Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend XX
[0] Hello.
[1] Sorry, I changed the script instead of high.
[2] I got to make it my own.
[3] Hello, my name is Walton Goggins, and I feel cozy about being Conan O 'Brien's friend.
[4] Fally's here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are going to be friends.
[5] You're going to be friends Hey there Welcome to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend Joined by my Co -Pilot and Co -Co -Pilot Sonam of Sessian Okay Matt Gourley Is that work that way?
[6] Wait, Navigator Are you a Navigator?
[7] I'm a co -co pilot Okay, all right, please.
[8] The plane just blasts its wings.
[9] I'm running on fumes because I'm having a colonoscopy tomorrow and I'm not allowed to have solid food today and I'm starving.
[10] I've talked about this a lot Have you had a colonoscopy before?
[11] I have.
[12] Up the poop shoot.
[13] Wait, they didn't tell me that.
[14] They can also go through the mouth.
[15] What?
[16] It takes longer.
[17] What?
[18] Why would you want that way?
[19] I don't know.
[20] It's just a more interesting trip.
[21] You pass valuable real estate.
[22] It's the scenic route.
[23] I went in through the ear once.
[24] Right here.
[25] You just see all kinds of cool stuff.
[26] You know, we've talked about it a lot.
[27] you're getting the drug, right?
[28] You know, I'm not sure this is a different health care provider this time so I'm not sure what I will bring you the drug.
[29] Bring me the drug.
[30] I got the drug last time, but it didn't quite live up to the hype that you had.
[31] Then you're a fool.
[32] No, I think just because you've never had many drugs before.
[33] That's true.
[34] That might be it.
[35] It's because I've never had a drug that when I get even Novakane at the dentist's office to like replace a crown, not even do any drilling.
[36] If I just get the slightest medication, suddenly it's losing the sluicing guy with diamonds.
[37] I think so.
[38] Yeah, I bought Tylenol from a guy in an alley once.
[39] Oh, no. Yeah.
[40] It was coated.
[41] Coded Tylenol.
[42] Yeah, it's a good time.
[43] It's a good time.
[44] Well, listen.
[45] It's a good time.
[46] You're going to have a great time at your colonoscopy.
[47] I'm sad.
[48] I have to miss our session tomorrow for will this, they won't have been on yet, but it's a guess that I'm sad to miss. Oh, please.
[49] The Pope will come on again.
[50] He's doing my colonoscopy.
[51] So you're having this colonoscopy and that's good We should, you know, make people aware That's why I brought it up It's good to get checked out Yeah, and I think the age is younger now So all you kids can get in there and have some fun All right 45, right?
[52] Isn't that the Is it?
[53] Is it right?
[54] Yeah, I actually have to schedule mine I have to get my first one.
[55] Do you have any tips Like for someone who's never had a colonoscopy before?
[56] Don't bother.
[57] Yeah, you'll be fine.
[58] All right, great, thanks.
[59] No, no, I mean, what do you mean tips?
[60] You just, you know.
[61] I don't know.
[62] No, you're talking about not eating and eat jello.
[63] No, the prep is the undressing stuff.
[64] You're not even awake for the procedure.
[65] It's the prep that's a nightmare.
[66] I thought you were awake and you were like watching it all happened.
[67] No, no, no, you're out of it.
[68] It's a twilight drug.
[69] When you wake up, the first time I did it and when I woke up, I was wearing someone else's clothes.
[70] I was on a bus.
[71] I was on a crosstown bus.
[72] I was in Portugal.
[73] I mean, all kinds of shit happened and I was unaware of it.
[74] I do have a question.
[75] Do they, and I know, I know I'm going to get made fun of, but I was actually curious.
[76] That's just because you're asking the question.
[77] Do they let you keep the footage?
[78] No, you never see the footage.
[79] You don't see the footage.
[80] You really don't get to see it?
[81] Can I get the, I know, but I'm curious.
[82] Do you get the footage?
[83] Can you get the footage?
[84] You know what this reminds me of?
[85] This reminds me of when I was, I think I was 10, doubled over in pain and it gets worse and worse throughout the night and I wake up in the morning and my dad, who's a doctor, said, hey you're not on my health plan fuck you not even my kid yeah we're not even sure you're my kid there's no red hair in my family anyway then the milkman came by Papa I started doing the string dance as he left the milk by I went blah blah blah anyway anyway I just insulted 55 of my most beloved people in my life oh it went anyway my dad took me to the hospital They said, oh, this kid's appendix is like bursting right now.
[86] They actually had a priest who was, I think, in the hospital anyway, but they said, maybe you want to hang out because we don't know if this guy.
[87] I remember that.
[88] I remember a priest coming in, which is never a good son, even when you're in a church.
[89] And so...
[90] That could have been more of a Damian thing.
[91] Yeah.
[92] Yeah, exactly.
[93] My head was spinning around.
[94] It's never good to see a priest.
[95] Trust me. The priest came in and said, oh, devil!
[96] And he went, no, no, no. He's got appendicitis.
[97] But he seems possessed.
[98] Well, one day I'll have a podcast.
[99] Anyway, they took, just before I went under, I swear to God, I'm this weird 10 -year -old kid with orange hair and freckles and a fucked up teeth.
[100] And I just said, I said to the doctor who wants to keep my appendix.
[101] And he went, and I said, promise me. And he went, yes, yes, I want my appendix.
