets have been
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made for you.
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Special, very high toilets that other people can't fit on
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unless they have a small step ladder. And yes, it's
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an absolute pain. And everything in your life is slightly
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seen through the, am I going to fit? Beds in hotels,
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very rarely long enough. Door frames are about four or five.
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The 6'6, I think, is the standard door frame height. Again,
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too low for me. And the one I particularly notice
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in America, and it's not so pronounced in... in England,
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but for some reason here, toilet stalls, bathroom stalls are
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00:16:00.590 --> 00:16:03.929
not quite tall enough, particularly in airports. I find if
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I walk into a bathroom stall, I can see into
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the bathroom stalls either side.
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And guess what?
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And I just, and of course you just glance and
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there's a guy just looking back at you sitting.
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On the toilet. But Stephen, they don't know. Also, here's
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the thing. They don't know that you're 6'7. Right. They
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00:16:18.580 --> 00:16:20.230
think that you're on tippy toes trying to have a
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look- That's right, trying to peer in. Trying to have
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a look-see.
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But the problem is that what happens is because I'm
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aware of that, I then have to sort of enter
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a toilet stall sort of at a crouch.
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I sort of creep my way in. Right. Like really,
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00:16:31.769 --> 00:16:34.720
which looks really weird and menacing. No, no, no. I
342
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was going to bring this up much later in the interview,
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People know of you in the States. But see me
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in airports. Yeah, yeah, you're called Look-See Merchant. People know
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that you like to have a little look-see over the
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top of the toilet stall. It's very, very difficult. Check
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out what's happening, and it's hurt you. It's hurt you
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in this country. You've done fine, but think of, no,
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the word's out. Sona, true or false, today you said, oh,
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is Look-See coming in? I did, yeah. Is Look-See Merchant, yeah, yeah.
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And I said, let's not bring that up till, it
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probably won't come up at all, but if it does
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come up, I'll bring it up later.
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00:17:09.930 --> 00:17:11.730
Yeah, there's a reason I didn't come into the studio.
355
00:17:14.470 --> 00:17:20.410
That's right. Matt, you were excited to be here in person.
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00:17:20.470 --> 00:17:22.059
And then you found out that old Look-See Merchant would
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be here.
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I really hope people don't listen to this show because
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00:17:26.180 --> 00:17:27.500
that's going to hang around.
360
00:17:27.619 --> 00:17:31.529
No one will. You'll never hear of this again. Look-See! Yeah,
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00:17:31.549 --> 00:17:35.150
that's me. You're a pervert! Okay, you took it a
362
00:17:35.170 --> 00:17:40.829
little too far. Fuck you! That's the natural progression. No,
363
00:17:40.950 --> 00:17:43.190
I've been very excited to talk to you because we
364
00:17:43.230 --> 00:17:45.430
both got into comedy. I've always seen you as kind
365
00:17:45.470 --> 00:17:48.769
of a kindred spirit. I hope you feel the same
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way about me, but I'm a big fan of yours.
367
00:17:51.579 --> 00:17:55.240
You have a great mind, and I love your comedic persona.
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00:17:55.559 --> 00:17:59.509
You seem to thrive. in discomfort, which is something I,
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00:17:59.670 --> 00:18:02.450
it's that area that I just love, I've always loved
370
00:18:02.630 --> 00:18:04.849
in comedy. And I know that we have some things
371
00:18:04.910 --> 00:18:08.880
in common. My, first of all, our relationships with our bodies.
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00:18:09.740 --> 00:18:12.500
I've always, I always found my body to be absurd. Yes.
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00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:15.279
And that helped me in comedy. It gave me a
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head start. Yeah. There were a couple of people I
375
00:18:17.579 --> 00:18:20.299
saw on television. One was Dick Van Dyke in reruns
376
00:18:20.339 --> 00:18:21.920
of the Dick Van Dyke show. And then the other,
377
00:18:21.940 --> 00:18:25.740
of course, when the Pythons were rerun in America and
378
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I discovered John Cleese. I saw this guy that was
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00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:32.930
very funny with his tall body and almost kind of
380
00:18:33.210 --> 00:18:35.710
owned it in a way that was intriguing to me.
381
00:18:35.869 --> 00:18:37.630
And I think you had a similar experience. Very similar.
382
00:18:37.710 --> 00:18:39.559
I mean, Cleese actually grew up in a place called
383
00:18:39.579 --> 00:18:41.880
Western Supermaria that's not far from my hometown of Bristol.
384
00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:43.950
And then he went to college in Bristol, so for
385
00:18:43.970 --> 00:18:45.549
some reason I always felt a kind of affinity because
386
00:18:45.569 --> 00:18:47.750
he seemed like a local guy, done well, like you say,
387
00:18:47.769 --> 00:18:50.630
very tall, and I was very influenced by him, and
388
00:18:50.650 --> 00:18:53.839
for some reason believed that one day I could be
389
00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:56.660
John Cleese. I don't know where that presumption came from.
390
00:18:56.700 --> 00:18:59.740
I thought, well, he's a tall guy from the neighborhood.
391
00:19:00.099 --> 00:19:02.380
If that's what they want on TV, I guess I
392
00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:05.500
could do that. And I would study that physicality, and
393
00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:08.220
there was this precision to the way he used his body.
394
00:19:08.259 --> 00:19:09.200
It was very exact.
395
00:19:09.500 --> 00:19:11.680
I think a lot of those great physical comics Oliver
396
00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:14.319
Hardy has it as well. There's an exactness to wait.
397
00:19:14.339 --> 00:19:16.299
Like when Oliver Hardy's ringing a doorbell, he'll sort of
398
00:19:16.759 --> 00:19:18.869
flip his hat into his arm and then flourish with
399
00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:20.660
the finger as he buzzes the buzzer. And it's all
400
00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:23.730
so precise and elegant and dedicated. And I just was
401
00:19:23.769 --> 00:19:26.369
very inspired by that. And like you say, using what's
402
00:19:26.430 --> 00:19:29.390
inherently comic about you, the things which people already find funny.
403
00:19:29.589 --> 00:19:30.829
And someone said to me once, do you think you
404
00:19:30.869 --> 00:19:33.549
went into comedy to control when people laugh at you?
405
00:19:33.789 --> 00:19:35.309
And there may be some truth in that.
406
00:19:35.569 --> 00:19:39.230
Oh, that's interesting. I've thought about this a lot. I
407
00:19:39.849 --> 00:19:43.019
used to think of it as, I'll make fun of
408
00:19:43.079 --> 00:19:45.279
myself before they get a chance to make fun of me.
409
00:19:45.539 --> 00:19:47.990
That's a very British thing indeed, yeah.
410
00:19:48.730 --> 00:19:52.420
But also it's interesting. for instance, it extends to kind
411
00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:55.089
of career success, right? when The Office first happened, the
412
00:19:55.190 --> 00:19:56.990
UK version, and Ricky and I sort of got well-known,
413
00:19:57.250 --> 00:19:59.089
there was lots of plaudits because it was kind of,
414
00:19:59.230 --> 00:20:01.029
where did these guys come from? You know, they were
415
00:20:01.049 --> 00:20:03.059
sort of new kids on the block and we got
416
00:20:03.099 --> 00:20:05.839
a lot of sort of plaudits. And then as time
417
00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:08.000
went on and we became more and more familiar, then
418
00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:10.420
it was like, it seems like it's overrated, that show.
419
00:20:10.779 --> 00:20:11.240
These guys.
420
00:20:11.259 --> 00:20:12.579
And then when it went to America, it was like,
421
00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:15.859
we prefer the American version. You know what I mean?
422
00:20:15.900 --> 00:20:17.130
And then what happens, and you see it with a
423
00:20:17.130 --> 00:20:19.890
lot of people, is eventually, so Elton John had that.
424
00:20:19.910 --> 00:20:21.849
So through the 80s, he was kind of lambasted. And
425
00:20:21.869 --> 00:20:24.009
then at some point, you become a national treasure if
426
00:20:24.049 --> 00:20:24.650
you live long enough.
427
00:20:24.670 --> 00:20:26.380
Yes. This is what I'm hoping for next, is to
428
00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:29.180
be a national treasure. I mean, trust me, I'm trying
429
00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:30.839
for that too, but I'm told I need to live
430
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:31.119
to be 150.
431
00:20:31.099 --> 00:20:31.240
Right.
432
00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:34.519
That's right. I need to be the same age as
433
00:20:34.559 --> 00:20:37.829
someone who fought in the Civil War to be a
434
00:20:37.869 --> 00:20:42.349
national treasure. But there's this thing that happens. You guys
435
00:20:42.390 --> 00:20:44.950
will do two years of a show and then decide
436
00:20:45.069 --> 00:20:47.619
that's enough. Well, that's because of the economics. Yes, yes.
437
00:20:47.630 --> 00:20:50.630
There's no money in syndication. There is no such thing. Right.
438
00:20:50.650 --> 00:20:52.650
So why are you going to make 150 episodes of something?
439
00:20:52.710 --> 00:20:55.609
It's crazy. Right. But Fawlty Towers, how many Fawlty Towers
440
00:20:55.670 --> 00:20:59.319
are there? 12. There are 12. Yeah. And they're perfect. Yeah.
441
00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:02.170
You know, the American style- for many, many years, and
442
00:21:02.190 --> 00:21:05.009
I think it's starting to change. I think Netflix and
443
00:21:05.150 --> 00:21:07.299
the way streaming works now is starting to change it.
444
00:21:07.369 --> 00:21:13.299
But if something works in this country, the mandate was
445
00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:19.279
grind that thing until it's completely no longer funny and
446
00:21:19.299 --> 00:21:23.079
then do another 10 years. That's right, exactly. And that
447
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:25.619
was our system. So I was always looking at your shows,
448
00:21:25.779 --> 00:21:28.279
and when I say your, I mean UK shows, and
449
00:21:28.619 --> 00:21:31.859
thinking that you were the superior... minds and that you
450
00:21:31.940 --> 00:21:34.289
had more integrity than we had. I didn't realize there
451
00:21:34.309 --> 00:21:35.869
was just no money in it. Just no money in it.
452
00:21:35.890 --> 00:21:38.109
Just what's the point? You know, you just burn out.
453
00:21:38.130 --> 00:21:39.880
There's only two of you. You can't afford a writer's room.
454
00:21:40.150 --> 00:21:41.630
So it's like, why am I doing this again? Why
455
00:21:41.650 --> 00:21:43.579
am I doing something else? Also, I think in the
456
00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:46.119
case of The Office, we did about 14 episodes in total.
