Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Steve Coogan

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

Comedian and actor Steve Coogan feels quietly optimistic about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Steve sits down with Conan to talk about channeling comic persona Alan Partridge, Steve’s newest film Greed, portraying Stan Laurel in Stan & Ollie, and not minding when someone doesn’t think he’s funny. Plus, Conan and his team look back on Conan’s technological achievements with a special montage. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hi, my name is Steve Cougan and I feel I wouldn't say ambivalent about being Conan O'Brien's friend. That wouldn't quite capture it. I'd say that I'm quietly optimistic. Hey there and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. This is an interesting situation we are in. Today's podcast, the interview, was recorded several weeks ago before everybody went into self-quarantine, social distancing, lockdown, whatever you want to call it.

But today's introduction that I am what you're listening to right now is being taped in my home and I am on a Zoom hookup link-up with my regular gang, Sona Mocessian, my trusty assistant. Hello, Sona. Hi. Are you in Armenia? Where are you, Sona? I'm not in Armenia.

I'm in Los Angeles, California, where I live. I was only asking because a lot of people in times of crisis returned to their homeland and I thought maybe you had gone with your family back to your native Armenia. No, my family never lived in Armenia, so we would never return there. So that's a terrible time to fly. I thought you would probably take the ship that you took over here. You thought I came here on a ship? Yeah, a wooden boat called the Hope for America, I think is what you called it.

Wait, does the name of it have an accent? It does, actually. Oh, okay. It's in the font, you can tell. I'm also joined by someone, a true American, someone who was born and raised here. Come on. Matt Gorley. Matt, how are you?

Much better now that we successfully got you hooked up to do Zoom recording. If we can do that, we can do anything in America because that was something. Let me explain what just happened. We decided that we were going to record this with the responsible way, meaning that Sona would be in her home, Gorley would be in his place, I would be in my place, and we'd all be separated, which is what we're supposed to do. It sounded like it was going to be easy, but then we decided, okay, here it's time to go and we got on a Zoom conference, but we had to figure out a way to record the audio of

this so that it would sound decent for the podcast and then began probably 40 minutes of the most insane explanations. I've never been okay boomered in my life like I just was. Can I say something? I knew it would take exactly this long. I'm not what one would call a computer man because just by saying that, you know, this guy knows, doesn't know shit about computers. But I've done this with my grandma, who's in the greatest generation, five minutes,

took five minutes. Well, yeah, that's true. But your grandmother did work in the British Secret Service and helped develop the first computer. Did she not? Didn't she work with Alan Turning? Oh, you both got really excited when you said that. I was going to say that we were originally supposed to start at 11 and I said, let's start

at 1030 because I knew it would take at least a half an hour to get this going. But Conan, I have to say I'm very proud of you because you only got frustrated like six times. Yes. The best analogy I have for what we just went through trying to set up this session was imagine the pilot and the co-pilot of a 747 have been incapacitated. They've gone into comas. And the only person who can land the plane is a zebra.

And people in the control tower are talking to the zebra and saying, okay, you can do this zebra. And the zebra just takes its hoof and starts pounding away at the controls ahead of it. So that's kind of what happened. But we got the plane down. Most everyone died. The wings are on fire, but we're here. So I apologize.

And if me explaining this in the setup is frustrating, I just want you to know that we're all doing the best we can in these extraordinary times. And I think the fact that I was able to successfully figure out all the tech by myself in my house with just a little, little assistance from people is pretty heroic. I think it's pretty heroic. And I hope it's heroic. I think I'm an American hero. Okay.

No, you're a zebra. Well, a zebra can be a hero. When I tell people to give you directions on how to use computers, I say, pretend you're talking to a toddler. Wouldn't that be good advice just all around? Yeah. Yeah. But it's okay.

Look, the point is, is that you did it and I'm, I'm proud of you. I think the point is that the nation and the world is in a crisis right now and it takes a real hero like me to, to figure out how to use his MacBook Pro for the first time. Now that's a true hero. Are you guys, I know it's very late in the conversation to ask, but are you well? Gourly, are you okay? Yeah. Doing well.

I'm doing good here. Sona, how about you? You know, I'm doing fine. We have a lemon tree. I had a lot of lemons and so I wanted to make a lemon loaf yesterday and I didn't have baking powder. So I went to the store just for baking powder, which I thought was very, very irresponsible. Well, you know the old saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemon loaf.

Who wants a lemon loaf? So, you know, I gave up chocolate for Lent and yeah, can I say something? Why is anyone following Lent right now? I'm a Catholic, but we are in a pandemic. We have enough stress in our lives. We're all in our homes. And then suddenly every now and then, I'll talk to someone like Sona who says, yeah, it's Lent.

So I gave up alcohol, meat, bread, mayonnaise, candy and I'm thinking, I know, but we're in a pandemic. So I would think Jesus would understand, wouldn't you think? I agree. And also someone told me the other day that the Pope canceled Easter and I said, I don't know if the Pope can do that. You know, that's going to replace, does the Pope shit in the woods? You're going to say like, hey, do you think such and such will happen?

Hey, yeah, do you think the Pope can cancel Easter? Yeah, I don't know that the Pope, does he have the yes, he does. He is God's representative on earth. But I don't think he can just cancel a Jesus holiday. Didn't he just cancel Easter mass? He can't cancel it. Yeah. You know, he may, you know, he performed a miracle recently.

You know what he did? He passed his hand over a lemon cake and made it something fun to eat. He also got you to learn how to record remotely. That is an act of God. I am writing this down, gorelly will pay. I keep a little book, but we're here, we're well and I think we have a lot to be grateful for. I really do.

I really do believe that. Agreed. That war is my guest today, pretty sweet transition, huh? Really good. Now, some would say that me being in my house all this time, that I'm a little out of touch. Well, maybe so, but still, I think I'm the greatest hero in these times. Oh my God. I do want to, I am very excited.

My guest today is an absolutely hilarious comedian who starred in the British television series, I'm Alan Partridge, which for my money is one of the greatest comedic characters ever invented, I think up there with Peter Sellers Clousseau. He also co-wrote and starred in the Oscar-nominated movie, Filomena. Now you can see him in the new film, Greed. I've been a fan for a very long time. I'm thrilled he's here with us today. Steve Coogan, welcome.