[102] Want it.
[103] And they went, yes, yes.
[104] And then count backwards from 10, 10, 9, and then you're out.
[105] And then I wake up and I'm in a lot of pain.
[106] And then later on I said, can I see my appendix now?
[107] They went, what are you talking about?
[108] I think you talked to David Sedaris about this.
[109] I did.
[110] I wanted it.
[111] Like, spleen or something?
[112] He got to keep his spleen, yeah.
[113] But it was illegal or something.
[114] And he had it with some kianti.
[115] But I would have loved to have had that.
[116] And they promised me. What were you going to do with it?
[117] You were 10.
[118] Well, now I would have cloned a new Conan.
[119] He could do the Conan fans.
[120] I could do these.
[121] That's a good idea.
[122] What a screwed -up version of Conan that would be?
[123] Look -a -like versions of ourselves do the fan episodes, you know?
[124] Like second four -man versions?
[125] Yeah.
[126] I just, I get Ben Marshall from, Please Don't Destroy.
[127] And I get George Clooney.
[128] Oh, right.
[129] I'll just be here then if George Clooney's coming.
[130] People say I look like Sarah McLaughlin.
[131] Oh, you do?
[132] Sure.
[133] Sure, yeah.
[134] And Judy Greer a little, too.
[135] Okay, I'll take it.
[136] And there's some other people.
[137] What?
[138] I don't know.
[139] Why did you dismiss me like that?
[140] I think you're more Anthony Quinn to me. You've got this sort of the Greek exuberance.
[141] I'm always thinking of you as the female Anthony Quinn.
[142] You're always smashing plates and dancing across the horizon.
[143] Yeah.
[144] All right, we got to get into it.
[145] Good luck with your colonoscopy tomorrow.
[146] Yeah, good luck.
[147] All the best.
[148] Hey, I'll come.
[149] Huh?
[150] Yeah, I'll be there too.
[151] Oh, that's not interesting.
[152] I want to lie on the table next to you and get a dose.
[153] They can put a hose up there if they want.
[154] When you wake up, I'm spooning with you, snoozing away.
[155] And they're like, what?
[156] Oh, he came in just as you went under and he said you were okay with it.
[157] I'd rather have a malignant tumor up there.
[158] Oh, God.
[159] Wow.
[160] You might want to take that back.
[161] Oh, boy.
[162] My guest today, I love there's no way into this.
[163] No, I know.
[164] He deserves better, too.
[165] Does he?
[166] My guest today has started such.
[167] Shows is justified on the righteous gemstones.
[168] Now you can see him in the hit series, Fallout, available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
[169] I love him.
[170] Excited he's here today.
[171] Walton Goggins, welcome.
[172] I just hugged you on the way in, and I lingered on the hug.
[173] You did linger, and I lingered, too.
[174] I didn't know who was going to pull away first.
[175] And I think we did simultaneously, just because we were making everyone else uncomfortable.
[176] We were technically, we were separated by your publicist.
[177] You started talking about his musculature.
[178] And then we realized this went on too long.
[179] Guys in great shape.
[180] Well, that has a lot to do with the White Lotus.
[181] It has a lot to do with whenever anyone is not working at the White Lotus, it's walking into the gym and saying, oh, hi, hello, hello.
[182] Could you please get off the treadmill right now?
[183] We've been down there for three months.
[184] So this is, yeah, I wanted to talk about this because I was in Bangkok.
[185] I don't remember how long ago now shooting for our travel show.
[186] It was a really hot day.
[187] And so I had my experience there, which has been well documented.
[188] Then not long ago, I ran into, before you guys started shooting White Lotus, I run into none other than Mike White in a restaurant.
[189] Really?
[190] And we start chatting because we've met each other once or twice before, and he's a very funny, cool guy.
[191] And I said, hey, so you're going the next season of White Lotus, you're going down to, you know, to Thailand, right?
[192] And he said, yeah.
[193] And I said, I was there.
[194] I had a great time.
[195] I made a lot of friends.
[196] And then I said, if there's a part for me, you know, I'm available.
[197] And he looked at me and he said, you know, there's a lot of sex work there.
[198] And I said, I could do that.
[199] I could.
[200] I could play a part where I'm a sex, you know, a male jigolo or something.
[201] It was a desperate, been depraved.
[202] This is the last podcast you will ever do, Conan.
[203] Yeah.
[204] I just.
[205] Yes.
[206] Yes, you could do that.
[207] Yeah.
[208] I believe that you could do that.
[209] Do you think that when I'm saying, do you think I could play that part?
[210] Or do you think I actually could be a jiggle -o?
[211] A jiggle -well, I think you're, I think you could do both.
[212] I think you could play that part and you could be that person in real life.
[213] Okay.
[214] Yeah.
[215] I appreciate that.
[216] Absolutely.
[217] I believe it.
[218] It's all about hydration.
[219] No. It is all.
[220] Uh -huh.
[221] That's one percent.
[222] What?
[223] Take it from me. No, but I got to say, I absolutely loved it.
[224] I loved it there.
[225] I loved the country.
[226] and the people were fantastic and it must be an amazing place to be shooting.
[227] Well, did you, a question for you, did you go outside of Bangkok?
[228] Did you get up to Chang Mai or down to the islands?
[229] We did not get to because we have to get everything in about, I would say, 10 days.
[230] Wow.
[231] And we have so much to do that we found that if we travel within the show, we can do it in some places.