457
00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:48.859
And I think we thought, well, we've cracked TV writing.
458
00:21:49.259 --> 00:21:50.759
Turns out this is the first thing we've done. And
459
00:21:50.779 --> 00:21:52.579
look at it. We thought, yeah, we can just keep
460
00:21:52.619 --> 00:21:56.559
repeating this success forever. Turns out it's way harder than
461
00:21:56.619 --> 00:21:59.309
you think. That idea of don't quit a hit, I
462
00:21:59.349 --> 00:22:01.829
think I would cling on to now with Dear Life.
463
00:22:02.289 --> 00:22:04.369
So it sort of looks like it was a great integrity.
464
00:22:04.609 --> 00:22:07.470
It's just a terrible, foolish mistake. And if only we'd
465
00:22:07.509 --> 00:22:09.970
just kept on grinding that out. Oh, then I'd have
466
00:22:10.049 --> 00:22:21.559
three Bentleys. My former writing partner, Greg Daniels, we got
467
00:22:21.670 --> 00:22:23.759
our start together and worked together for many years and
468
00:22:23.779 --> 00:22:26.839
we're still close friends. And so I remember being worried
469
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:31.599
for him because he told me the British office is
470
00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:34.490
done but I'm going to try and make an American version.
471
00:22:34.519 --> 00:22:36.920
And I was worried for him. I didn't think it
472
00:22:36.980 --> 00:22:41.700
could be done. I didn't want my good friend getting disappointed,
473
00:22:41.720 --> 00:22:49.380
having a hard time. And good God, that thing, it
474
00:22:49.410 --> 00:22:52.980
was brilliantly done and brilliantly cast, but- Thank God he
475
00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:54.859
didn't listen to you. I know, well, trust me.
476
00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:57.480
Because otherwise, I mean, I would just, I mean, I'd
477
00:22:57.519 --> 00:23:01.660
be scrapping around doing standup in like pubs instead of
478
00:23:01.700 --> 00:23:06.380
just swanning around with- With celebrity friends.
479
00:23:06.420 --> 00:23:09.859
I am not kidding. I am not kidding. Someone could
480
00:23:09.980 --> 00:23:12.279
fill a book with, so thank God you didn't listen
481
00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:14.940
to Conan. Because I'm not even kidding. There have been
482
00:23:14.980 --> 00:23:17.180
about five or six times in my life when I've
483
00:23:17.200 --> 00:23:20.769
given people advice, which was, you know, like to Mike Myers,
484
00:23:21.289 --> 00:23:25.549
when he pitched me Wayne's World first. Really? I've talked
485
00:23:25.589 --> 00:23:27.769
about this before. He was brand new at Saturday Night
486
00:23:27.829 --> 00:23:29.329
Live and he was like, I've got this thing and
487
00:23:29.369 --> 00:23:31.809
it's guys doing cable access in the basement. And I said,
488
00:23:31.849 --> 00:23:35.859
you know, cable access, low rent version of a TV parody.
489
00:23:35.900 --> 00:23:39.579
That's kind of been done. And I thought I talked
490
00:23:39.619 --> 00:23:41.660
him out of it. And then he went and submitted
491
00:23:41.700 --> 00:23:43.519
it to read through anyway. And I was like, well,
492
00:23:43.940 --> 00:23:46.930
this kid's about to get his comeuppance. Oh my God.
493
00:23:46.970 --> 00:23:49.029
Because I'm the guy who knows it all.
494
00:23:49.049 --> 00:23:51.549
Well, I think smartly, the one thing, I, like you,
495
00:23:51.569 --> 00:23:53.329
you know, grew up watching a lot of TV and
496
00:23:53.349 --> 00:23:55.369
there was a number of attempts to make British shows,
497
00:23:55.410 --> 00:23:58.289
including Fawlty Towers, into American shows, and they'd often failed.
498
00:23:58.309 --> 00:24:00.089
And one of the things which seemed a recurring problem
499
00:24:00.109 --> 00:24:03.400
was the original Brits had tried to do the adaptation.
500
00:24:04.059 --> 00:24:06.059
And my advice to Ricky, I remember thinking, was we
501
00:24:06.099 --> 00:24:08.480
should not try and do this ourselves. We don't quite
502
00:24:08.579 --> 00:24:12.460
understand America in its DNA, even though we think we
503
00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:14.319
do because we've grown up watching American stuff. And it
504
00:24:14.380 --> 00:24:16.759
needs an American showrunner to adapt it. And we met
505
00:24:16.779 --> 00:24:19.700
with a lot of people, but Greg was the one who,
506
00:24:19.829 --> 00:24:21.849
the only one I think who seemed to spot that
507
00:24:21.970 --> 00:24:24.470
it was really a romance. At the core of it,
508
00:24:24.529 --> 00:24:27.200
it was a romantic comedy that also had this funny
509
00:24:27.259 --> 00:24:27.940
boss character.
510
00:24:28.059 --> 00:24:28.240
Yes.
511
00:24:28.259 --> 00:24:30.789
And I think he spotted that that romance at the
512
00:24:30.829 --> 00:24:32.869
core of it between Jim and Pam was what was
513
00:24:32.910 --> 00:24:36.269
going to keep people coming back week to week.
514
00:24:36.410 --> 00:24:39.349
To be fair, Greg is always saying everything's a romance.
515
00:24:40.210 --> 00:24:43.299
He just happened to be right in that meeting. But
516
00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:45.119
he and I once had to do a rewrite on
517
00:24:45.140 --> 00:24:52.069
a Godzilla versus Mothra episode. Creature battle. And it became
518
00:24:52.109 --> 00:24:56.029
Godzilla Hearts Mothra. Yeah, yeah. He kept saying, it's a romance.
519
00:24:56.089 --> 00:25:00.849
Godzilla loves Mothra and Mothra loves Godzilla. You know, clearly,
520
00:25:01.009 --> 00:25:03.589
and this is one question that I had for you
521
00:25:03.990 --> 00:25:05.910
because I think you're one of the few people that
522
00:25:05.930 --> 00:25:09.190
could answer it. You came from this British comedy writing
523
00:25:09.230 --> 00:25:14.440
and performing tradition and you create, along with Ricky, this
524
00:25:14.960 --> 00:25:20.009
terrific masterpiece of British television. but you participated a lot
525
00:25:21.369 --> 00:25:24.549
in the American office? Well, I wish I could take
526
00:25:24.589 --> 00:25:26.009
more credit. No, I would show up- Weren't you in
527
00:25:26.029 --> 00:25:26.650
the writer's room?
528
00:25:26.759 --> 00:25:28.259
I would show up occasionally in the writer's room, but
529
00:25:28.299 --> 00:25:30.640
I mean, they were more than, they didn't need me there.
530
00:25:30.680 --> 00:25:32.240
I think I just went there because I enjoyed it
531
00:25:32.259 --> 00:25:34.240
because it had been me and Ricky in a kind
532
00:25:34.259 --> 00:25:36.819
of drafty North London office. And we would come to
533
00:25:36.859 --> 00:25:39.559
Glamorous LA and I would sit in there with Greg
534
00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:42.079
and 12 brilliant people watching.
535
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:43.000
Ideas bubble up.
536
00:25:43.099 --> 00:25:45.160
And it was very exhilarating for me to see that
537
00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:48.160
kind of, and I mean this in a complimentary way,
538
00:25:48.200 --> 00:25:50.920
like a factory of great comedy- TV.
539
00:25:51.019 --> 00:25:54.400
It's unique to this country. That's what I wanted to
540
00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:56.619
talk to you about a little bit is that your
541
00:25:56.660 --> 00:25:59.539
experience on The Office was just you and Ricky alone.
542
00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:02.390
And it can be kind of feel monastic. And this
543
00:26:02.470 --> 00:26:05.569
is when I got into writers rooms, real writers rooms,
544
00:26:05.589 --> 00:26:07.910
whether it was on Saturday Night Live or The Simpsons,
545
00:26:07.990 --> 00:26:11.210
and then my own writers room, I just wanted to
546
00:26:11.269 --> 00:26:14.670
live there. I loved being in a writers room. And
547
00:26:15.190 --> 00:26:19.769
there's something about getting a bunch of people together, coming
548
00:26:19.869 --> 00:26:22.549
up mostly with ideas that could never be on television.
549
00:26:22.589 --> 00:26:25.230
That's right. Yeah, yeah. And saying things that should never
550
00:26:25.269 --> 00:26:29.420
be repeated, but it was just this wonderful world. There's
551
00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:32.039
an exhilaration to that that is hard to replicate anywhere else.
552
00:26:32.700 --> 00:26:35.140
I have to say one of the things that I
553
00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:39.700
think has changed the way people watch and experience comedy,
554
00:26:40.019 --> 00:26:43.410
the concept of it being a documentary, you know, and
555
00:26:43.450 --> 00:26:46.670
that we're just observing these people, but they can talk
556
00:26:46.710 --> 00:26:50.180
to camera, but that there's no laugh track. And I
557
00:26:50.220 --> 00:26:53.019
think for so long in the United States, I don't
558
00:26:53.059 --> 00:26:56.279
know much about the British tradition, but there was a
559
00:26:56.799 --> 00:26:58.309
laugh track on all comedy.
560
00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:00.170
Well, do you know, there's a show that's a big
561
00:27:00.190 --> 00:27:04.250
influence on me, which is MASH. Now, interestingly, in England,
562
00:27:04.269 --> 00:27:06.230
when the TV show MASH was aired, it did not
563
00:27:06.309 --> 00:27:08.589
air with a laugh track. So when I would come
564
00:27:08.609 --> 00:27:10.150
to the US, I would see it with reruns and
565
00:27:10.170 --> 00:27:12.529
there'd be this laughter, but it seems to be shot
566
00:27:12.630 --> 00:27:15.049
in a Korean military hospital, but.
567
00:27:14.990 --> 00:27:16.049
There's this audience.
568
00:27:16.470 --> 00:27:18.210
And it's very surreal, whereas in the British version, for
569
00:27:18.250 --> 00:27:20.730
some reason, it had no laugh track. So that show,
570
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:22.940
you talk about Arthur Miller, it felt like a sort
571
00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:27.279
of dark kind of existential comedy in which these men
572
00:27:27.319 --> 00:27:30.000
were making jokes in the face of war and death.
573
00:27:30.059 --> 00:27:31.539
And it was the only way they could deal.
574
00:27:31.369 --> 00:27:31.900
With the horror.
575
00:27:31.940 --> 00:27:35.809
It was a really sort of powerful comedy drama. And
576
00:27:35.829 --> 00:27:39.109
then you see it with laughter and Hawkeye's insufferable laughter.