You know, I'm going to start off by saying a little something, which is I'm hard-pressed to think of anybody breathing who makes me laugh harder than you do. I know you're not a fellow who likes a compliment, but I first got to know you through the Alan Partridge character, as a lot of people do. I know that you've been doing that for a long time, and Americans came to it a little later. And to this day, when new ones come out, I'm like a child at Christmas. It delights me, and they are as funny now as they were when I first saw them 15, 20 years ago.

Thank you. It's... How am I doing on ambivalent now? I'm starting to warm to you, because I always find, I don't know why, that when people compliment me, I start to feel more warm towards them. See? I don't know why that is. No one understands.

It's this cool trick that I discovered. Wow. No one else in Los Angeles has figured it out. No. I was on... I told you this. I was on a British Airways flight, and the latest Alan Partridges were on, and there were only three, and I saw them, and that was all they were offering.

And when they were over, I became enraged. I became enraged like a baboon whose banana had been taken. And I couldn't make words. I was swinging my arms wildly. Well, if you just, you know, if you ever in that situation again, contact me and I'll give you more bananas, I mean, metaphorical ones and real ones. Oh, I see. Okay.

I thought you were just, okay. You were taking me too literally. In the beginning, when you would come on my show in New York, I don't think my audience was aware of Alan Partridge or who this fellow is. They knew you from certain movies, but they didn't know your real body of work. Tonight, people are yelling out Alan Partridge, and I could see, I'll use the word ambivalence again in your eyes. Yeah.

I think you were a little like, yeah, Alan Partridge. No, no, no. Do you know what? It's kind of like, it's sort of, well, first of all, I was quite pleased because I always assume that the people, discerning, taste makers like yourself, I'm warming, I'm warming to you. Yeah. Well, I'm still ambivalent weirdly.

I don't know why. Yeah. No, I just, I was quite pleased because people seem to be aware of Alan in a way that they weren't before. And I guess I'm sort of, I'm a slow, creeping presence in some, I find I get recognized in Whole Foods, but not in Walmart. Does that make sense? Yes, it does.

Yes. Okay. Yes. Alan doesn't pay $30 for grapes, knows Alan Partridge. Anyone who's drinking a fake grape juice does not know Alan Partridge. But also, I will say, I think one of the things that helps is that you're doing a kind of comedy, I like its character comedy, it's not topical. There is funny today as they always were.

Yeah. That was a very deliberate act on our part, was not to make reference to politicians or sports people because they change, they change, they get renewed, different people come along. We'd sort of say, if it's someone like, maybe we might make a reference to Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill, because that's fairly, that's not going to date, it's what it is. Most millennials in this country don't know who they are, they really are. So no, we did it because we wanted it to have a long shelf life, because we thought it was good.

We thought it was funny. I mean, the thing about Partridge is I, and you said like, I had a strange love-hate relationship, I did until I was able to other stuff. And one, when I was able to do other stuff, then I was more inclined to come back to it because I did, for a while, I didn't do it for about six years or something, and I kind of missed Alan. Yeah. He's like the idiot, you think, I've had enough of him, that's it, I'm done with him,

he keeps saying dumb things, I don't want to see him anymore, and then you can't, and then a few years later. You know, Philomena, you do these other projects where you get to show that you can do, you know, you're a good actor, you're a good writer, you're very adept at these things, and then you think maybe that leaves space for Alan to come back to it. Yeah, and I'd figure, and I'll say what the other thing was, I was writing with Patrick Marver and Armando Iannucci, and those guys who I first collaborated with, and they went off and pursued their careers, and Peter Baynham, he went off writing with Sasha Brown-Cohen,

and I was kind of going, I need some writers, and then these two guys came on, twin brothers called Robin Neil Gibbons, and they breathed new life and put blood back in the veins of the character, and I think I've taken it up to another level, because beyond the first BBC stuff he started having, it's like there was parts of him that were, people care a bit more about him, he's not a complete jerk, he's like one of those people who's trying to be woke and just struggling with it, but- I know all too well. Yeah, I know, yeah, exactly, and it's very hard for me to, I had to ask someone who's

like that to be able to channel it into the character. If I could help you in any way, yeah, no, I like that he actually, and he's a monocle of, he's obviously this, in some ways, terrible talk show host, or as you guys say, chat show host, but then he also has had, there are areas where he is competent and quite good and he can talk on his feet, and he can, so I always think it's important that he's not a complete disaster, he actually has some skills, there are reasons why he's a successful broadcaster. Well, and also, because he says things unselfconsciously, sometimes it can be like the guy who says

the emperor's not wearing any clothes, so sometimes an animal say stuff that I couldn't say, but that people secretly agree with, if you like, and that's quite satisfying, they'll say some stuff that people sort of snigger under there and put their hand over their mouth when they snigger, because they go, that's kind of true, but you're not supposed to say it. So, Alan sometimes is like a Trojan horse for sort of smuggling in comic ideas that- And rage. And rage.

Yeah, I was like, well, yes, love and anger are great motivators, I find, and with Alan, anger and frustration is- Well, here's what we can talk about, we both come from large Irish families, minus Irish American, obviously, but we are 100% Irish, and I am one of six and you are one of six. That's right. Where were you in the- what's your birth order? I was right in the middle, I got two older brothers, two younger brothers- Nice to meet you, as me, I am right in the middle.