[232] We did it in Norway, but if we try to travel in Ireland where things are a little more concentrated, but we really wanted to get down to Buket, We wanted to get up north, but you lose too much time and then you lose a lot of stuff that way.
[233] Well, you know, I, this isn't my first time in Southeast Asia.
[234] I spent two months traveling all over Southeast Asia.
[235] I was in Thailand for, I don't know, three weeks or something like that.
[236] And then I was in Cambodia.
[237] I went all over Cambodia and all over northern Vietnam and made my way up to this little town called Sapa.
[238] on the Chinese border.
[239] But my, my, when I first got to Bangkok, the very first time, it's, this is a cool story.
[240] Okay.
[241] So I'm there, I'm meeting my mom for like this first like three or four days.
[242] It's at a particular time in my life and I'm looking for something.
[243] So my mom accompanies me for a few days.
[244] I, we meet there, we get there, we do the last leg from L .A. or wherever it is in Hong Kong into, into Bangkok.
[245] I have, we get in at night, you know, you want to kind of stay up.
[246] I'm with my mom and when we go have, we find a, we're staying in a super cool little small hotel in the middle of nowhere, this area called Watpo that I found like online because it was before smartphones and all the rest of it.
[247] And we go out and have a drink and, you know, here we go.
[248] This is going to be our Southeast Asian adventure.
[249] Yeah.
[250] Go to sleep, wake up to a phone ringing.
[251] right and for some reason i just thought because i'm a narcissist that's probably for me that phone ringing is probably somebody's probably calling me it's like my wife you know my girlfriend at the time and uh and so and it's only they're only like three or four rooms in this place i i go downstairs i'm jet lagged i pick up the phone and the woman is screaming at me and tie so obviously it's not for me you hope obviously and i say well whoa whoa No, no, no, no. I'm just a guest here.
[252] I thought, I just picked up the phone because I thought, and she stopped me mid -sentence, and she said, there's been a coup.
[253] And I said, I'm sorry, what did you say?
[254] She said, there's been a, there's been a coup.
[255] So you stay in the hotel.
[256] So the military took power there while you were just hanging out.
[257] My first morning there.
[258] And, and I'm thinking, okay, God, I wished I looked at this, as James Woods.
[259] But I didn't know that it was, she was really happening, but she said, yes, there's been a coup.
[260] Everything is cool.
[261] It's a peaceful coup.
[262] You're fine.
[263] Just hang out in the hotel until we get there, you know, don't go outside.
[264] And, uh, and lo and behold, they did, they did come, you know, 45 minutes later or whatever.
[265] We got dressed and, uh, we walked outside and it was a, a peaceful coup.
[266] And people were out in the streets and their tanks were out and the guns were out.
[267] Peaceful tanks and peaceful guns.
[268] Yes, yeah, yes, nobody was messing with them.
[269] Guns made of, like, rubber.
[270] I didn't know there could be peaceful coups.
[271] Yeah, I know.
[272] It doesn't.
[273] Yeah, I don't think there was much resistance to this coup.
[274] But it was, that was my, that was my entree into Southeast Asia.
[275] Oh my God.
[276] Yeah, yeah.
[277] And it was, and I had the most incredible time of my life, and I agree with you.
[278] I, I think that they, I think Thai people in general are some of the kindest, most generous, peaceful people I've ever met in my life.
[279] Yeah, they were very warm.
[280] And I happen to know this about you that you enjoy, one of the things that you love when you travel is drinking with people in different strange situations.
[281] Is that true?
[282] I do.
[283] That is true.
[284] And so you like, part of your ethos when you travel is, I like to share whatever the local drink is with people.
[285] You like to imbibe, and that's a way of getting to know the culture.
[286] That is, yes, that is one way of getting to know the culture.
[287] And it happens to be my favorite way of getting to know the culture.
[288] For sure.
[289] Yeah.
[290] But I do, I travel, you know, I do, I travel with an open heart.
[291] You know, I have no itinerary.
[292] It's about improvisation for me. You know, I've made my way into some places that you can't buy a ticket to, you know, and experiences that are once in a lifetime only because I genuinely am curious about the world and I'm curious about people and their worldview.
[293] I want to get to know them and and and I've been invited into a lot of circumstances that uh just because I I I come heart forward I guess in that way.
[294] But I'm curious because it sounds funny but it also does seem to be like a natural way to get to know a culture is to have their drink.
[295] Do you know whatever?
[296] And because yes, it relaxes you everything and and but it's also i mean sona and i traveled to armenia together and we were having the armenian food we were also we were having whatever they were drinking oh yeah and they take a lot of pride in it and it's good yeah and i remember and the same thing uh you well you got trashed uh i did but in but when i was in but i was in finland they kept saying conan now she's she's still hung over and it was like eight years ago uh but we went to finland together You didn't come to Finland, but when I went to Finland, they have a drink called Korskenkova.
[297] And when you first take a shot of it, I think you just took this from a jet engine.
[298] But then you start to see the wisdom of Korskinkova.
[299] So, you know, and so when I encounter people now from the different travels that I've done, if I mention their drink, if they run into me in New York City and I'm talking to someone from Finland, I say, hey, too bad we can't go grab some Korskinkova.
[300] They're like, yes, you see me. You see me. And I say, yes, and you see me. I'm, I think, an alcoholic.
[301] But I like to be seen.