577
00:27:39.390 --> 00:27:41.490
It's like, I want to go, shut the fuck up, man.
578
00:27:41.930 --> 00:27:44.539
Just do your medical work. Stop trying to make quips.
579
00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:45.980
You know?
580
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:50.539
But without that, when there was no audience, he was
581
00:27:50.599 --> 00:27:57.359
firing them off into the ether. Shut the fuck up, Hawkeye.
582
00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:00.500
And so it's interesting, isn't it, how it changes your
583
00:28:00.619 --> 00:28:03.509
interpretation of that, for me at least, for that show.
584
00:28:03.650 --> 00:28:06.049
Well, you know, what I will tell you is that
585
00:28:06.579 --> 00:28:08.900
There was a concession made on that show. It was
586
00:28:08.940 --> 00:28:14.769
very specific. Laugh track everywhere except in the operating room. Right, right.
587
00:28:14.930 --> 00:28:16.930
So there was no laugh track in the operating room,
588
00:28:17.049 --> 00:28:20.789
and that was one of the concessions they made to
589
00:28:21.089 --> 00:28:24.960
try and show the sanctity of that space. I believe
590
00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:28.900
that an entire generation, more than one generation now, because
591
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:33.549
the original British office is 2001, and it's– do think
592
00:28:34.029 --> 00:28:37.390
now there's an entire generation that watches reality TV and
593
00:28:37.410 --> 00:28:41.490
there's no laugh track. There's no, they decide and they
594
00:28:41.529 --> 00:28:43.809
look at reaction shots and they see the way things
595
00:28:43.890 --> 00:28:47.329
unfold and they see discomfort and they're quite happy deciding
596
00:28:47.349 --> 00:28:48.430
for themselves what's funny.
597
00:28:48.509 --> 00:28:51.589
But it's funny how it does take people, I think,
598
00:28:52.109 --> 00:28:55.660
getting primed initially at least, to know what to expect.
599
00:28:55.680 --> 00:28:57.660
Because I remember when the original British version of The
600
00:28:57.680 --> 00:28:59.849
Office aired, obviously I wasn't in the show, so people
601
00:28:59.869 --> 00:29:01.930
didn't recognize me. So I was on a train, the
602
00:29:01.970 --> 00:29:04.589
first pilot episode had aired on the BBC, and I
603
00:29:04.589 --> 00:29:06.009
was on a train and there were two women talking
604
00:29:06.029 --> 00:29:08.470
opposite me. And one said to her friend, hey, did
605
00:29:08.509 --> 00:29:10.730
you see that documentary last night on the BBC about
606
00:29:11.210 --> 00:29:15.210
an office? The boss was absolutely hysterical. And her friend said,
607
00:29:15.450 --> 00:29:17.279
oh no, I think that was a sitcom. And the
608
00:29:17.299 --> 00:29:19.599
first lady said, oh, well, it wasn't very funny then.
609
00:29:22.430 --> 00:29:27.019
What? And isn't it interesting that she didn't know what
610
00:29:27.059 --> 00:29:29.160
it was. Right. And it was hilarious. When she was
611
00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:31.319
told it was a comedy. Oh, no, no, no. Not
612
00:29:31.359 --> 00:29:32.400
funny then. And it's interesting.
613
00:29:32.420 --> 00:29:34.809
So I wonder if it's like, I don't know whether people,
614
00:29:34.829 --> 00:29:37.970
like you say, they're conditioned now to see shows without
615
00:29:38.049 --> 00:29:41.420
a laugh track. And so they- accept them. Whereas initially,
616
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:42.779
I think they probably– it was a bit odd.
617
00:29:42.940 --> 00:29:45.559
No, I think we used to watch– I mean, I
618
00:29:45.599 --> 00:29:48.369
grew up on shows like Happy Days. Right. And on
619
00:29:48.650 --> 00:29:50.190
Happy Days, which is– you know, it's a comedy and
620
00:29:50.210 --> 00:29:52.569
it was a huge hit. But the Fonz would enter.
621
00:29:52.589 --> 00:29:56.309
Round of applause. And he had to hold until the
622
00:29:56.349 --> 00:29:58.930
applause was done. And sometimes it was important that he
623
00:29:58.970 --> 00:30:00.839
walk in the door and say, Richie, don't do it.
624
00:30:01.289 --> 00:30:03.269
That man's about to shoot you. I don't think that
625
00:30:03.289 --> 00:30:05.549
was a plot. But anyway, let's just say, but if
626
00:30:05.589 --> 00:30:09.950
the Fonz would come in and this, you know, he
627
00:30:09.990 --> 00:30:13.650
has to save Richie's life, Richie Cunningham's life. He has
628
00:30:13.670 --> 00:30:17.589
to stand there for like sometimes two minutes while people applaud,
629
00:30:17.650 --> 00:30:20.329
start to say his line, Richie, but then hold some more.
630
00:30:20.349 --> 00:30:23.529
And you think about it and that's, what are we watching?
631
00:30:23.569 --> 00:30:26.160
Like a Victorian comedy in a music hall? Like why?
632
00:30:26.970 --> 00:30:30.420
Well, except that it's also, again, big influences on The
633
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:33.900
Office and me more generally included Roseanne.
634
00:30:34.099 --> 00:30:35.119
Yep.
635
00:30:35.359 --> 00:30:37.240
I watched the original pilot of Roseanne again recently, and
636
00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:39.640
it's brilliant. And again, it has some of that laughing
637
00:30:39.680 --> 00:30:41.890
in the face of desperation, a kind of working class
638
00:30:41.930 --> 00:30:44.950
woman trying to keep her family afloat. And it has
639
00:30:44.990 --> 00:30:47.289
a laugh track, but I don't know why. I almost
640
00:30:48.269 --> 00:30:50.269
zone it out. I'm just so engaged by the world,
641
00:30:50.289 --> 00:30:50.829
the characters.
642
00:30:50.849 --> 00:30:52.680
I think Cheers... It's the same.
643
00:30:52.700 --> 00:30:54.259
You know, it was so, it was classy and it
644
00:30:54.299 --> 00:30:56.859
felt characterful. It felt like a rich universe. So I
645
00:30:56.900 --> 00:30:58.839
don't know where at some point, like you say, it
646
00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:01.059
became unfashionable.
647
00:31:01.339 --> 00:31:03.240
I want to make sure I mention extras because that's
648
00:31:03.259 --> 00:31:06.220
when you show up on camera in the show Extras,
649
00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:09.950
which I loved. And that was the immediate follow-up to
650
00:31:10.089 --> 00:31:14.109
The Office. The difficult second album. Yes. Yeah. But I
651
00:31:14.170 --> 00:31:18.809
think quite brilliant. And I thought, and that's when I
652
00:31:18.869 --> 00:31:22.450
first got to see you performing and you were hilarious,
653
00:31:23.099 --> 00:31:26.420
a terrible, terrible agent. That's right, yes. Just really the
654
00:31:26.460 --> 00:31:31.619
worst agent in the history of the world and very
655
00:31:31.750 --> 00:31:35.450
thick about everything. And you're looking at me right now
656
00:31:35.890 --> 00:31:40.000
the way you would look Right. Well, and Ricky's character,
657
00:31:40.380 --> 00:31:43.640
which is quite, you're quite certain you're doing just fine.
658
00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:46.309
There was the idea of someone who is utterly hopeless,
659
00:31:46.329 --> 00:31:47.549
but incredibly enthusiastic.
660
00:31:47.589 --> 00:31:48.470
Yes, yeah.
661
00:31:48.569 --> 00:31:50.670
And we always imagined that he'd had his business cards
662
00:31:50.750 --> 00:31:56.650
printed in like a motorway service station. You can get
663
00:31:56.710 --> 00:31:59.130
like 100 for 10 pounds on the way to a
664
00:31:59.329 --> 00:32:05.099
business meeting. He also probably had a part-time job as well.
665
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:08.339
He was an agent in the week and then worked
666
00:32:08.700 --> 00:32:11.200
in a cell phone store at the weekends.
667
00:32:12.130 --> 00:32:14.210
Who could be the worst person to have as an agent?
668
00:32:14.329 --> 00:32:17.130
You got to work with David Bowie. Yes. In a
669
00:32:17.170 --> 00:32:21.160
famous episode of Extras. Yes. And the nature of the
670
00:32:21.220 --> 00:32:23.519
work was you guys actually had to come up with
671
00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:28.960
a song that David Bowie writes for Ricky's character. He
672
00:32:29.019 --> 00:32:32.240
sees Ricky in a bar, I think, and starts to
673
00:32:33.019 --> 00:32:33.920
write a song about him.
674
00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:36.829
Ricky and I actually have, in the sort of music
675
00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:39.589
publishing world, a song co-written.
676
00:32:39.109 --> 00:32:43.049
With David Bowie. That's amazing. Bowie? Bowie. Bowie. Yeah, I'm
677
00:32:43.069 --> 00:32:45.490
still nervous about when I have to say that. Quick,
678
00:32:45.509 --> 00:32:48.069
cut around that. I don't want to embarrass myself in
679
00:32:48.089 --> 00:32:50.609
front of the Bowie fans. He's a pretty well-known singer.
680
00:32:51.369 --> 00:32:53.390
And I've met him, which is also embarrassing. And you
681
00:32:53.410 --> 00:32:59.109
wrote a song with him. This Bowie. Is it Divid? No, David.
682
00:32:59.869 --> 00:33:02.890
But we wrote these lyrics and then we sort of
683
00:33:02.950 --> 00:33:05.420
sent them off. to David Bowie and then he came
684
00:33:05.460 --> 00:33:07.500
back on the day and he'd sort of took us
685
00:33:07.519 --> 00:33:08.839
into a room and there was a piano and he
686
00:33:08.900 --> 00:33:11.380
played us the tune. And it sort of, it was
687
00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:13.009
absolutely extraordinary.
688
00:33:13.029 --> 00:33:15.809
What is it? Funny little fat man? Funny little loser.
689
00:33:15.849 --> 00:33:19.029
Yeah, something like that. And he's supposed to be sort
690
00:33:19.049 --> 00:33:21.589
of composing it, as you say, sort of spontaneously. But,
691
00:33:22.150 --> 00:33:24.009
and it was funny, it was, Ricky had said to him,
692
00:33:24.089 --> 00:33:25.759
he said, what musically, how would you want it to be?
693
00:33:25.779 --> 00:33:28.440
And Ricky said, Ricky said something like, oh, if he
694
00:33:28.460 --> 00:33:29.119
could sort of be like.