Oh, really? In a large family, large, I mean, Irish English, although I did one of those tests recently, I'm like 95% Irish, 5% just mongrel, I guess. Yeah, I'm a pure-bred Irish, and we grew up in a large family, and it was second generation, so all my holidays were spent in Ireland, where they cooked on the fire, it was almost like a disappearing medieval way of life, and I dug peat from the peat bog with my great uncle, and so I kind of feel like I have one foot in Ireland, and also because of history, I kind of keep the British at arm's length, it's like, you support the English football

team, but my parents would raise me to be slightly suspicious of the royals, because they were part of the agency of repression- Yes, they stole our potatoes. They did, and all that stuff, and oh yes, I'm steeped in all that stuff, but big family and my parents fostered kids too, so there would be an extra couple of kids in the house, like short term foster kids who were like in trouble or whatever, and they would bring them into the house. So it's kind of noisy, and not a very touchy-feely emotional environment, we didn't really say,

you know, I love you too. Oh God, no, no. That was what people did in American soap operas, it was weird to us, but I knew I was loved of course, but it just wasn't expressed that way, and it's almost like emotion is like an indulgence that you can't afford, but if you come from a sort of poor Irish background, way back, the most important thing is just putting food on the table, having enough food, and making sure you're healthy and that you're not sick, and that's good enough, and anything extra, if you want to talk about your emotions, that's just a little,

it's indulgent. Well, you know, you think about it, in the history of the world, no one had time to talk about their emotions until about maybe 35 years ago, until then people were, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but like people had to survive, I mean, you have to get practically into the 20th century for a guy like Freud to be able to come along and say, anyone want to talk about their dreams, would you like to talk about dreams? You couldn't do that at a time when it was, we've got to go kill an elk, find an elk, kill an elk, eat it and drink the blood and cook it, and then everyone shut the fuck up,

because we need to then go find another elk. So you've got to get, it's very recent, and I just grew up, I felt like because the Irish hang on to stuff, I noticed that I developed all these incredibly passive, aggressive ways of dealing with people. Well, Sona, you've seen it a million times, it works. Yes, it's infuriating. And I'm on the razor's edge, but I can at any point say, well, I was just, that's just a joke, I was just, you know, and so what happens is sometimes I'm unhappy with someone,

and I kid around with them, and then four hours later, it's like Bruce Lee's invisible vibrating palm, they have a heart attack long after the fight, they don't realize that I've... The joke is a parachute, when there's something you don't want to deal with something, I think a joke is like an emotional parachute, and in fact, I remember doing the trip with Rob, I would say, you know, try and do, try and make the observation, and then don't do the joke at the end, or say something apparently sincere, then don't do the joke, it's really hard sometimes. The really hilarious scenes of you two competing as you drive through some beautiful part of

England or Spain, and you're both, instead of looking out the window and enjoying the scenery, you're just doing a competing Michael Cain impressions, which are, they're stunning Michael Cain impressions, but I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong, you really are competing in those moments, because you're playing Steve Coogan, he's playing Rob Briden, and there is really a bit of competition going on. What I want to demonstrate when I have those competitions with Rob is that he, although he's slightly exaggerating who he is in reality, and I'm slightly exaggerating, but actually there is a core of truth to it, and what it is is, I want to sort of say to Rob in that

competition is that you like to do funny voices, I don't like to do funny voices, but I can do funny voices, and I can do them better than you, and I choose not to. I choose not to. That's it, that's all I want to say. Yeah, yeah. And you're always on the, when your two characters are driving through your characters, I mean your versions of yourselves, but you're always putting him down for doing some chat show appearance, or why did you go on that game show?

Why are you doing this, and he says, well, we can't all do Phil and me, and you can tell that there's like, oh my god, these guys are getting right on the razor's edge of telling each other to fuck off. Yeah, well we have, like I said, when we started out, I said, look, we're going to have to make this interesting. We can't just like gently tease each other, because that's dull, you know, we're going to have to do things that are difficult, so we sort of shook hands, and then we started sort of having to go, and there are times where I've, I've, I've just said to Rob, we're

not putting that in. I'll just break the fall. I said, we're not putting that in. Yeah. In the middle of the cameras rolling. We're not going to put that in. I'll say, and I won't tell you what I'll say, but I'll say to Rob, do you want me to talk about X?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he'll go, no. And I go, okay. Right. Right. And there. And, but then sometime, and then Michael will just say, stop being mean to each other in the middle.

He'll keep rolling. Right. And, and his only direction would be, just do some voices again. I wouldn't say like a knee to find the soul of, who just, all you would say, what do you want us to do? I don't know. Do some voices again. You were Sylvester Stallone.

Yeah. You know. Yeah. I could see many directors, many of the great directors in history have redirected a scene by just telling the actor to do a funny voice. Well, I used to do, it was that I, Mike, sorry, Stephen Frears, when he went into, in Filomena, he would, and this is podcast, I'm going to describe it physically. He would look across the crowded rooms and shout, Steve, and then just use his hand in

a gesture as if to say, just take it down, take it down a notch, take it down a peg or two. Right. And, and that's, that's all he'd say to me. He'd just say, do less. Yeah. Stop, you know, waving your arms around and using your eyebrows, you know, so he taught me how to act better.

Just less eyebrow. Less eyebrow, less waving your arms on like a windmill. I got to a point where I think early in my relationship with my wife, she just told me, I was doing my passive aggressive karate moves, you know, verbal karate moves. And she just said, yeah, no, not with me. And I was like, oh, and I was like, it was, but it was good. She was like, she's got a great sense of humor, but she just sort of told me, yeah, you know, you can enjoy that out in the world with whoever will put up with it, but, but, and, and I,

and it worked. I, it actually, it was just, I don't know if you've had that in, if it's, Yeah. Well, I have the, the, there's a, there is a comic kind of reflex that you get like a Pavlovian reaction to things, which is, I do, I have to be very careful. I send sarcastic emails thinking that I'll make my point better if I use sarcasm. And, and it just, it just annoys people and they don't, you don't get people to do what you want to do.

So I, I just, I have to, I'm trying to not do that as much. Is it a coincidence that there's a real sweetness to Partridge, but he can also be an incredible prick, greed, the, the movie that you're out promoting right now, your character is, says and does, I mean, he's this, this billionaire who's built his fortune on the, on the backs of the poor, and he's completely unrepentant. And so you, you seem to love to play these people that can say absolutely outrageous things. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. I mean, if your bile can come out, but you're very funny and you're very glib and you're making all these comments. And I think it must be a nice way to get the demons out. It definitely, definitely is, I just think there's not, and I tell you what, yes, of course, what I do is anything I think that's bad, I just challenge, usually it's Alan Partridge. I think I have a bad thought.

I put it into Alan Partridge. I just, I just file it away there for future use. But I find that there's no such thing as a bad experience, really, if you're, if you're able to sort of put it somewhere else. So nothing, nothing bad can happen because most bad stuff is quite interesting. Right. In fact, if you, if you're in an awkward social, social moment where someone says the wrong thing and there's a silence and there's no way of digging your way out of it.