[302] I like that you know me. I had a memory of you, an experience involving you recently, which you do not know about, which is my wife and I had put a lot of stuff in storage, and we were going back because of the different, you know, I moved from the Warner Brothers offices, and I moved in the old days we were in New York, so we always have stuff in storage.
[303] And we went to go through, at all and kind of figure out, is there anything that should leave storage?
[304] And at one point, I'm with my wife, and there's this woman there that runs a storage facility.
[305] We're in the valley, and we're going through stuff, and we open a box, and my wife just picks up this what looks like a furry, dead animal out of the box, and she says, what the hell?
[306] What is this?
[307] And I said, that was a gift from Walton Goggins.
[308] And I, and I, hold on, yes, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, you were promoting the hateful eight.
[309] Right, yes.
[310] And in The Hateful Eight, you play, the whole movie takes place in Minnie's haberdashery.
[311] It does take place in many times.
[312] The whole habadashry, the walls are covered with different pelts.
[313] I was excited.
[314] You know, I'm a Quentin Tarantino fan.
[315] You came backstage after the show and said, Conan, I brought you a gift.
[316] And you handed me one of the many pelts that was hanging on the wall from Minnie's habadashry, which is there for the whole shoot.
[317] And I was like, my God, thank you.
[318] And I put it cut to my wife saying, what the hell is this?
[319] And she said, we're getting rid of it.
[320] And I said, we're not getting rid of it.
[321] Walton Gaggins gave that to me. And of course, now I bring it up, and you don't even know what I'm talking.
[322] No, I know exactly what you're talking about now.
[323] And I did do that.
[324] And I'm glad that you kept it.
[325] Yeah, I kept.
[326] You also gave me Quentin Tarantino's MX card.
[327] Oh.
[328] Yeah.
[329] So I also have kept.
[330] Yeah.
[331] No, but I did.
[332] I just was like, no, we're hanging on to that because I love the movie.
[333] loved your performance in it.
[334] And I thought, that's very cool that you gave that to me. So I'm hanging on to that.
[335] And it's in it, it's, you know, it's, it's my Citizen Kane warehouse.
[336] Ah.
[337] When I die, my last words are going to be, Goggins.
[338] And everyone's going to wonder, what does it mean?
[339] And reporters are going to scramble.
[340] And it's going to end with everyone throwing my stuff into a fire in a warehouse.
[341] That'll happen.
[342] And then it'll be like, yeah, you'll be there.
[343] And taking the occasional thing.
[344] And then one worker just picking up a pelt and shrugging and tossing it in.
[345] Why did he say Goggins?
[346] I guess we'll never know.
[347] We'll never know.
[348] I guess we'll never care.
[349] I guess we'll never care.
[350] But anyway, that was a really nice memory I had.
[351] That Jennifer and I, as they do when a movie is rapping, more often not, the production will put up a sale, right?
[352] Like the things that people may want to get money back for the studio that's paying for it.
[353] And we both kind of looked at each other and asked for the, you know, the pamph or the, whatever, the catalog before it kind of came out.
[354] Yeah.
[355] Because we had both been coveting all of these animal skins for like six months.
[356] Like, wow, that's just a pretty brown one right there.
[357] Oh, my God.
[358] Wow, that would look so good on a sofa.
[359] Unbelievable.
[360] Hey, hey, we could give that to Conan.
[361] He's just dumb enough to take it.
[362] Conan will love this one.
[363] It really does look like a squirrel that got run over by a truck.
[364] That's what it looks like more than anything else, which might be what it is.
[365] But it was a very nice memory.
[366] And also, I've watched all of Quentin Tarantino's movies many times.
[367] I've watched that one several times.
[368] That would not be what I would take from that movie.
[369] What would you take?
[370] I would want Kurt Russell's beard from that movie.
[371] Yeah.
[372] I would ask, I was, I'm guessing it's real, because Kurt Russell seems like a guy that could have grown that beard maybe in two days.
[373] Yes, in two days, yeah.
[374] But God.
[375] It's the best head of hair, too.
[376] Jesus Christ.
[377] God, his hair is so.
[378] It is.
[379] It is amazing.
[380] His hair.
[381] He is, uh, I'm, he was, can I get out to tell you one really quick story?
[382] Is it about his hair?
[383] Yes.
[384] It's not even, it's not even about a hair.
[385] It's just kind of a segue to a moment, just to a memory because, you know, so much of that was, like, a. It was exhausting for everybody there, and it was extremely cold, and it was just hours upon hours in this room that, you know, Quentin had set to a certain temperature, and because he didn't, you know, want to manufacture these breaths.
[386] He wanted them to be real.
[387] He also said, I made the room really, really cold so I would work faster, but he just kept wearing bigger jackets.
[388] A cheater.
[389] And there was one moment where we would all kind of sit and huddle in a corner and all of us and just confer in this one part of the bar right there.
[390] But there was one moment one night where everyone was so tired.
[391] And Kurt was just, like I say seeing things because we all saw things being up that late.
[392] And I saw him having a conversation with a chair.
[393] And I just like talked to Sam.
[394] I said, look at him, man. What do you think he's saying to that?
[395] chair right now.
[396] It was like this drug -induced insanity.
[397] Well, that cast, you, Tarantino -induced insanity.
[398] Samuel Jackson, Kurt.
[399] I mean, it's just just incredible.
[400] What a insane cast.