695
00:33:29.140 --> 00:33:30.039
You know, like heroes.
696
00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:34.140
And David Bowie himself said, oh, I'll just write another hero,
697
00:33:34.180 --> 00:33:34.519
shall I?
698
00:33:34.599 --> 00:33:39.589
Sure. Give me one of those, would you? You know
699
00:33:39.609 --> 00:33:41.490
that song you did that will endure for all time?
700
00:33:41.529 --> 00:33:43.950
That's right. Another one, please.
701
00:33:44.269 --> 00:33:46.210
But it's funny because when you meet someone like that,
702
00:33:46.230 --> 00:33:48.829
and obviously you've done it throughout your career, there's a
703
00:33:48.950 --> 00:33:53.859
feeling that I've got this one opportunity to fully absorb
704
00:33:54.079 --> 00:33:59.430
their genius and their majesty, and of course you can't
705
00:33:59.490 --> 00:34:02.319
because you're with them for a limited amount of time.
706
00:34:02.710 --> 00:34:05.200
And what can you possibly do to fully understand? But
707
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:07.599
it's like, oh, this is my chance to understand where
708
00:34:07.640 --> 00:34:08.760
his genius comes from.
709
00:34:09.559 --> 00:34:10.099
But you can't.
710
00:34:10.119 --> 00:34:12.280
So you end up just, I mean, oddly enough, I
711
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:15.280
remember talking with David Bowie about reality TV, the show
712
00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:17.260
Big Brother or some show that was on the night before.
713
00:34:17.480 --> 00:34:19.920
I'm thinking, this is a missed opportunity here, isn't it?
714
00:34:20.559 --> 00:34:24.130
What can you do? I had the great pleasure of,
715
00:34:24.260 --> 00:34:26.010
David Bowie came on our show a number of times
716
00:34:26.090 --> 00:34:28.489
and he was very funny. One of the highlights of
717
00:34:28.530 --> 00:34:30.510
my life was meeting him, but I always realized there's
718
00:34:30.630 --> 00:34:34.010
no way I can convey to this man what he
719
00:34:34.050 --> 00:34:37.530
means to me. And I've had that experience with McCartney
720
00:34:37.630 --> 00:34:42.300
and Bowie, Elvis Costello, where I find myself chatting with them.
721
00:34:42.980 --> 00:34:46.179
There's nothing I can do. It's a frustrating feeling to,
722
00:34:46.519 --> 00:34:48.619
because they've heard it all. You know what I mean?
723
00:34:48.659 --> 00:34:52.880
They've heard, yes, yes, I mean the world to you.
724
00:34:52.940 --> 00:34:55.039
And music changed your life. It's a longer story.
725
00:34:55.059 --> 00:34:56.500
I don't have time to explain the whole thing. But
726
00:34:56.539 --> 00:34:59.059
I ended up once at a party at Mick Jagger's
727
00:34:59.079 --> 00:35:01.000
house that I did not know I was going to.
728
00:35:01.159 --> 00:35:03.860
I showed up at a door and Mick Jagger opened.
729
00:35:03.880 --> 00:35:06.059
I was going to a Thanksgiving dinner that my friend said,
730
00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:07.519
do you want to come to this Thanksgiving dinner? She
731
00:35:07.579 --> 00:35:10.219
neglected to mention it was at Mick Jagger's house. Well, that's,
732
00:35:10.239 --> 00:35:13.329
first of all, that's not a good phrase. Anyway, so
733
00:35:13.510 --> 00:35:15.670
we were there and it was a very interesting evening.
734
00:35:15.710 --> 00:35:18.150
But at the end of the evening, he was suffering
735
00:35:18.170 --> 00:35:20.650
from jet lag because he'd just come back from the States.
736
00:35:20.670 --> 00:35:22.570
So the parties were wrapped up a little early and
737
00:35:22.630 --> 00:35:24.320
we were waiting for cars and cabs and things. And
738
00:35:24.340 --> 00:35:26.920
I found myself stood at the door with Mick Jagger,
739
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:28.579
just me and Mick. And I was like, this is
740
00:35:28.619 --> 00:35:30.840
the moment. I'm here with him now. I can ask
741
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:33.440
him anything about the writing of Exile on Main Street.
742
00:35:33.909 --> 00:35:36.090
And my only question was, oh.
743
00:35:37.190 --> 00:35:42.440
Jet lag. Have you found any way to combat jet lag?
744
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:44.449
And that was the end of it. That was my
745
00:35:44.489 --> 00:35:51.849
chance to ask him anything. You cracked it. I blame
746
00:35:51.869 --> 00:35:56.250
your friend who didn't tell you ahead of time. I
747
00:35:56.349 --> 00:35:59.489
was in a car once a number of years ago
748
00:35:59.530 --> 00:36:01.300
with somebody and we were on our way to a
749
00:36:01.340 --> 00:36:06.820
baseball game. And this person said, we're going to stop off.
750
00:36:06.840 --> 00:36:08.789
There was a driver. And I was sitting in the
751
00:36:08.829 --> 00:36:10.670
front seat and this person was sitting in the back.
752
00:36:11.050 --> 00:36:12.269
So he says, we're going to pick up a friend
753
00:36:12.389 --> 00:36:16.090
along the way. So I say, fine, no problem. We
754
00:36:16.110 --> 00:36:20.489
drive along. We stop. Jack Nicholson. Wow. Oh my goodness.
755
00:36:20.530 --> 00:36:23.519
And Jack Nicholson gets in the car and I was enraged.
756
00:36:23.539 --> 00:36:26.539
Of course. Because I'm not a fan. No, sure. And
757
00:36:26.579 --> 00:36:28.480
this is taking time. We might be late for the
758
00:36:28.519 --> 00:36:31.159
ball game now. That's right. Did I take the wrong
759
00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:33.420
tact here? Yeah. No one saw you going that way.
760
00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:38.250
I was just mad that I didn't. Yeah. So what,
761
00:36:38.289 --> 00:36:40.329
did you get any sense of Jack? Because that's the thing,
762
00:36:40.369 --> 00:36:42.530
isn't it? You somehow want to understand the essence of them.
763
00:36:42.630 --> 00:36:46.900
What I understood was he was very highly intelligent and
764
00:36:46.960 --> 00:36:49.699
he knew how to be a movie star. Yeah. And
765
00:36:49.780 --> 00:36:51.739
I've never been more anonymous in my life. I'd been
766
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:53.440
doing the late night show for about 10 years at
767
00:36:53.480 --> 00:36:56.860
that point. And we walked into this Yankee game and
768
00:36:57.639 --> 00:37:01.170
I was walking behind him. Nobody saw me. Yeah, yeah.
769
00:37:01.190 --> 00:37:04.530
I was completely anonymous. If you want to be invisible-
770
00:37:05.010 --> 00:37:08.699
walk within five feet of Jack Nicholson. But he was
771
00:37:08.840 --> 00:37:12.159
absolutely great. He was fantastic. And kind of in this old,
772
00:37:12.219 --> 00:37:14.570
like almost Humphrey Bogart way, knew how to be a
773
00:37:14.590 --> 00:37:16.650
big star. Yeah. Had been a big star for so
774
00:37:16.690 --> 00:37:18.969
long and kind of handled it with ease and panache.
775
00:37:19.230 --> 00:37:21.429
But I'm interested in that as well because you've met
776
00:37:21.949 --> 00:37:24.019
a myriad of very famous people, many of whom I'm
777
00:37:24.059 --> 00:37:27.380
sure you are deeply respectful of. When you're meeting someone socially,
778
00:37:27.400 --> 00:37:30.260
even before you were well-known, did you always have a
779
00:37:30.280 --> 00:37:33.800
self-confidence about meeting someone? Did you ever find yourself tongue-tied
780
00:37:33.880 --> 00:37:34.639
or awkward.
781
00:37:34.420 --> 00:37:38.429
Or in awe? You know, it's odd. The better answer
782
00:37:38.469 --> 00:37:40.730
would be like, oh, I'd be so tongue-tied. And the
783
00:37:40.769 --> 00:37:44.610
truth is that I wasn't. Even when I was very
784
00:37:44.670 --> 00:37:48.510
young and working at SNL and very famous people would
785
00:37:48.550 --> 00:37:50.670
come in the room. I I don't know why. I
786
00:37:50.710 --> 00:37:54.170
was very comfortable screwing around with them pretty quickly. And
787
00:37:54.190 --> 00:37:58.659
I don't know why. Arrogance? Is it sheer arrogance? I
788
00:37:58.679 --> 00:38:03.539
think it's arrogance. I think it's a little bit of sociopathy.
789
00:38:06.630 --> 00:38:09.530
But was it also that you.
790
00:38:09.570 --> 00:38:13.170
Were you not impressed by something? Oh, God, no. I
791
00:38:13.210 --> 00:38:16.250
was very much. I was very... I mean, I remember
792
00:38:16.329 --> 00:38:19.730
exactly where I was standing when I was first told,
793
00:38:19.789 --> 00:38:23.070
go into that room and pitch Steve Martin an idea.
794
00:38:23.570 --> 00:38:29.900
And I'm a 24-year-old vagabond, and he's the greatest comedian
795
00:38:30.179 --> 00:38:31.059
who changed my life.
796
00:38:31.079 --> 00:38:35.559
Because I always get still slightly– I think there's an
797
00:38:35.659 --> 00:38:39.690
anxiety about, I don't know, saying the wrong thing somehow.
798
00:38:39.710 --> 00:38:39.829
Yeah.
799
00:38:40.139 --> 00:38:41.829
I was at a, you mentioned Paul McCartney, I was
800
00:38:41.909 --> 00:38:44.769
at an event, it was an Oscars event that I wasn't,
801
00:38:44.949 --> 00:38:47.329
I just, again, wind up at this party again.
802
00:38:47.349 --> 00:38:49.150
Someone said. Someone said, come to this party, we won't
803
00:38:49.170 --> 00:38:51.409
tell you anything about it. Was it always Thanksgiving? I'm
804
00:38:51.429 --> 00:38:54.550
going to a Thanksgiving party. Oh, it's the Oscars. No,
805
00:38:54.590 --> 00:38:54.840
it wasn't.
806
00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:56.900
It was like, it was for a movie that must've
807
00:38:56.920 --> 00:38:58.480
been nominated. And I was there, some friend of a
808
00:38:58.500 --> 00:38:58.860
friend of a friend.
809
00:38:58.880 --> 00:38:59.460
Anyway, I'm there.