And I've been in those situations where someone just says, it's something like, I mean, in my industry, someone will say, do you see that film? That film was awful. I was just, I hated that film. Oh, I produced that film. Right. And then someone goes, oh, oh, well, I just didn't like it. Oh, that's okay.

It did well at the box office. And then there's an awful silence. When that happens, I quite, I think, oh, this is nice. This is delicious. Yes. This is really interesting. I must remember this. This, this awkwardness is almost like a candy bar, and I want to sort of just think, oh,

I must remember this. You know what, it makes you wish that there was a wine cellar somewhere where they had bottled the perfect awkward moments and that you could go in and someone could say, this right here is the moment where, you know, this person said, I despise that movie and this other person said, that's odd. I wrote it. We have it. And it's been sitting, it's been in this bottle for 25 years, which is the perfect amount

of time for this kind of awkwardness. And then you could, because I think we all, I love those spaces too, there's a, there's a beauty to, to people absolutely not being able to click in that moment. Yeah. I just, no, it's for me, it's, I'm lucky that I sort of stumbled upon this weird formula where everything that's bad and dysfunctional about myself, I can somehow, yeah, grow stuff from it. No.

It's like moldy cheese somehow. That's what I get from you. Yeah. Moldy. Your cheese. Mature, though. Yes. Mature.

Mature moldy cheese. Mature. Strong. Mature. Yes. Strong, mature. A little moldy. A little moldy.

And blue. That reminds me of something you did that completely, that completely, and this is, you're not gonna like this, but I think it was the first season of Partridge, there was a, there was this moment that took this turn, this comedic turn that I always think I know where something's going. And just because I've done this for so long and it's all I think about, you're having a very, you're having a meeting with someone who's a big wig at the BBC about having a new show and it's very important that you have a new show and you're, I think you're in a restaurant and they put a cheese in front of you, a big cheese.

And the conversation is not going the way you want and then it becomes clear that you're not gonna get the show you want. You take your knife, you stab the cheese and you run out of the restaurant with it. It makes no sense. It's a completely irrational act. I think I laughed for about a month. I kept looking at it, I don't know why Alan did that in that moment. I don't know if you know or the writers know why he did that.

No, no. There's no reason for it. It's just like, it's like, it's like some of his brain's just broken. I don't know. We didn't just thought it felt authentic. No, it was perfect. It was perfect. And it was one of those things where I thought, yes, that's perfect, but I never would have

thought of that in a billion years. Yeah, it's, I mean, there is stuff like that, but there's also kind of other moments that are very, very old fashioned. We sort of put stuff in like that where there's no, it was the best of things when you don't quite know what you're laughing. And then there's other stuff, which is very old fashioned, kind of just stupid puns that we still put in. Well, someone mentioned me, the last Alan Partridge movie we did, and I'd forgotten the

joke, but it's a bit where a guy, a security guard, like a SWAT team, a Navy SEAL type guy says to Partridge, if you screw this up, he says, I'm going to take off my uniform and I'm going to make you pay for it. And he goes, you want me to buy your uniform? It's just dumb. Yeah. I like to have, to balance the sort of weird stuff and stuff that's just stupid, vaudeville. Oh, that's why do you, were you a fan?

I was a big fan of the Peter Sellers, Pink Panther movies. I don't know how they're thought of by you or the... Yeah, they're great. They're great. Yeah, he's genius. I'm a genius comedian. Well, here we are. I know.

I know. You're looking at me. I'm looking at you. But I sometimes look at those movies where he's playing Clouseau and they'll do, I watched one, I made my son watch one and he absolutely loved it, which made me happy. He's 14 and he was like, I don't want to see this. It doesn't take place in space. There's no vortex.

There's no vortex. It opens up in the sky. There's Thor. I said, let's just, let's just please give it a second. Thor will show up eventually and there will be a vortex where things happen for no reason. But we're watching it and Clouseau walks into a hotel and a man just says, may I take your jacket? And he says, thank you.

And he, the guy takes off Clouseau's jacket, walks outside, puts it on and leaves, gets in a car and leaves. And then there's another one where Clouseau comes in in one of his stupid disguises and there's an old man behind the desk at a different hotel and there's a little dog right there and he says, does your dog bite? And the man says, no. And so he reaches over to pet the dog and it bites him and he says, I thought you said your dog didn't bite.

And the man says, it's not my dog. And you're like, these are, it's vaudeville, it's vaudeville, it's vaudeville, but I absolutely love it. And I love those things. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. It's, yeah. It's, it's really growing up.

I liked Monty Python and all that kind of, and the strange avant-garde kind of comedy of that. In fact, I kind of liked the fact my parents didn't quite get it. Did you like the young ones? The young ones? I did like the young ones and I liked, you know, Blackadder was a comedy in the UK that I loved. Oh, Blackadder.

Yeah, Rowan Atkinson. Yeah, Rowan Atkinson. And, but also I liked the sort of traditional British sitcoms, you know, like Forty Towers, a lot of some from Python and, you know, seeing traditional sort of warm hearted kind of comedies as well. I liked all that stuff. And I like, I like, I sort of a little schizophrenic, I had to move around, do this sort of stuff that's out of the weird stuff and I like the stuff that's just, I like, I like the fact

that a whole family, really good sort of traditional comedy and get a whole family of different generations, different tastes, different, even different politics, different worldviews. And they all laugh at the same jokes and that's really, that's a real kind of healing thing. It's like, it's like, you know, we might not agree on this, this and this and this, but we all agree that that's funny right now. We, I think probably my favorite thing that I've been able to experience in comedy is traveling to other places. We do a Conan Without Borders show and shooting segments in different parts of the world.

And I'll go places where there's terrible division and there's terrible anger and there's sort of turmoil, but everyone can agree that I look sickly with my shirt off, you know, and I can, that makes me, it makes me so happy when, you know, those moments where I'm in, you know, I'm in Africa and someone is laughing at my attempt to sort of partake in their culture and in Ghana and a woman who doesn't even speak English says, this is a very foolish man and I'm going to laugh at his body. My body has helped you heal many wounds. We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back. And we're back. Oh, God, I enjoyed that break. Did you have a good time? You went out for a little walk. Yeah, so could the air. Yeah, nice here in Los Angeles. I know.