[401] It was a dream of a lifetime.
[402] Yeah.
[403] It really, really was.
[404] And Madsen and Tim Roth and all of them.
[405] It's really, I know, and we're still, I mean, what has it been, eight years or something like that?
[406] And I, we just texted, I don't know, the other day, we texted about, like once a month or something like that.
[407] Somebody will reach out and say, you know, where are the haters?
[408] What, you know, what are they doing?
[409] And it's just, uh, just the cast and, uh, that's so cool.
[410] The hateful eight, it's all, you are, you're the haters.
[411] Yeah, we, yeah, yeah, it's the hater board.
[412] That's what we call it.
[413] And still, you know, we started it when we were in production and it's still going strong, uh, eight, eight years later.
[414] You're appearing in so many things now.
[415] So many great shows, so many great movies.
[416] it must be hard to believe sometimes when you think back to you as a kid growing up, I know you were, I think you were born in Alabama, is that correct?
[417] Born in Alabama, raised in Georgia.
[418] But you just had this vision that this is what you were supposed to be doing with your life.
[419] That's how it's always occurred to me or how I've, when I've read about you, heard about you, that you just had this idea that like, I need to be doing this.
[420] I need to be an actor.
[421] Not that you necessarily knew a ton of people who did that.
[422] You just, it felt like almost a vision.
[423] Well, you know, the fact that you're doing a travel show and you live the life that you have lived and other people have had a similar trajectory and the audacity of thinking that you can live a life as a creative person.
[424] For me, I'm a poor kid from Georgia.
[425] I was raised in a very unconventional way with when I say crazy women.
[426] What I mean by that is that's what I love.
[427] I was raised mostly by women and they were insane.
[428] Was your dad?
[429] Your dad was out of the picture when you were three?
[430] Yeah, I mean, he was out, yeah, when there were three, right?
[431] Yeah, but, you know, he was around a little bit, but mostly it was my grandmother and my mom and her sisters.
[432] And we've talked about this before.
[433] My aunt and uncle were both actors in the theater, so I'd been exposed to that and seeing them on stage for the first time.
[434] But I was also raised with a group of people that were extremely entertaining.
[435] You know, I mean, we watched TV a little bit.
[436] It wasn't like a big movie household or anything like that.
[437] We sat outside on the porch and told stories, you know, about the day or about things that happened in the past, and the baton would be passed, if you will.
[438] And I just happened to come from a family where everyone was entertaining on some level.
[439] And it was, I still think about it, and I miss it.
[440] And I miss those times.
[441] But really, other than walking into the casting director's office when I was 14 years old, and we've gone through that story as well, I wanted to see the world first and foremost.
[442] But I also, I was drawn to storytelling because not because of exposure to cinema or exposure to anyone else that had done it, but because I felt like, wow, this is a place I feel normal.
[443] Yeah.
[444] You know, I think I am, people that know me would say that I am earnest.
[445] I'm an earnest guy.
[446] And I'm a pretty sensitive guy.
[447] I suppose there's a little level of volatility there, you know, on some level.
[448] But it was a place that I found great.
[449] comfort in a place where I felt like I belonged.
[450] I didn't know how to go about doing it, even though I was very lucky to start working in Atlanta before I moved out.
[451] My observation about you is that, because I was thinking about you today, knowing that I'd see you, and I was thinking about, you know, all the work that you've done and all the roles that you've played, and whether it's you're in vice principles or whether you're in righteous gemstones, which I adore, I love righteous gemstones.
[452] So whether you're in, you know, one of those shows or even on A Justify when you're playing, you know, this character who's got terrible, terrible flaws and, you know, racist views and former like neo -Nazi Boyd Crowther, all of your characters are entertaining people.
[453] They're very, they're very silver -tonged and they're funny.
[454] They're kind of, they're funny characters and they, and I've always thought, you can't play that, unless that is in some way the essence of who you are.
[455] I don't think an unfunny person can play a funny person.
[456] Does that feel right to you?
[457] I would agree with that.
[458] I guess, yeah.
[459] In the way that I'm never going to play like a sexy man in a movie.
[460] That's not.
[461] If I can play a sexy man, you can play a sexy man. No, no, no, no. Guess what?
[462] There have been many screen tests.
[463] And apparently when the camera gets in close, there's a thing that happens.
[464] The camera breaks.
[465] A break is, it's shattered.
[466] But, no, there's a, you know, there's a, no, what I'm saying is there's a, there's a quality you have where I think, oh, there's no way Walton wouldn't be a fun guy to hang out with because you've played too many characters that really tickle me where I think, oh yeah, okay, he'd be a, he'd be a fun hang.
[467] I think I'm a pretty fun hang.
[468] Yeah, I think I think I, I know how you guys feel about this, but I'm not funny in the way that Danny McBride is, funny, right, situationally funny.
[469] My wife is very, very funny, and I hang out with some funny people.
[470] Not a lot of, a lot of comedians.
[471] I don't have a ton of comedian friends, but I think I can throw some stuff out without trying to be funny, and people find it humorous.
[472] But more often than not, whenever I'm working, I take all of those things very, very seriously.
[473] You know, it's not, it really isn't comedy for me. And it's not not comedy either.
[474] It's just, this is the reality of this situation, and it dictates this experience and just kind of turn myself over to it and try not to control any of it.
[475] There was a great flashback scene in The Righteous Gemstones back to earlier in your life where you clog and dance.