810
00:38:59.739 --> 00:39:02.320
And as you mentioned before, I'm six foot seven. and
811
00:39:02.380 --> 00:39:04.420
so tend to be, you know, a foot and a
812
00:39:04.460 --> 00:39:06.519
half or whatever, much like you, above everybody else. So
813
00:39:06.599 --> 00:39:08.440
I tend to be seen and can see the rest
814
00:39:08.460 --> 00:39:11.360
of the party. And I saw Paul McCartney walking around
815
00:39:11.539 --> 00:39:14.360
the room and our eyes met. And at the time,
816
00:39:14.389 --> 00:39:16.590
my show Hello Ladies, which was about dating, was on.
817
00:39:16.769 --> 00:39:18.409
And he saw me and he kind of went, and
818
00:39:18.429 --> 00:39:20.150
he came towards me. And I was with my friend Danny.
819
00:39:20.170 --> 00:39:21.929
I thought, Christ, it's Paul McCartney coming.
820
00:39:22.269 --> 00:39:23.630
He's coming over. What are we going to talk about?
821
00:39:23.929 --> 00:39:26.909
It's fucking Paul McCartney, for Christ's sake. And I was sweating.
822
00:39:26.929 --> 00:39:27.989
I was just sort of, what am I going to
823
00:39:28.090 --> 00:39:30.039
say to Paul McCartney? It's like, again, and he came
824
00:39:30.099 --> 00:39:33.280
over and, um, and he said, uh, oh, hello, Stephen, uh, uh,
825
00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:35.820
looking for the ladies? I was like, oh, I said, always,
826
00:39:35.860 --> 00:39:36.639
Sir Paul, always.
827
00:39:36.679 --> 00:39:39.400
Yeah. And he was with his wife and I was thinking,
828
00:39:39.420 --> 00:39:40.880
and it was a bit noisy as well. So it's
829
00:39:40.920 --> 00:39:43.739
like hard to hear. And, um, And we just sort of,
830
00:39:43.800 --> 00:39:44.519
it sort of went quiet.
831
00:39:44.539 --> 00:39:46.250
I thought, is it my turn? Do I say something now?
832
00:39:47.039 --> 00:39:50.059
And he said, oh, it must be difficult, you know,
833
00:39:50.079 --> 00:39:51.599
being that. So I spotted you from across the room,
834
00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:54.340
you know. And I remembered this story, which I told
835
00:39:54.500 --> 00:39:56.940
in the past about when I was at a New
836
00:39:56.960 --> 00:39:59.360
Year's event once. It was Trafalgar Square. And at Trafalgar Square,
837
00:39:59.409 --> 00:40:01.679
like Times Square, at New Year, there are thousands of
838
00:40:01.719 --> 00:40:03.050
people there. They all gather and it gets very kind
839
00:40:03.070 --> 00:40:05.809
of packed. And I was there and it was coming
840
00:40:05.829 --> 00:40:07.969
up to midnight and two women came over to me
841
00:40:08.010 --> 00:40:09.929
and they said, are you going to be here for
842
00:40:09.969 --> 00:40:10.309
a while?
843
00:40:10.829 --> 00:40:13.530
And I said, oh. Yes, I am. I thought, here
844
00:40:13.550 --> 00:40:15.909
we go. They've spotted Steve. I said, yeah, I am
845
00:40:15.929 --> 00:40:16.730
going to be here for a while.
846
00:40:16.750 --> 00:40:20.369
They went, great, because my friends and I have arranged
847
00:40:20.489 --> 00:40:25.969
to meet back at you. And I swear to God,
848
00:40:26.090 --> 00:40:29.170
about two minutes past midnight, the girls came back and
849
00:40:29.190 --> 00:40:32.679
a bunch of friends and they started gathering around me.
850
00:40:33.739 --> 00:40:36.579
Oh, my God. You're a lamppost. You're a lamppost.
851
00:40:36.599 --> 00:40:40.099
This is Trafalgar Square that has Nelson's Column and other
852
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:43.360
well-known landmarks, but they thought Ohio was the obvious one. Anyway,
853
00:40:43.400 --> 00:40:44.460
so they all came out, and I thought, well, they're
854
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:45.949
at least going to invite me to a party or
855
00:40:45.969 --> 00:40:48.769
some such. No, they just drifted off into the night. Anyway,
856
00:40:48.809 --> 00:40:51.869
I told Sir Paul this story, but again, the music's
857
00:40:51.889 --> 00:40:54.929
a little loud, and I'm thinking, and it's quite complicated.
858
00:40:55.070 --> 00:40:57.849
And anyway, I finish the story, and it just goes quiet,
859
00:40:57.869 --> 00:41:01.730
and I'm thinking, And then he started laughing.
860
00:41:02.289 --> 00:41:03.889
I thought, thank God. And he laughed. He was nice
861
00:41:03.929 --> 00:41:06.619
and hearty. Anyway, he said, anyway, better mingle. And off
862
00:41:06.659 --> 00:41:08.960
he went. And I thought that was the best it
863
00:41:08.980 --> 00:41:10.780
could have gone. Yes. You know what I mean? He
864
00:41:10.820 --> 00:41:13.239
came over. I told him a funny story. He left.
865
00:41:13.590 --> 00:41:16.389
That was it. And I was just so relieved that
866
00:41:16.409 --> 00:41:17.690
I'd met this icon. But if he had really liked it,
867
00:41:17.730 --> 00:41:21.269
he wouldn't have said better mingle. No, I'm sorry. Why
868
00:41:21.329 --> 00:41:23.789
are you ruining this for him? I think Paul thought
869
00:41:23.809 --> 00:41:25.750
it was fine. Oh, God. I don't have to come,
870
00:41:25.769 --> 00:41:30.179
Sir Paul. I'm an American and a proud American. It's
871
00:41:30.199 --> 00:41:33.539
the quick better mingle. You know, that would have me worried.
872
00:41:33.800 --> 00:41:36.400
I've always thought it went well. No, you're right. You
873
00:41:36.440 --> 00:41:38.199
put it in perspective again. No, no, no. Trust me.
874
00:41:38.320 --> 00:41:42.380
Better mingle was my catchphrase. I've talked to Paul about this.
875
00:41:43.260 --> 00:41:44.539
Do you ever use Better Mingle?
876
00:41:46.019 --> 00:41:48.500
I heard a great one once, which was, we did
877
00:41:48.539 --> 00:41:50.780
a charity thing and Bono, my old dear friend with
878
00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:53.900
the hat, Bono was there. Anyway, my friends were having
879
00:41:53.940 --> 00:41:55.880
a baby and they're big YouTube fans. And I said,
880
00:41:55.940 --> 00:41:57.280
and I very rarely do this, but I said, would
881
00:41:57.320 --> 00:41:59.110
you sign this card for my friends?
882
00:41:59.119 --> 00:42:00.489
They're having a baby. They're huge fans.
883
00:42:00.510 --> 00:42:02.309
And he's very sweet. And he wrote a little message
884
00:42:02.690 --> 00:42:04.010
and he gave me the card. It was very nice
885
00:42:04.030 --> 00:42:05.809
of him. And I said, okay, well, see you later.
886
00:42:06.110 --> 00:42:09.530
And he went, see you down the road. And I thought,
887
00:42:09.550 --> 00:42:11.190
what a clever line, because I bet there's a lot
888
00:42:11.230 --> 00:42:12.849
of people that want to hang out with Bono. So
889
00:42:12.869 --> 00:42:14.389
if they say, see you later, and he goes, see
890
00:42:14.409 --> 00:42:14.909
you later, they.
891
00:42:14.829 --> 00:42:16.789
Could go, well, when? Let's get the diaries out and
892
00:42:16.809 --> 00:42:18.849
start thrashing out some dates. And he can say, see
893
00:42:18.869 --> 00:42:19.349
you down the road.
894
00:42:19.369 --> 00:42:20.969
But see you down the road is like, I look
895
00:42:21.050 --> 00:42:23.590
forward to our next acquaintanceship, but I'm not going to
896
00:42:23.969 --> 00:42:24.530
make any plans.
897
00:42:24.809 --> 00:42:30.329
It's also a little ominous. I'll see you down the road. Well,
898
00:42:30.349 --> 00:42:32.230
if you say it in that voice, it's ominous, yeah.
899
00:42:32.510 --> 00:42:34.250
I suppose if you say, no, there are plenty of
900
00:42:34.269 --> 00:42:35.829
things I could say in that voice that wouldn't say,
901
00:42:36.190 --> 00:42:39.230
have a cookie. No, that's creepy. Yeah, it could be
902
00:42:39.269 --> 00:42:43.820
something in the- Better mingle. It's also terrifying. Did Paul's
903
00:42:43.860 --> 00:42:47.530
face go completely flat when he went, better mingle? Then
904
00:42:47.550 --> 00:42:50.719
you realize. I want to make sure that I talk
905
00:42:51.179 --> 00:42:54.280
to you about your new program, which I'm really enjoying,
906
00:42:54.639 --> 00:42:57.119
called The Outlaws. Because this is a show that you
907
00:42:57.579 --> 00:43:00.340
wrote this show, you're in the show, and you direct
908
00:43:00.380 --> 00:43:02.019
the show. Is that correct? I direct two, three of
909
00:43:02.059 --> 00:43:06.800
the first six episodes. Yeah. Okay. And terrific cast- And then,
910
00:43:06.960 --> 00:43:08.659
I don't know how you did this, you have Christopher
911
00:43:08.699 --> 00:43:11.960
Walken in this, who's brilliant, by the way, and hilarious
912
00:43:12.119 --> 00:43:15.469
in the show, playing this fantastic character. I don't know
913
00:43:15.510 --> 00:43:18.030
how you snagged him. I mean, yes, you're Stephen Merchant,
914
00:43:18.070 --> 00:43:20.690
but that's still, that's quite a get. It is a get.
915
00:43:20.869 --> 00:43:23.210
And he doesn't, as you may know, have a cell
916
00:43:23.230 --> 00:43:25.989
phone or a computer, and he's quite hard to get
917
00:43:26.030 --> 00:43:28.650
in touch with. And I think somehow we faxed him
918
00:43:29.199 --> 00:43:31.639
the script, old school, and he read it, and he
919
00:43:31.820 --> 00:43:33.900
asked me to come up to Connecticut, where he lives,
920
00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:35.949
to have a meeting with him. And, you know, we've
921
00:43:35.969 --> 00:43:39.130
already explained my nervousness around meeting Big Star.
922
00:43:39.170 --> 00:43:40.090
So I kind of am.