I was being ironic. When did you? I'm working on a different level to you. What's it like to be on your level? I'm going to say this. We were talking about British comedy. I've always had, I've been a little self-hating. I grew up loving comedy and I always thought the Brits are, I think, 35 years ahead of

us. That's the, and when I talk to Brits, they don't agree. No, they didn't. That's not, that's not true because, because a lot of our comedy early on was, you know, there was Peter Cook and Dudley Moore who did stuff that was kind of adventurous. But really, after the war, we had these like, what you call vaudeville, we had musical comedians and they were often very, very, very old fashioned and not that sophisticated. And at the same time, in the US, you had Jack Benny and Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman.

They were way ahead of the game because they weren't doing gags. They were doing routines that were observations about whole long shaggy dog stories and stuff like this. And I had those, I had that stuff on vinyl. So I didn't see those shows because we didn't, there was not much cross-fertilization, but we could get that stuff on vinyl records. And so I would play that stuff and listen to it and think, this guy's great. Like he's not doing, he's just, he's taking, he's painting a picture with his words and

taking it somewhere else and creating this whole scenario and it's just him talking about it. And that to me was magical. And that actually was way ahead of the Brits at that time. When I was coming along and I saw Python in sketch comedy felt like, oh, I think they're way ahead of us because our sketches all needed to have an ending. And then Python was coming in, we were getting a little later than you guys, but we were getting it in the sort of the mid 70s.

This stuff's coming on that doesn't have sketches are so abstract and something lasts as long as it's funny. And then they just say now for something completely different, which broke a rule in sketches in America at that time, where people would be dressed up as cabbage patch dolls, celebrities and this, well, we're cabbage patch dolls here on a shelf and I hope someone buys us. And then, you know, I like that. I want to see it. Oh, I wrote it and I'm very proud of it and I've been pitching it around for years and

no one's wanted it. Well, I liked Python best on vinyl again because when they're on TV, it was very, very unrefined and a little anarchic and it was a little hit and miss. It was definitely avant-garde and weird and funny, but it was sometimes a little ragged and that was part of it. It was kind of like a punk rock approach to comedy. But then, but on vinyl, they really crafted things and I used to learn stuff off pattern and I know a lot of Monty Python like I still even now I know a lot of stuff.

You could just this. Yeah, that's just in your cerebral cortex. Yeah. And, you know, it would always be stuff that's a little sort of sick and disturbing that made me laugh the most. And then after they came on, then the people at Rowan Atkinson came along with a thing called not the nine o'clock news and they would go back to punch lines because that seemed then sort of anarchic to have punch lines again.

Right. And they sketched once about people surviving an air disaster and they said, and they're talking to these survivors is quite this is an example of it where they're talking to the quiet voices, asking them how, how, what was it like and it said, well, after a while we were so hungry and no one had discovered us that we had to take this terrible decision. And they say, do you want to talk about that? He goes, yes, we decided eventually the only way we could survive was if we ate the airline food.

And he said, yes, first of all, we had to start out with the biscuits. And he goes, why, what drove you to that? I said, well, we had no choice. We'd already eaten all the other passengers. That's just a great, well-crafted sketch. It had a bomb on right. And here's the punch line. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But Python would have a sketch about a guy turning up with the undertakers with his mother who'd just died and wondering if they, what they, what, what they could do with her. And they say, I mean, I know that they'd say, well, we can dump her in the Thames or we can burn her or we can fry her. If we burn her, she gets, she gets stuck in the flames, crackle, crackle, crackle, which is a bit of a shock. She's not quite dead.

But quick, then you get a box of her. She'd pretend to hers. Well, if you don't want to fry her, you can bury her. She gets eaten up by maggots and weevils, nibble, nibble, nibble, which isn't as hard as her. So she's not quite dead. Where is she? She's in this sack.

Let's have a look. Oh, I think she's quite young. Yes, she was. Fred, I think we've got an eater. We've got an oven on, because are you proposing to eat my mother? Yeah, yeah, not raw, not raw. Well, cookish, she's been listening for a few days, but stuffing in broccoli, delicious. No, I couldn't possibly.

I want to say, I do feel a bit peckish. No, I couldn't. I tell you what, we'll dig a grave and she goes, we'll eat your mom, then if you feel a bit guilty about it afterwards, we'll dig a grave and you can throw up into it. And it was like, this is for, this is 50 years ago. 50 years ago. They're talking about eating a dead mom. Eating a dead mom and throwing up.

And it was, that was deliberately trying to be, that's like a child saying, I'm going to shock you. And I used to love that stuff. And I remember, I do it sometimes in front of my parents and they'd just wince and go, oh, come on, that's just too much. And that was part of the pleasure. I've had so many times where I think it's the grass is greener, but. Yeah, yeah, it is.

We had lots of dumb stuff that I just wouldn't bother watching. I mean, we know, you knew the good stuff because the people, the cool people at school watched the good stuff and everyone else watched the stuff that was just bland, sort of vanilla comedy. If you like. Yeah. And also in those days, it was pre-VCRs and all that. So you had to remember the stuff you saw and you had to pick over it afterwards to make

sure you could remember it. And I remember like my mom or a friend would say, did you see that show last night of one of her friends? And they'd go, oh, no. And she goes, oh, it's so funny. It was, oh, what was in it? It was so funny. And then she turned to me and said, did you watch it?

And I'd say, yeah. And she'd go, oh, great. You do it. Do it. It was the same, like just a little human VCR. Yeah. If you had had a VCR, you'd be an accountant right now. Exactly.

It's true. Because you didn't have one, you had to become. Yeah. And what you would do is like, you'd watch the show. We weren't like couch potatoes. We'd watch a show like Faulty Towers. And then when the show was off, we'd turn the show off, we'd make ourselves a cup of tea, and we'd sit around the table and then go through it again and say, what was your

favorite bit? Right. And say, oh, I liked it when this happened. And wasn't it funny when he said that? So you could kind of keep it in your brain. Here's the thing that I've noticed. My kids are an agent. I've noticed with their friends, too, they'll say, check this out, and they just hold the

laptop in front of my face and press play to show me the funny thing. And I think I never, and this is, I don't want this to become two old grumpy guys talking about, you know what I'm saying? I think that ship sailed. That ship sailed quite a long time ago. I tell you, it was a better way to do it, but there is something about, hey, isn't this great? And then they just press play rather than, and sometimes I'll think, well, rather you

tell me about it than just press play. There's something about that that I prefer, but I have a lot of anger towards my children. It sounds like they sound like they're smart. Yeah. Yeah. I'm bitter about that. I also mentioned to you that you did this Stan and Ollie movie. How was that?