[476] And I was, it really, I didn't know that your character was going to be clogging.
[477] And you start singing this song about being naughty and clogging.
[478] and I was howling, but also appreciating that, shit, he's good.
[479] Thank you, Cohn, I appreciate that.
[480] You can clog.
[481] You can claw.
[482] I can.
[483] Which would make you, in my opinion, if you can clog and you can drink and you can drink and clog, you're a really good hang.
[484] There's a lot of countries I can, I've got a tour coming out of here, is what you're saying.
[485] I do.
[486] You know, my mom was a great dancer.
[487] She's a really good dancer.
[488] And she took me into clogging lessons when I was really young so that I could kind of dance with her.
[489] And she also kind of taught me how to two -step.
[490] I grew up kind of going to honky -tong bars and things of that nature.
[491] And she did a dance called The Bop, which is kind of the Florida version of the North Carolina Shag, which is kind of like the working man's version of a very kind of posh southern dance.
[492] And dancing and music and drinking and celebration was a big part of my, my childhood.
[493] And I'm so grateful for it.
[494] I don't meet that many people that have clogging on their resume or hog calling or.
[495] It's so funny because can you make a still in 10 minutes?
[496] Yes, I can, sir.
[497] You know what?
[498] I had somebody come up to me the other day.
[499] a very dear friend of mine.
[500] And I just posted this picture of, I was just because it was the end of a very big block in the White Lotus.
[501] And I was having a glass of wine, which I do nightly.
[502] And listening to this Radiohead song, and I just recorded this video of me singing this Radiohead song.
[503] And what if, when I am asked what it was like on working on the White Lotus, this is probably what I'll say.
[504] And a very good friend of mine said, the next day, I saw her, and she said, you listen to Radiohead?
[505] Yeah, I listened to Radiohead.
[506] She said, I thought you only listened to Waylon Jennings.
[507] I thought you only like Willie Nelson, only like Ernest Tubbs.
[508] Yeah, yeah.
[509] I said, no, man, I listen to Ethiopian jazz, man. I listen to everything.
[510] You got to, you know, I mean, like once you lead with I clog and a hog call, that everybody else thinks, well, you know, he always fried pork chops and country fried steak and biscuits.
[511] Where's Walton?
[512] I don't know.
[513] Let's go to the cracker barrel.
[514] He'll be over there.
[515] Hey, where's Walton?
[516] Walton's over there.
[517] He's at the jerky stand.
[518] That's where he spends all his per die of.
[519] Yeah.
[520] Yeah, the studio's chewing you out.
[521] You spent $900 on jerky?
[522] It's funny.
[523] You know, it's funny because I am a, I mean, a fan of all your work across the board, and I'm really loving Fallout, which we will get to, really loving Fallout in your role in that and your portrayal of The Gould.
[524] I'm just so, it's so funny because I was thinking about, you know, what are your influences and what sort of lit you up, you know, when you were a kid.
[525] I would never forget, I think it was the first year I was doing the late -night show.
[526] So it would be 1993.
[527] we had Billy Bob Thornton on, and he had just done Slingblade.
[528] And I'm talking to him, and I'm thinking, oh, my God, this guy's up for the Oscar, and everyone's talking about this new guy, Billy Bob Thornton, and what an incredible, he transformed into this character, and what an amazing.
[529] And I sit down with him, and I said, so, you know, and I'm nervous because I'm new at this gig, not sure I'm going to make it.
[530] And I just said, well, what are your influences thinking he would say, well, you know, the plays have checked, off or something, and he said, the Andy Griffith Show.
[531] And I said, what?
[532] And then he proceeded to talk about the Andy Griffith Show for the entire interview.
[533] So I was fascinated by that because I thought, I love that he knows the Andy Griffith Show that well.
[534] And he's a, you know, he's a Southern fellow, but he loves that show.
[535] And I remembered thinking, you're right, it was the best character comedy of its day.
[536] I mean, just beautifully acted and written character comedy.
[537] And I revere that show.
[538] And I think you You had a similar attachment to the Andy Griffith show, didn't you?
[539] I can't believe that you're bringing that up.
[540] First and foremost, Billy is an old friend of mine, and we met doing The Apostle with Robert DeVall.
[541] And it was just kind of right around that time.
[542] He was, I think maybe he had done the movie, but the movie hadn't come out yet.
[543] And then I had done this movie with Dwight Yoakum.
[544] And so I had fallen into this group of, you know, some of my heroes.
[545] Because I'm from the South, you know, and he's from Arkansas.
[546] saw and is Dwight Yockel?
[547] No, but they were genuinely some of my, some of my heroes, and I was hanging out with them.
[548] And I was camping up in Yosemite after Slingblade came out.
[549] And I came down for some reason to call my answering machine from the pay phone that is in the middle of nowhere up there.
[550] And I called, and there was a message from Billy Bob saying, you know, hey man, you know, got this thing, I want you to do, but you need to get here immediately.
[551] I went with my girlfriend, packed all the stuff up, came back, and went down and did it, but Andy Griffith was in that movie.
[552] And so we got to meet Andy Griffith and kind of hang out with him.
[553] But getting ready, as most actors do, or creators do, I had the same question for you, but getting ready for the unicorn, I was looking for, okay, you know, what is this?
[554] And who is Wade and how can I ground him?