923
00:43:40.030 --> 00:43:42.489
Approaching the house and he's got this sort of house
924
00:43:42.510 --> 00:43:43.730
and it's sort of in the middle of this sort
925
00:43:43.750 --> 00:43:46.320
of wooded area. And I was quite intimidated. I was like,
926
00:43:46.360 --> 00:43:47.920
who's going to open the door? It's either going to
927
00:43:47.940 --> 00:43:50.639
be Christopher Walken or the Unabomber. You know, I was
928
00:43:50.659 --> 00:43:54.099
like quite sort of nervous. And open the door and
929
00:43:54.239 --> 00:43:57.119
it's Christopher Walken, you know. And I wish I could
930
00:43:57.139 --> 00:43:58.260
do an impression of him. But the first thing he
931
00:43:58.280 --> 00:44:01.949
said to me was, would you like some of this omelette?
932
00:44:02.429 --> 00:44:09.909
And... And I said, sure. Thank you, Chris. You put
933
00:44:09.929 --> 00:44:11.550
the spaces in the correct, you don't need to do
934
00:44:11.570 --> 00:44:14.090
the impression if you, you spaced it correctly. Can you
935
00:44:14.110 --> 00:44:16.190
do an impression? I don't think I can, you know.
936
00:44:16.489 --> 00:44:19.449
Would you? It's hard, isn't it? I'm not even gonna try.
937
00:44:19.469 --> 00:44:22.289
It's hard, and you have to have, I mean, Jay
938
00:44:22.309 --> 00:44:25.929
Moore does the best Christopher Walken I've ever heard. But
939
00:44:26.030 --> 00:44:29.300
my God, it's such a specific impression. Very specific. And
940
00:44:29.429 --> 00:44:32.699
also it's the rising and falling in the wrong places.
941
00:44:32.739 --> 00:44:35.480
That's right. That makes him.
942
00:44:35.519 --> 00:44:37.739
Well, so I go in and I have some of
943
00:44:37.780 --> 00:44:39.559
his very fluffy omelette. Would you like an omelette?
944
00:44:39.599 --> 00:44:39.880
Yeah.
945
00:44:40.469 --> 00:44:42.630
And we sit there and there's no one else in
946
00:44:42.650 --> 00:44:45.250
the house. And we sit there and someone had told
947
00:44:45.269 --> 00:44:49.230
me beforehand, Christopher is very comfortable with silence. And it's
948
00:44:49.250 --> 00:44:52.409
because he's a very thoughtful man, very sort of contemplative man.
949
00:44:52.880 --> 00:44:54.320
And so he would ask me a question about the
950
00:44:54.340 --> 00:44:55.980
show and I would answer and he'd just go quiet.
951
00:44:57.039 --> 00:44:59.000
Just sort of look out the window. And then he
952
00:44:59.019 --> 00:45:00.840
asked me something else and I'd answer and he'd go quiet.
953
00:45:01.480 --> 00:45:04.500
And it was like having a Zoom conversation in person.
954
00:45:04.679 --> 00:45:06.719
Yes. You know what I mean? There was a lag. Yeah,
955
00:45:06.739 --> 00:45:08.349
there was a lag. I never, I wasn't quite sure
956
00:45:08.369 --> 00:45:09.469
if he was thinking or buffering.
957
00:45:10.239 --> 00:45:14.260
And I was there I was there three and a
958
00:45:14.280 --> 00:45:16.039
half hours by hour three I was so weak from
959
00:45:16.079 --> 00:45:19.280
hunger I said any of that omelette left and he
960
00:45:19.300 --> 00:45:21.550
had so many questions and they were really they were
961
00:45:21.590 --> 00:45:23.829
really kind of perceptive about the script and about the
962
00:45:23.869 --> 00:45:25.409
character and about people he knew that were like the
963
00:45:25.449 --> 00:45:27.750
character and I'm I think he was just sort of
964
00:45:28.070 --> 00:45:30.050
getting to know me and thinking do I trust this
965
00:45:30.110 --> 00:45:31.849
guy and does he have the answers to my questions
966
00:45:31.909 --> 00:45:33.510
and by the end of it I felt like a
967
00:45:33.550 --> 00:45:35.889
real kind of connection with him and an affinity with
968
00:45:35.929 --> 00:45:38.880
him and then miraculously he came to the UK to
969
00:45:38.889 --> 00:45:39.440
shoot the show.
970
00:45:39.789 --> 00:45:42.750
And what's nice is you're shooting this in Bristol. It
971
00:45:42.789 --> 00:45:45.510
takes place in Bristol, which is your hometown. I mean,
972
00:45:45.530 --> 00:45:47.340
I would think you're running into people you grew up
973
00:45:47.400 --> 00:45:49.559
with who'd love to play an extra, who'd love to
974
00:45:49.579 --> 00:45:50.380
be on the show.
975
00:45:50.420 --> 00:45:52.039
Well, the funny thing is that the show is about
976
00:45:52.079 --> 00:45:54.900
people doing community service. And when I was growing up,
977
00:45:54.940 --> 00:45:59.000
my parents were involved with community service in Bristol. They
978
00:46:00.059 --> 00:46:02.389
supervised the offenders. They themselves weren't criminals I mean they
979
00:46:02.409 --> 00:46:05.789
did I think a couple of bank heists after that
980
00:46:05.809 --> 00:46:08.690
they went straight but my mum used to have people
981
00:46:08.769 --> 00:46:11.530
coming through the ranks that I went to school with
982
00:46:12.139 --> 00:46:14.179
so there was one kid called Dave who was the
983
00:46:14.219 --> 00:46:17.760
world's laziest thief who would always be coming back through
984
00:46:17.820 --> 00:46:18.880
and my mum would be like what have you done
985
00:46:18.900 --> 00:46:21.300
this time Dave and he's like well I broke into
986
00:46:21.340 --> 00:46:23.909
a house and And I was stealing the TV and
987
00:46:23.929 --> 00:46:26.710
the homeowners came back and they said, what are you doing, Dave?
988
00:46:26.929 --> 00:46:28.309
And I said, I'm not Dave. And they went, yeah,
989
00:46:28.329 --> 00:46:29.510
you are. You live next door.
990
00:46:29.530 --> 00:46:33.289
And he's like, literally just gone into his neighbor's house.
991
00:46:33.389 --> 00:46:35.630
He didn't want to walk a block over.
992
00:46:36.849 --> 00:46:39.289
And so my mom would tell me about people like
993
00:46:39.309 --> 00:46:41.230
Dave or about these other people that would come through
994
00:46:41.250 --> 00:46:42.929
the doors. And I just thought, what an interesting backdrop.
995
00:46:43.659 --> 00:46:44.179
For a story.
996
00:46:44.199 --> 00:46:46.280
And then ironically, when I was shooting the show, I
997
00:46:46.300 --> 00:46:49.039
went for dinner in Bristol's fanciest restaurant. And I only
998
00:46:49.059 --> 00:46:50.780
got a reservation because I'm on TV. And he was
999
00:46:50.800 --> 00:46:51.739
in there having a meal with his family.
1000
00:46:51.960 --> 00:46:54.699
Fucking Dave. I was like, how did he get a
1001
00:46:54.699 --> 00:46:56.650
fucking reservation? And on the way out, I said to
1002
00:46:56.670 --> 00:46:58.610
the maitre d', you better count the cutlery on the.
1003
00:46:58.570 --> 00:47:02.010
Way because this guy, I had the last laugh.
1004
00:47:02.150 --> 00:47:04.889
That must be nice to go back to your hometown
1005
00:47:04.949 --> 00:47:07.980
and And make a show? Yeah, but I thought there'd
1006
00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:09.780
be a ticker tape parade when I got back. So
1007
00:47:09.800 --> 00:47:10.219
there was nothing.
1008
00:47:10.239 --> 00:47:11.699
I think it's because there was COVID. That's the only
1009
00:47:11.739 --> 00:47:14.199
reason I could assume that there was no ticker tape parade.
1010
00:47:14.579 --> 00:47:16.940
But it was nice. It was just we were shooting
1011
00:47:16.960 --> 00:47:19.380
in COVID and it was very tough. So you didn't
1012
00:47:19.400 --> 00:47:21.469
really get to socialize or to go out or to
1013
00:47:21.679 --> 00:47:23.429
visit restaurants or to see people you knew. It was
1014
00:47:23.510 --> 00:47:26.389
sort of frustrating in a way. And you just lived
1015
00:47:26.429 --> 00:47:29.590
in constant fear that, you know, 78-year-old Christopher Walken was
1016
00:47:29.610 --> 00:47:30.969
going to get COVID on your watch.
1017
00:47:31.250 --> 00:47:31.489
Yeah.
1018
00:47:31.650 --> 00:47:34.510
And you're just like sweating. It's like my main character
1019
00:47:34.530 --> 00:47:37.130
is going to, It's like being in Squid Game. You
1020
00:47:37.210 --> 00:47:38.829
never know who's going to go next.
1021
00:47:40.739 --> 00:47:45.099
Your Squid Game is making a television show with Christopher
1022
00:47:45.119 --> 00:47:49.500
Walken in Bristol. It's pretty much the same thing. Now,
1023
00:47:49.519 --> 00:47:51.559
do you have a proper sized writer's room or is
1024
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:53.500
this a UK writer's room of like two of you?
1025
00:47:53.659 --> 00:47:56.780
There was about five of us, five or six of us.
1026
00:47:56.920 --> 00:48:00.909
So it's not bad. It's pretty good for England. pretty
1027
00:48:00.969 --> 00:48:01.909
sizable for england.
1028
00:48:01.909 --> 00:48:04.829
Has it changed much uh the the tv writing industry
1029
00:48:04.949 --> 00:48:08.309
in britain has it become more in the hollywood mold
1030
00:48:08.409 --> 00:48:11.599
or is it still uh there's there's less money in
1031
00:48:11.659 --> 00:48:12.820
it there's a lot.
1032
00:48:12.659 --> 00:48:16.119
Less money but there is increasingly partnerships i think with
1033
00:48:16.179 --> 00:48:18.599
people like amazon so this originated with the bbc and
1034
00:48:18.619 --> 00:48:20.840
then and then became a co-production with amazon and so
1035
00:48:20.880 --> 00:48:23.110
i think there's now a lot of things with netflix
1036
00:48:23.159 --> 00:48:25.329
and the bbc or other so there's i think a
1037
00:48:28.679 --> 00:48:30.250
That helps, but I worry that it's going to sort of,
1038
00:48:30.380 --> 00:48:31.659
that you're going to get these demands. Not that we
1039
00:48:31.679 --> 00:48:32.960
had it with this, but you're going to get demands
1040
00:48:33.019 --> 00:48:36.260
about sort of kind of ironing out the regional specifics.