Three years ago now? I guess 2016, is it 2020? I think it's three and a half years, almost exactly. I think I nailed it. Yeah. Incredible. I'm sorry. I didn't think the listener needed to know exactly when it came out.

I think you could have just said, yeah, I think three years is just about it. Spot on. Yeah. I don't know why I did that. I do get a little panickity about dates, and I'm very good with them normally. Yeah. Well, apparently you don't know exactly when the movie came out, which means you don't give a shit about it.

I thought it was... It's a lovely movie. I've watched it. Why did you say that? It's just mean. Yeah. Exactly. Well, it was...

It's just mean. I'm mad at you. Now, let's talk about that moment we just had. I was trying to create an awkward moment. Yeah, but I didn't care. I know you didn't. That's the problem. I need to care enough about you as a person and your feelings for it to be an awkward

moment. Is that not true? Again, you're doing it again. There's no need to do it to be like that. Yeah. And that's the problem. I'm hurting this be an awkward moment with my complete inability to feel your pain as a human.

It's okay. I was faking. I care less than you. How about that? What they can't see right now is that you're crying. They can't see that because it's a podcast, but you're full on crying. Yeah, because I'm an actor and I'm faking it. You're a very good actor.

Thank you. I'll go back on track. Stan and Ollie, you became Stan Laurel and it was just a beautiful thing to see. You guys were great. Yeah. Okay, John and I, John C. Riley and I. John C. Riley became Oliver Hardy. Yeah.

You became Stan Laurel and I didn't even recognize you guys and it was a really nice story about friendship, but also about comedy, which I thought was really nice. Yeah. I think there's something, I loved playing the roles and I like playing Stan Laurel because he's essentially a nice guy. Right. I mean, apart from the few issues here and there, but he was certainly wasn't a contemptible person at all.

So I liked playing someone who was ostensibly nice and decent. But it was a combination of things because I watched those things as a kid and I kind of had, I already had a kind of a voice I could do that I thought, I think this is Stan Laurel. So, and sometimes these impersonations are not the same as acting the part, but actually sometimes those physical things help you get back, help you find out who that character is. And Stan had this strange sort of way of talking that was, like I said, it was, you know, and

sometimes he would do these gestures, you can't see them, but they're very good and quite authentic. So I started out with that and then found out who, you know, learned more about who he was and how he, you know, a lot of things the research I did was he used to live in Santa Monica in an apartment and he was still in the phone book. He was in the phone book. I know this. Yeah.

So I went up and listened to him down the phone and tape record the phone calls. Dick Van Dyke was one of the people who did this way back. So you can listen. We've gotten sort of all the, the Sons of the Desert, which is a Laurel and Hardy fan club and they would give us access to these tapes that aren't available online. And you'd hear Stan Laurel saying, you know, some kids saying, hey, can I talk to you, Mr Laurel? Yes, you can.

This is a, this is a, a long haul, a long, what do you call it, a call from the other side of the country? Long distance. Long distance. This, you know, they know you're calling, you know, and it gets that out of the way and then starts to talk. To make sure that it's okay. Make sure it's okay that he's asked his mom's permission and then starts talking to him.

And it's so touching to hear this guy just talk to the kid about how, how they did their comedy. Well, he was also the one that was the architect of course. He worked out the bits, Oliver Hardy was often at the track, you know, and, and Stan Laurel. And I've heard these stories about, you know, you think about, it was just a different era, but these guys were huge stars, but they didn't retire to mansions, you know, like. Because they were on a, they were on a wage, they didn't own anything. Charlie Chaplin got smart, he formed United Artists.

And so he ended up as a very, very wealthy man. And even though he was kind of booted out for suspicion, suspected of being a communist, well, he was a very, very rich communist. Yeah. That's the best kind of communist to be. Exactly. So, but, but anyway, he got smart and Stan and Hal Roach, who was a real sort of operator, you know, he, he staggered their contracts so he could never, they could never negotiate

together at the same time, so he sort of worked them against each other, played them off against each other. He was a super smart producer who owned everything and they, they, and they didn't see TV coming on. These were made in the 1930s. No one knew that TV was going to be this thing where all this stuff would get read, would have a second life. So many people, Oliver, you know, Stan and Ali, Laurel and Hardy and, I mean, the Three

Stooges are an example of people that they made these things and they thought it's, it's just going to be shown in a theater. It's going to be shown, it's going to have a limited run and then no one's ever going to see it again. We're lucky to be making money. It's the depression. Exactly. No one thought about it.

And then later on, these other people owned the masters. They got nothing. There were no laws that protected people about, well, you get a residual, you get this, you get that. So these huge stars, you think about Stan Laurel in the, in the early 1960s and he's living in Santa Monica and you can look him up in the phone book, Jerry Lewis, poor guy. I mean, Stan Laurel, Jerry Lewis looked him up and was a huge fan and, and came by and visited him a lot and wanted to talk to him.

And it was, it's a very modest apartment, I think he lived in. And so it was just a different. And he answered every letter. He sort of wrote letters to me to answer them personally and spend all day just responding to people's letters. And so he was a, yeah, he was a really conscientious comment. And the other thing, the poignant thing was that all, he outlived Oliver by about seven or eight years.

I mean, even after Oliver had died, he'd, he carried on writing sketches for the two of them. Oh God. Because he didn't know what else to do. Yeah. That was how his brain works. And that's, I was, when you learn that, it kind of, kind of gets you in the gut. They actually say that at, at the end of the movie, I think it comes up, uh, yeah, I don't,

I hardly ever do this on the podcast, but if you get a chance to see Stan and Ollie and he haven't seen it, queue it up because it's, it's really special. It's a really, I, I just thought it was a lovely movie, like a little gem. So, um, I'd like a, some kind of compensation for him to wear it out. You could we just say something sincere and leave it at that, could you? That's a pull a little joke, parachute it in. I really do would like, I mean, that's worth something, what I just did financially. Yeah.