[555] How can I make this a half -hour sitcom without ever telling a joke and make it as touching as it is as it is funny?
[556] And so I sat down and started watching all of Andy Griffith.
[557] I thought I would only watch like the first season, but I watched the first two.
[558] It's deeply political, deeply personal, and it's comforting.
[559] And it is very, very funny.
[560] And my son came into the experience with me. And we didn't stop.
[561] until we finished RFD, Maybury RFD at the end without Andy even involved with it anymore.
[562] And it's an extraordinary experience.
[563] It's unbelievable you got to work with Andy Griffith.
[564] Yeah, I'm a huge, huge Andy Griffith fan.
[565] And we actually, this movie that my partner and I made, at one point, we wanted, it was the fourth movie we made, but we made a movie for, we produced a movie for somebody else, another filmmaker.
[566] And it was called Them That Follow.
[567] not them to follow that's my movie it was called i think you're having a total psychotic break i am having a psychotic break and i think you need a drink immediately i do need a drink this coffee just isn't cutting it uh you know what i'll think i'll think of the name of the movie in a second i these things come and go with me i'm like right here in the middle you know we can do we can uh i can we can insert it later using my voice yes but i'll be trying to sound like you perfect and it will be awful yeah can you say the sentence you're going to say and leave a space for the movie and then we'll put Conan's perfect yeah and we were we were we were doing this uh movie called that evening sun and we reached out to andy griffith first right and he he read it and he just wasn't comfortable with it but that was our one chance to to work with with with andy after this experience with billy bob and we wound up reaching out to how Holbrook and and how did it and killed it yeah i don't think i've told this story.
[568] I hope I haven't, but Andy Griffith was on our show early on.
[569] No. Yes, sir.
[570] And sometimes, you know, the writers will pressure a performer to do a sketch or a bit if you go on a late night show.
[571] And hey, Walton, it might be funny if we cut backstage and you were, you know, we were lighting you on fire or something.
[572] That's a bit we always tried to do.
[573] Anyway, this writer who, God bless him, he's not with us anymore, Marsh McCall, But walked up to Andy Griffith and said, Mr. Griffith, we have this idea for you that you could do on the show where Cohen is doing the monologue and we cut backstage to you and it could be really funny and Andy Griffith could not have been nicer.
[574] He said, you know, sir, I thank you so much for this offer and I'm really honored.
[575] I do love writers and I've always relied on great writing but I think I'll take a pass.
[576] I just want to talk to Conan, I think, this first time and maybe when I come back.
[577] And so Marsh, so Marsh leaves the room, then Marsh decides, you know, it's a really funny idea.
[578] And he goes, back and he goes, excuse me, Mr. Griffith?
[579] And he goes, yes, sir.
[580] And he says, I just think it'd be really funny.
[581] I mean, it is a really funny idea.
[582] And maybe I didn't explain it right.
[583] And he tells him the whole idea again.
[584] And Andrew Griffith says, well, no, I do understand the idea, sir, and I appreciate it.
[585] And thank you so much.
[586] And I just think I'll take a pass this one time.
[587] And I'll just talk to Conan and we'll have the interview.
[588] And again, maybe next time.
[589] And Marsh leaves and Marsh goes out in the hallway.
[590] And he just had the bit in his mouth.
[591] He couldn't let it go.
[592] So he went in one last time.
[593] And he went, I'm sorry, Mr. Griffith, and Andy Griffith turned to him and said, with a big smile, son, just walk away.
[594] And it's Andy Griffith from facing the crowd.
[595] It's that Andy Griffith.
[596] Son, just walk away.
[597] And I've never forgotten that.
[598] Wow.
[599] What a great, I've got a...
[600] That's a great story.
[601] Yeah, I just, I don't know.
[602] But I'm thinking about, what's interesting to me is that on justified, you were not supposed to be a recurring character, you know, in justified.
[603] And what's amazing is that only made sense to me later on because in the first episode with you, Tim Oliphant, you know, famously at the end, towards the end of the episode, shoots you.
[604] And it looks like he shoots you right through the heart.
[605] And then later on, they go, he's okay.
[606] And I thought, oh, he shot you in the non -vital part of the heart.
[607] And I mean, when you looked at it later on, it was because they looked at you, they looked at you and the day, and everything, and they said, we can't let this guy go.
[608] Yeah.
[609] But you didn't get shot in the arm.
[610] You didn't get shot in the throat.
[611] You got shot through the heart at close range.
[612] And then the next episode, well, I'm pretty sore about that.
[613] I think they filmed this.
[614] I mean, if I remember it correctly, they added this scene for the top of episode two.
[615] I think, don't forgive me if I'm wrong, where I think Nick Searcy and Rayluner having in a conversation or something, something like that.
[616] But I'm just being ferried out on a gurney.
[617] Like, that's where he says he made it.
[618] And I just got a thought of it.
[619] There's a whole size of my fist in your heart.
[620] That's a big gun.
[621] He had a big gun.
[622] But they got you to a really good hospital on that country road.
[623] Yes.
[624] But you know what's fun is, I mean, you've played so many great characters, but, you know, in The Righteous Gem, I feel like the minute I started watching that show I and then you showed up and I remember not knowing you were going to be in the show for some reason and the minute you show up I thought you can't do the righteous gemstones without Walton Goggins you have to have him did I tell you this story about the about the David Gordon Green was directing that episode and the very first time you meet baby Billy he's in a he's in a bathtub oh I know this he's in a he's in a hot tub yeah yeah Yeah, hot tub, bathtub outside, looking out of his land, looking out over his empire.