1041
00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:37.260
Do you know what I mean?
1042
00:48:37.300 --> 00:48:38.750
So that we're going to be British, but sort of
1043
00:48:38.809 --> 00:48:41.469
referring to our dear, beloved President Biden.
1044
00:48:41.489 --> 00:48:44.090
You know what I mean? An effort to appeal to.
1045
00:48:44.230 --> 00:48:49.849
I did find that to be a very odd episode. Yeah,
1046
00:48:49.869 --> 00:48:53.199
that's an interesting thing as TV becomes really global. Yeah, right.
1047
00:48:53.219 --> 00:48:54.920
I mean, it is global now. It used to be
1048
00:48:55.480 --> 00:48:58.989
the pythons weren't worried about. That's it. anything other than
1049
00:48:59.070 --> 00:49:01.449
let's just hope uh we get to to do.
1050
00:49:01.409 --> 00:49:03.170
Another season someone told me someone told me about that
1051
00:49:03.210 --> 00:49:05.699
show sex education that's made in the uk but apparently
1052
00:49:06.139 --> 00:49:08.739
they've sort of been encouraged to make it quite so
1053
00:49:08.760 --> 00:49:10.480
it's sort of a portrait of a school but it
1054
00:49:10.860 --> 00:49:13.989
has lockers and elements that don't seem as familiar to
1055
00:49:14.219 --> 00:49:16.889
british people as they would to americans It almost feels
1056
00:49:16.909 --> 00:49:18.360
like an American high school in England.
1057
00:49:18.449 --> 00:49:20.239
Oh, what? I haven't seen it, so I don't want
1058
00:49:20.260 --> 00:49:23.440
to disrespect the show. No, no, no. I do think
1059
00:49:23.539 --> 00:49:26.480
that there's going to be more and more economic pressure
1060
00:49:27.039 --> 00:49:30.420
for everyone's shows. I mean, look at how it's changed
1061
00:49:30.440 --> 00:49:32.880
the movie industry. You're looking at The Fast and the Furious.
1062
00:49:33.679 --> 00:49:36.179
People will line up and go see it anywhere. It
1063
00:49:36.219 --> 00:49:39.010
doesn't matter. You don't even have to speak English. You
1064
00:49:39.030 --> 00:49:41.590
don't have to know what the dialogue is to like
1065
00:49:41.650 --> 00:49:45.590
these fast cars and Vin Diesel grimacing. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
1066
00:49:45.610 --> 00:49:47.309
By the way, I thought the last Fast and Furious
1067
00:49:47.329 --> 00:49:50.190
was absolutely fantastic. I took my son to see that
1068
00:49:50.449 --> 00:49:52.710
because I said, you need to understand the Fast and
1069
00:49:52.730 --> 00:49:55.849
the Furious franchise. And so I drove him to a theater,
1070
00:49:56.230 --> 00:50:00.050
watched it. And afterwards he said, I understand now. I understand.
1071
00:50:00.070 --> 00:50:02.699
In a good way? Or was he pro or- Well,
1072
00:50:02.860 --> 00:50:04.969
he's like me. I'm not going to say I'm pro.
1073
00:50:05.969 --> 00:50:08.889
Surely the filmmakers know that this is silly and fun
1074
00:50:08.909 --> 00:50:10.550
and joyous. I think the filmmakers know that. I think
1075
00:50:10.590 --> 00:50:12.409
some of the people involved may not know that. That's
1076
00:50:12.429 --> 00:50:16.659
not my concern. I'm just enjoying it. I'm just sat
1077
00:50:16.679 --> 00:50:18.820
there in the audience having a whale of a time.
1078
00:50:19.320 --> 00:50:21.099
I want you to walk up to Vin Diesel and say,
1079
00:50:21.139 --> 00:50:25.530
I just love, what a silly ironic romp. See how
1080
00:50:25.550 --> 00:50:28.070
that goes over. I'll tell you how that's going to
1081
00:50:28.110 --> 00:50:32.639
go over. Well, listen, this has been, I truly, you're
1082
00:50:32.679 --> 00:50:35.300
on my short list of, Stephen, of people that I've
1083
00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:38.880
just been delighted to talk to because- Thank you so much. No, seriously.
1084
00:50:38.900 --> 00:50:44.079
It's been a real pleasure. I love your work and
1085
00:50:44.539 --> 00:50:48.090
your ethos. And I like the way you have presented
1086
00:50:48.110 --> 00:50:51.210
yourself comedic leader of the world, and I'm a big fan.
1087
00:50:51.269 --> 00:50:52.329
So thanks for doing this.
1088
00:50:52.409 --> 00:50:53.690
Thank you so much. And I feel the same way
1089
00:50:53.710 --> 00:50:55.510
about you. So it's a real honor and pleasure to
1090
00:50:55.530 --> 00:50:55.750
be here.
1091
00:50:55.789 --> 00:50:57.889
Thank you, guys. Oh, good. So you're amending how you
1092
00:50:57.949 --> 00:51:02.059
began with the whole Conan O'Brien feel overqualified. Do you
1093
00:51:02.099 --> 00:51:02.420
know what?
1094
00:51:02.440 --> 00:51:04.199
I genuinely, I don't mean this in a way that
1095
00:51:04.260 --> 00:51:09.090
is sort of self-pitying. I've always assumed people don't need
1096
00:51:09.119 --> 00:51:11.690
me as a friend. It's not a lack of... It's
1097
00:51:11.710 --> 00:51:14.050
not sort of an insecurity. I just think people can
1098
00:51:14.070 --> 00:51:16.550
survive without me. They don't need me in their life.
1099
00:51:16.710 --> 00:51:18.730
I've always felt that way. I agree with you 100%.
1100
00:51:18.730 --> 00:51:18.849
I feel.
1101
00:51:21.190 --> 00:51:24.349
That I might be a nice bonus, but that I'm
1102
00:51:24.469 --> 00:51:28.250
not crucial. I'm a seat filler. If you need someone,
1103
00:51:28.289 --> 00:51:30.309
I'm a perfect, I'm a great dinner guest. No, no, no,
1104
00:51:30.349 --> 00:51:32.070
this is how we feel about ourselves. I'm not saying
1105
00:51:32.110 --> 00:51:34.030
it's true. I mean, in Steven's case, it may be.
1106
00:51:34.050 --> 00:51:40.480
But look, I can't help Steven with his problems. I
1107
00:51:40.500 --> 00:51:42.539
just tried to relate to him, but no, I don't
1108
00:51:42.559 --> 00:51:45.280
feel that way at all. I think I'm absolutely essential.
1109
00:51:45.719 --> 00:51:47.599
And I think a world without me is not a world.
1110
00:51:47.940 --> 00:51:51.260
I think the minute I die, all existence ends. You're
1111
00:51:51.340 --> 00:51:53.949
just in my imagination, Stephen, and that's why you exist.
1112
00:51:54.329 --> 00:51:58.179
And on that note, thank you for joining us.
1113
00:51:58.190 --> 00:52:00.750
Conan O'Brien does not need friends. I don't need anybody.
1114
00:52:01.530 --> 00:52:03.210
Screw all of you. Thank you.
1115
00:52:08.880 --> 00:52:10.940
Let's do Review the Reviewers. We haven't done that in
1116
00:52:10.960 --> 00:52:13.860
a while. It's where I sort of comb through the
1117
00:52:14.260 --> 00:52:19.679
sometimes blisteringly positive reviews on Apple podcasts and find some
1118
00:52:19.719 --> 00:52:20.489
that are worth mentioning.
1119
00:52:20.510 --> 00:52:22.710
I do like to know what the people are thinking.
1120
00:52:22.989 --> 00:52:25.610
I don't want anyone- No, you don't. I do, actually.
1121
00:52:25.630 --> 00:52:27.489
I have people approach me on the street all the
1122
00:52:27.510 --> 00:52:28.949
time and talk to me about the podcast, and I
1123
00:52:28.989 --> 00:52:31.210
do enjoy that. But this is a chance for me
1124
00:52:31.309 --> 00:52:36.579
to get outside my little bubble and find out how
1125
00:52:36.599 --> 00:52:37.280
people really feel.
1126
00:52:37.579 --> 00:52:40.309
Well, this one is- kind of carrying on a theme
1127
00:52:40.349 --> 00:52:42.699
that I'm starting to notice or a pattern. And I
1128
00:52:42.780 --> 00:52:44.920
think we might want to address it. This is similar
1129
00:52:44.960 --> 00:52:48.480
to one we've had before. The subject is Conan Cool.
1130
00:52:48.900 --> 00:52:52.860
It's five stars and it's written by Ig De Yeet.
1131
00:52:53.420 --> 00:52:56.139
And it goes like this, Conan and the Chill Chumps
1132
00:52:56.619 --> 00:52:59.980
are cool! Exclamation mark. By the way, I'm 11 and
1133
00:53:00.019 --> 00:53:03.769
I listen slash watch you. Exclamation mark. That's like the
1134
00:53:03.909 --> 00:53:06.730
third 10 or 11 year old we've had leave a
1135
00:53:06.750 --> 00:53:08.900
review saying, they listen to this show.
1136
00:53:09.159 --> 00:53:11.280
I want to say that that fills my heart with
1137
00:53:11.320 --> 00:53:15.300
glee because I've always thought that my target audience was
1138
00:53:15.369 --> 00:53:20.309
about 11. And I think that this is proof that
1139
00:53:21.610 --> 00:53:25.409
I'm correct. My whole career, I've always thought there are
1140
00:53:25.429 --> 00:53:29.119
children out there who completely understand what I'm doing. And
1141
00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:33.800
for years in my monologue, I'd have jokes and some
1142
00:53:33.820 --> 00:53:37.190
were better than others, but then I started just playing
1143
00:53:37.250 --> 00:53:40.750
peekaboo with the camera. I would tell the cameraman to
1144
00:53:40.809 --> 00:53:43.489
lock off the camera. And early on, the cameraman would
1145
00:53:43.570 --> 00:53:45.250
follow me if I walked to the right or the left.
1146
00:53:45.289 --> 00:53:47.409
And I would tell them, don't, lock it off, don't
1147
00:53:47.469 --> 00:53:49.610
move it. I'll walk out of camera and then I'll
1148
00:53:49.820 --> 00:53:52.800
peek back in. And I would see, you know, 350
1149
00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:57.639
people in the audience all adults laughing really hard when
1150
00:53:57.679 --> 00:54:01.110
I peeked back in. And I realized that we're all 11-year-olds.