Um, wouldn't it? Sona, is that wrong? No, you ruined it. It was such a nice moment. And you ruined it. I thought you'd actually, I thought you'd, I thought, oh, he's actually, he's broken through. He's, there's a little breakthrough in this, but as far as it just happened then, no,

it didn't. No way. No. Well, this leads me to my next question. Who the fuck do you think you are? Coming in here across the pond. I nearly, I nearly spat my water out right on cue in there, perfect comment down there. Yeah.

Yeah. Throw your weight around, mocking the top show hosts, you've been, that's a hard job. We should be taken seriously. We're like brain surgeons. We're like patriots, fighter pilots. We, we, yeah, we, we're noble breed and very, you know, there's only 75 of us in America. So it's obviously a very hard thing to do. Um, yeah, I want to ask you, as I get older, the stuff that I had that I thought I needed

so much in comedy in my twenties that I probably fed off of, I just feel like I'm getting better and I'm seeing, I'm, I'm becoming, I'm relaxing a little bit more and I don't know if that's just approaching death or what, but do you feel like you have changed or you see things differently now than you? Sure. I'm a little, I'm a little more laid back and less anxious. I don't feel, uh, then I don't feel, even though I like being, having, you know, I like having a laugh and I don't feel like, uh, I don't mind if someone doesn't think I'm

funny. Right. Like, I mean, uh, and I don't mind not, because there's something about being, when needing approval, when you like, you do comedy, wanting people to, wanting lots of people to like you. I don't mind if some people really don't like me as long as enough people like me to, to mean I can, you know, pay the rent. Right. You know?

And that's some of that is you're able to say, look at all the evidence. Definitely. The other thing is I don't, I don't get involved in social media because probably, because sometimes I have very strong opinions and I think, yeah, I'm going to say something that's going to fit with no benefit to myself because I'm just going to say something off the bat about something. I'll get sucked into some sort of argument about what it's something that's just kind of meaningless and pointless.

Right. And I just think that, you know, that, uh, if you just, to me, it's like anything that occurs to you or whatever or some sort of thing or something that makes you mad or whatever, just put it in, put it in, put it in your work, fold it back into it, just throw it into the pot and mix it up with all the other stuff. And, um, As opposed to bleeding it out on Twitter. As opposed to, yeah.

And also, also, not only is it a better way to do it and a more productive thing to do, um, if you feel strongly about something or you think this, this bugs me, um, it's way better to put it into something creative than try and have some intellectual argument with someone because very rarely does an intellectual discourse with him or even a, even a civilized one. Does it ever result in one person saying, you're right, I've changed my mind. Right. But it does.

Sometimes you get close to that if you tell stories because, because the end of the day, you've got to sort of making people laugh or making them cry. You kind of winning whatever it is you want to say. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're, both of us come from, obviously come from countries that where people are yelling a lot, no one's changing their mind. No one's, no one has said, I think in England, you know, I've got a different, you've changed

my mind about Brexit and nobody here has said, you know what, you've changed my mind about President Trump one way or the other. No one's changing it. But no, and also because the truth is more nuanced and you don't have bumper stickers that say, I love nuance. But also you're not going to turn on MSNBC or Fox News or actually, I mean, I'm not just, I see it on both sides, the right and the left, but no one's ever going to say, we'll be back with more nuance after this.

Yeah. Stick around, we're back with nuance. Yeah. We're back with, welcome to gray area. There's no money in that. I know Jill has wrote for the times, I have friends of mine who are told, don't say that that article you wrote was just way too balanced. Just fold one side or the other please because otherwise people are going to, and that's unfortunately

that means that the discourse we have is unsophisticated and you don't get, you know, the most important thing, and I think this is about if you create, if you tend to have this, I think, because you have to, you have to be able to self, certainly in comedy, self-mark and be self-deprecating. And that means considering the possibility that you might be wrong about something. Yeah. And that is, I think that's where a lot of comedy comes from, it's like, you can say something, well, if you know what you're doing, comedy, so you can say something with conviction and then immediately take the piss out of yourself for what you've said, even if you

believe it, because, you know, it's a bit of humility goes a long way. Yes. I think, yeah. You should remember that. And if I respected your opinion, I'd write it down, but, Sona, did you get that? Yeah. I was looking at that. Yes, I did.

I was looking at my phone, I just bought some incredible seal skin shoes, made from baby seals, very comfortable, and send, and purchase. Send? What did you send? Did I tell you in my late 70s? You mailed in a check. I mailed in a check. Send.

I'm going to get so much, I'm going to get so much shit for that. And send. Send. How did you send? It's a check, guys. Steve, let me explain that when you get to my level of fame, which is hard to understand, for anyone to understand, very few people understand it, but I can't use conventional ways of purchasing things on the internet.

I have to send a photograph of a check, which is then placed in a pneumatic tube. That's how it has to be done. I am going to end on something sincere without a parachute, which is I am very hard pressed to think of a living person who's made me laugh harder than you. Thank you very much. I've always felt a little affinity with you because of where you're from and what you do and the end. That's it.

So there's no joke at the end. No joke at the end. I like that. When I heard that you were available to do the podcast, I was absolutely delighted. No, seriously. She was. I really was. This isn't a joke.

I love how you think I can do it, but I can do it. I really was delighted because I thought you and I have passed in the night many times. You've put it on the show. You do the bit. It's over. You're gone. And I thought, wouldn't it be great to just sit for 45 minutes and talk with Steve Cougan? That would be a real treat.

So this has been everything I wanted it to be. I've loved it. I've loved it. It's great. I'll tell you what, this is not a slight serious thing. It's great when you tune in someone enough to fuck around and not feel like you've got to be on your best behavior and better comments. So thank you.

I've had a very nice time. Very good. Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Cougan, and there really is no end to these conversations. I don't know why I'm doing a formal ending now, but we're now going to scroll the list of the Civil War dead, first Confederate and then Union, and we're going to play sad music. And that'll take about six hours because we lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Good night, everybody. It's long been my wish for the podcast that it be kind of evergreen, that you never really,

you could listen to one now or listen to one three years from now, and it really wouldn't make a difference. It's just sort of like a little note in a bottle that you toss into the ocean and you find it whenever. That's always been my hope for it. These are different times. We're in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic. We're all on lockdowns to give you a reference point.