1151
00:54:01.949 --> 00:54:06.519
We're smaller. We're six-year-olds. We're five-year-olds. The fact that I,
1152
00:54:06.869 --> 00:54:10.469
by leaving the frame and then peeking back in, would
1153
00:54:10.510 --> 00:54:13.469
make people giggle. And I thought, I think inside all
1154
00:54:13.510 --> 00:54:16.030
of us, or most of us, there is that little kid.
1155
00:54:16.070 --> 00:54:19.329
And so the fact now that actual children are writing
1156
00:54:19.349 --> 00:54:24.929
in and saying, this show matches my intellectual and emotional
1157
00:54:24.949 --> 00:54:28.750
capacity perfectly. That makes me very happy.
1158
00:54:28.889 --> 00:54:33.320
The show is very visual and this is you saying things.
1159
00:54:33.579 --> 00:54:36.440
So I wonder what it is about how you say
1160
00:54:36.500 --> 00:54:39.940
things or what you say that is appealing to children.
1161
00:54:40.539 --> 00:54:44.099
Well, that's a very valid point. That's true. I can
1162
00:54:44.119 --> 00:54:47.659
understand why the show, I would act like a foolish man.
1163
00:54:48.539 --> 00:54:52.630
What is it now about hearing me? I don't I
1164
00:54:52.690 --> 00:54:54.329
don't know. I don't know if any of you have
1165
00:54:54.389 --> 00:54:59.269
any insights into why right now I'm speaking. You'd think
1166
00:54:59.349 --> 00:55:02.230
that that would not make an 11-year-old laugh or a 10-year-old,
1167
00:55:02.610 --> 00:55:06.989
but I think often in my conversations- You do funny voices.
1168
00:55:07.010 --> 00:55:09.090
I think I do some funny voices, but I think
1169
00:55:09.530 --> 00:55:14.489
maybe they can just tell this man is stunted developmentally.
1170
00:55:16.369 --> 00:55:18.769
I think that comes across pretty quickly. I think it
1171
00:55:18.809 --> 00:55:20.880
doesn't matter who I'm talking to. We had an interview
1172
00:55:20.920 --> 00:55:24.880
with Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor not too long ago, and
1173
00:55:25.380 --> 00:55:28.019
I did my best to be thoughtful and to hold
1174
00:55:28.079 --> 00:55:30.079
my own and discuss the great issues of the day.
1175
00:55:30.719 --> 00:55:35.449
But also I showed terrible lapses into foolishness and childishness.
1176
00:55:35.900 --> 00:55:37.440
with some of my questions.
1177
00:55:38.059 --> 00:55:40.119
Did you hear that she got impeached just.
1178
00:55:39.980 --> 00:55:44.380
For being on this podcast? She did and even, she
1179
00:55:44.400 --> 00:55:47.460
didn't even fight it. That was the interesting thing. They impeached,
1180
00:55:47.719 --> 00:55:52.559
it was the first- She introduced the articles. It was
1181
00:55:52.579 --> 00:55:55.539
the first time they've removed dissenting justice and they brought
1182
00:55:55.579 --> 00:55:57.639
it to her and she said, what can I do?
1183
00:55:57.920 --> 00:55:58.659
I deserve to go.
1184
00:55:59.300 --> 00:56:01.570
She did the podcast and then just went back and
1185
00:56:01.590 --> 00:56:02.409
started packing up.
1186
00:56:02.449 --> 00:56:05.150
Yeah. It was instantaneous. Well, I think what she did
1187
00:56:05.190 --> 00:56:08.070
is she said, I'm off to do Conan's podcast. Start
1188
00:56:08.130 --> 00:56:11.349
packing while I'm gone. Career suicide by podcast.
1189
00:56:11.369 --> 00:56:11.650
Yeah.
1190
00:56:11.750 --> 00:56:15.949
And then she said to one of the clerks and
1191
00:56:16.130 --> 00:56:20.230
that nice ceremonial gavel they gave me, this 200 years
1192
00:56:20.329 --> 00:56:23.110
old that I got when I became extreme court justice.
1193
00:56:23.429 --> 00:56:27.619
You should just put that in the shredder because I'm
1194
00:56:27.719 --> 00:56:31.500
off to do Conan O'Brien's podcast. So our biggest response
1195
00:56:31.800 --> 00:56:34.820
to her appearance was from 10 and 11-year-olds. I want
1196
00:56:34.860 --> 00:56:35.219
to know.
1197
00:56:35.159 --> 00:56:38.800
How an 11-year-old finds their way to this podcast. Is
1198
00:56:38.840 --> 00:56:40.760
it through their parents or on their own?
1199
00:56:41.139 --> 00:56:45.409
Well, we do– I've tried to get lots of tie-ins
1200
00:56:45.570 --> 00:56:50.269
with children's products. So, yeah. So there's a lot of
1201
00:56:50.309 --> 00:56:52.400
toys out there. If you go to any toy store–
1202
00:56:52.610 --> 00:56:54.460
And I know they don't exist anymore. It's all online.
1203
00:56:54.579 --> 00:56:58.179
So don't get me there. But most toys now show
1204
00:56:58.360 --> 00:57:02.460
up with a picture of me somewhere on the box
1205
00:57:02.500 --> 00:57:06.519
that says, as discussed on Uncle Conan's podcast. And these
1206
00:57:06.579 --> 00:57:12.090
are toys for like three and four-year-olds. They say, be careful.
1207
00:57:13.489 --> 00:57:18.519
Don't leave unattended with this block. Oh, no, no, no.
1208
00:57:20.139 --> 00:57:23.820
Please don't go down that road. No, I'm doing what
1209
00:57:23.880 --> 00:57:25.760
I can to make sure that I get a lot
1210
00:57:25.780 --> 00:57:30.449
of tie-ins. I do a lot of Nickelodeon appearances. Have
1211
00:57:30.489 --> 00:57:32.530
you been slimed? I've been slimed so many times my
1212
00:57:32.570 --> 00:57:35.409
dermatologist said that it's eating into my bone. They found
1213
00:57:35.429 --> 00:57:39.050
green slime in my marrow. So I've got to stop that.
1214
00:57:40.090 --> 00:57:42.530
I toured with the Wiggles for a while when they
1215
00:57:42.550 --> 00:57:46.139
were making their New Zealand tour. I'm doing everything I
1216
00:57:46.199 --> 00:57:49.059
can to make sure that I get to very young
1217
00:57:49.139 --> 00:57:52.860
children so that they grow up thinking Conan O'Brien is
1218
00:57:53.400 --> 00:57:55.980
the podcaster. Oh, you're indoctrinating him, I see. I am
1219
00:57:56.039 --> 00:57:56.699
indoctrinating him, yes.
1220
00:57:56.760 --> 00:57:57.989
Okay, yeah, gotcha.
1221
00:57:58.219 --> 00:58:01.030
Well, then. Why did this kid call us chumps? Yeah,
1222
00:58:01.070 --> 00:58:02.610
good question. The hell?
1223
00:58:02.670 --> 00:58:03.150
Yeah, kid.
1224
00:58:03.190 --> 00:58:05.550
He loves me, but he thinks you guys are extraneous.
1225
00:58:05.650 --> 00:58:07.550
I think it's because he can tell both of you
1226
00:58:08.090 --> 00:58:13.469
occasionally lapse into sober thought and reflection. And he knows
1227
00:58:13.510 --> 00:58:15.289
that I'm the one that will never let him down.
1228
00:58:15.869 --> 00:58:19.780
The 24-hour clown. I just wanted the ending to rhyme.
1229
00:58:20.739 --> 00:58:27.800
And I did. Peace out, eight-year-olds. Mic drop. Yes, mic drop.
1230
00:58:27.820 --> 00:58:29.760
Nope, we picked it back up.
1231
00:58:30.239 --> 00:58:32.349
I grabbed the mic and I dropped it. Mic drop.
1232
00:58:32.880 --> 00:58:34.380
I put a little net above the floor.
1233
00:58:34.639 --> 00:58:37.780
Cutting net now. Dropping mic. Mic falls through net. Mic
1234
00:58:37.820 --> 00:58:39.099
hits floor. Mic drop.
1235
00:58:39.320 --> 00:58:42.550
Huge magnet on ceiling raises mic back up.
1236
00:58:42.639 --> 00:58:46.010
Machine I have built by scientists reverses polarity of your magnet.
1237
00:58:46.130 --> 00:58:49.690
Fires mic into ground. It sticks to ground. Mic drop.
1238
00:58:50.349 --> 00:58:53.030
I'm involved in a nuclear accident in the 1950s and
1239
00:58:53.090 --> 00:58:55.929
control the gravitational matter in the Earth's core.
1240
00:58:56.130 --> 00:58:58.500
I travel further back in time than you do. I
1241
00:58:58.559 --> 00:59:01.409
shoot you when you're 15 years old. I make sure
1242
00:59:01.449 --> 00:59:04.909
that you cannot reverse the polarity. Mic drop. Mic can
1243
00:59:04.949 --> 00:59:07.349
never be picked up again. You don't exist. Killed by
1244
00:59:07.409 --> 00:59:08.989
me when you're 15.
1245
00:59:08.989 --> 00:59:11.039
My ultimate plan comes true now i don't have to
1246
00:59:11.079 --> 00:59:12.559
do this podcast.
1247
00:59:19.280 --> 00:59:23.190
Conan o'brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sona Movsesian,
1248
00:59:23.449 --> 00:59:27.010
and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced
1249
00:59:27.050 --> 00:59:30.719
by Adam Sachs, Joanna Solitaroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco,
1250
00:59:30.909 --> 00:59:34.099
and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song
1251
00:59:34.119 --> 00:59:37.300
by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.
1252
00:59:37.619 --> 00:59:38.380
Take it away, Jimmy.
1253
00:59:41.719 --> 00:59:44.719
Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent
1254
00:59:44.739 --> 00:59:48.900
producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Will Becton. Additional production
1255
00:59:48.940 --> 00:59:52.989
support by Mars Melnick. talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista,
1256
00:59:53.269 --> 00:59:55.849
and Brit Kahn. You can rate and review this show
1257
00:59:55.909 --> 00:59:58.570
on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read
1258
00:59:58.670 --> 01:00:01.489
on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call
1259
01:00:01.510 --> 01:00:06.920
the Team Coco hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It, too,
1260
01:00:06.960 --> 01:00:09.079
could be featured on a future episode. And if you
1261
01:00:09.099 --> 01:00:12.059
haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend
1262
01:00:12.139 --> 01:00:16.389
on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.
1263
01:00:21.869 --> 01:00:26.889
This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.