It's Saturday, March 28th. We're all separated, but we're together. And we just, just to give you some context, we just spent about 45 minutes, several adults, including Sona and Matt Gorely, and Aaron Blair, and Adam Sacks, Will Bekton, talking me through how to get connected because I'm by myself in a room in my house. And it was a horror show. It was one of the worst things that's ever happened because I'm a Luddite. I'm not someone who's good at computers.

It's not just that you're a Luddite, though. You're resistant to information. Yes. Yes. I think that's your biggest problem is that you automatically think you can't do it. So you're like, oh, this is awful. It's like, you just try. All you got to do is try.

If I say something like, hey, you know, like open your inbox, oh, what, what's my inbox? Like what, where am I supposed to find the inbox? Well, I don't call it inbox. I call it maily mail. I use different terms. That's maily mail. And then you guys will say things like go to your system preferences and I'll say, wait, you mean Geary Gear?

For a while, I was calling that my Richard Gear because it was just, it's a gearbox. Oh man. And seriously, I'd say, oh, I'll click on Richard Gear and then I'll go to the speaker. You guys say go to system preferences and find sound. No, that's Richard Gear to speaker or what looks to me like an overturned rice bowl. So I think, I think the way I'm doing it is just fine. I just don't know your wacky terms like on and off. What's on and off?

That's night night is off and breakfast time is on. So it's on us to learn these terms to. Yeah. I am the pharaoh and you are moving this stone to make my tomb. And how soon will you be in that tomb? You know, I'm a pharaoh that lives a very long time and you're crushed by a giant sandstone slab in about a week and you're thrown in a pit with the rest of the stone movers. Okay.

The point is it's been an arduous process getting me. And I think we do have some audio, don't we, Matt? We were rolling for some of it. Is there something you want to say to the people who help you out and like, you know, get all that stuff ready for you, you know? Well, I would say it's an equal exchange, you're paid for your services. Oh, okay. You ruined it.

No, I'm very grateful. Of course. I'm very grateful to everyone who works hard to make this thing hum. And I'm realizing that all I really contribute is the spark of life. Wow. Let's throw to the montage. We got plenty. Now it's just playing back to me and I can't, the little box that stops it, I'm being the

dick I was eight minutes ago and I can't get it to stop. Oh, sorry. It says recording. No, that's good. I'm just trying to stop myself from talking to myself. Conan, do you have like a dock down at the bottom where you see all your applications? I see downloads. Would it be under downloads?

It could be that you downloaded it accidentally. Open that downloads folder and see if anything's playing. I'm just being driven mad by my own quipage. Now I know how awkward it is to listen to me. Finally. Finally. Where did this go? Oh, boy.

Having me conduct the test of listening to it was the worst thing that ever happened. Jesus. All right. So where would this be, this fucking file? I feel like I'm hearing myself too and I don't know where it's coming from. Oh, my God. That's probably your mother. Son.

Son. Son. No, son. Son. Not a good boy. Would it be under downloads? She's saying that's going to please him. Either to the side or down below, you should see us a strip of application icons.

Yes. Okay. Do any of them have a little dot below them? A little dot over them? Below them. Oh, that's where it's on iTunes. Yeah. It might be on iTunes.

It's on iTunes. If your iTunes is open. I am playing on iTunes. Quit iTunes. So how do I stop it? Now look, it's coming through. Oh, my God. This is insane.

This is hell. Okay. What am I going to download? No. Hold option command and escape. Okay. I have to hear you over CCR and I can't hear you. This is awful.

How did this go into iTunes? Okay. Hold on. I forgot how to find QuickTime. I'm so sorry. This is horrible. You can go. Hold on.

I found it. I found it. Okay. I think for this segment, we should just play this. Hold on. I have it. Audio recording and this is terrible. This is the worst thing that I've ever been a part of.

All right. Okay. Are you... Conan and Sonia, you guys have your audio turned off. It's not playing anything back. Press record now. I'm recording. Wait.

Where's file went away? It's just select... Us, meeting, meeting, meeting, view, edit, window, QuickTime, on QuickTime. The application. The fuck is QuickTime? It's to the left of your inbox, down in the dock. Yeah. There it is.

I just got it memorized. Wow. I put it there on purpose yesterday. Good night. We're all going to die. I'd rather... Well, we're doing complicated stuff here. Let's be honest.

You know how to do this. No. Oh, man. All right. I forget what we're doing. Okay. Now, this next step should theoretically be super simple, but I'm really worried about it.

Okay? This is going to be... We have to clap together. Sonia, Conan and me. I'm going to go one, two, three, and then the four is the clap. Yes. Okay. Don't worry if it's not synced from what you see or hear.

It will be in the end. So ready? One, two, three. Okay. Now we're ready. Now we can take over to my area of expertise or sex expertise for you ladies that are familiar with my stylings. Are we recording this in the current reality?

And now I got to find the intro because I haven't printed that out. What? It's on the email. You can just read it from the email. Yeah. Why don't you just get your iPad next to you so you could access? Okay. Oh, good job.

You figured that out. I'm not touching another button. Okay. Emails, emails. Let's see. John Mulaney emailing me. No big deal. Oh my God.

That's whatever. Nobody asked. So nobody asked. Okay. Here we go. I'm trying to see. There's a whole chain here. Ah, here we go.

Conan. Conan, can I say something? Will told me yesterday, even though you could hear it clearly on your end, you have to talk into the microphone. Like you normally would when you're doing the podcast. Nope. I don't know why you're like that right now. You don't lick it.

What are you doing? Sorry. I went into a high school fantasy. What? Nothing. I always wanted to. Anyway. All right.

So should I start? Yeah. Hello there. Oh God. I'm so sorry. Adam. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Sonamov Sessian and Conan O'Brien as himself, produced by me, Matt Gorely, executive produced by Adam Sacks and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson

and Chris Bannon at Earwolf, theme song by the White Stripes, incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Apples. The show is engineered by Will Bekton. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review featured on a future episode. Got a question for Conan?

Call the Team Coco hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. A Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.