[625] Yeah.
[626] And at some point in the scene, he stands up and, you know, he's fully naked.
[627] And the viewer sees.
[628] Viewer sees everything.
[629] And then he turns around, he puts on his bathrobe and then steps out of the bathtub.
[630] Well, they call then a body double to do that.
[631] who was 76, 78 years old, something like that to be in the tub, right?
[632] And they flew him in from Chicago.
[633] And I'm like, how did you, what's the audition process?
[634] You couldn't find him in South Carolina?
[635] Really?
[636] You had to go to Chicago?
[637] So he comes in and I meet him.
[638] You had to go to Chicago to find a dick?
[639] Yeah.
[640] This guy's top of his game, you have to understand.
[641] Top of his game.
[642] The toxic guy.
[643] And I met him on that day, and he was dressed like.
[644] me kind of look like me and and I'm thinking like who who are you he said I'm you you know I'm your your body dub I'm standing in for you and it's like okay cut to the show comes out there it is and I get a phone call from this friend of mine who who says oh my god baby Billy Freeman I just I can't stand it I love it so much and can I just say how good your body looks and I said what the fuck are you talking about he's 70s 76 years old you think that That's my fucking body.
[645] True story.
[646] I did wonder.
[647] Because the penis is right there.
[648] Penis is right there.
[649] In high definition.
[650] Yeah, that's right.
[651] Beautifully lit.
[652] I mean, it's not, it's a nice penis.
[653] I mean, it's a nice penis.
[654] I don't know.
[655] It's Chicago penis.
[656] You can tell.
[657] And you know what?
[658] Southside.
[659] Deep dish.
[660] That's a Southside penis.
[661] Deep dish, south side.
[662] That's a white socks penis.
[663] That's not a Cubs penis.
[664] Does not have a southern accent.
[665] Oh, very, very Yankee.
[666] What's going on here?
[667] What are we doing here down south?
[668] Peter, shut up, you're ruining it.
[669] I just got out of a hot tab.
[670] Yeah, got to get a sassage.
[671] Cubs of the white socks.
[672] Wow, that was, yeah.
[673] I just love, and there's, I mean, Danny McBride, obviously, you know, You guys work together so well.
[674] Yeah.
[675] He is, you know, he is, he is the funniest person I have ever met in my life.
[676] We did this photo shoot for GQ, four vice principals.
[677] And this one particular, it wasn't even a skit, we were just dressed up and they were taking these photos.
[678] And he was Ronald McDonald and I was the hamburger.
[679] And we were just like hanging out and they were doing this background kind of video or, or whatever.
[680] And I was just talking to them and as the hamburger, he's smoking a cigarette and talking about, yeah, you know, I was, I almost went to jail for stealing, you know, stealing stuff.
[681] Like when I was in high school, I got in with the wrong kids.
[682] And as if the hamburger, this was the hamburger's experience, but it was my experience, right?
[683] I had that kind of like happened when I was a freshman in high school.
[684] I love a real depiction of the hamburger.
[685] Yeah.
[686] Like, you've got to be committed.
[687] You've got to be committed.
[688] And just at the end, at a Nowhere, Danny just said, like, in some games, he's like, do you know what the worst thing is?
[689] I stole?
[690] What?
[691] A child.
[692] And you're like...
[693] And he's dressed?
[694] He's dressed as...
[695] Like, Ronald McDonald's.
[696] He's dressed as Ronald McDonald's.
[697] And it's like, drop the microphone.
[698] Yes, there it is.
[699] There you go.
[700] And we just lost our McDonald's sponsorship.
[701] Yeah.
[702] It was a part he was playing.
[703] Not...
[704] It was a part.
[705] All right.
[706] I want to make sure we talk about Fallout because this, first fallout, I had my own introduction to the game a long time ago.
[707] And this is not, what I love is, I was talking to someone about this the other day who runs Warner Brothers, a smart guy.
[708] And he was telling me that when you do a show about a game, which is becoming more common, you've got to kind of forget the game because it has to be a great story.
[709] Meaning, yes, you're using the characters and everything, but you can't rely on fandom from the game.
[710] No. So we did a thing with Fallout when it first came out.
[711] Yeah, we did a Clueless Gamer.
[712] And, yeah, they made us skin -tight vault suits.
[713] Yep.
[714] And we did a whole cold open where you are walking.
[715] As the bombs are dropping, Conan is walking along the back lot and goes to his personal vault, which just happens to be located in the Gilmore Girls Gazebo.
[716] Yeah, the Gizbo open.
[717] The Gilmore Girls Gizbo opens up and I go down inside.
[718] So anyway, that was my introduction to fall out.
[719] So at some, you know, familiarity with the game, not much.
[720] but even though it's a massive success, but then I start watching the show and it's fantastic.
[721] Your character, which is, I don't want to give anything away, but it's very cool.
[722] You meet your character at the beginning and then you see your character sometime later and your character has been through this insane transformation.
[723] I think you can give anything away.
[724] I think it's all out there.
[725] You can talk about whatever you want.
[726] You show up at the beginning, cowboy working a kid's party, putting kids on the pony, and then the bombs start to drop and you take off and then we cut to which I believe is a long time later a couple hundred two hundred and nineteen years two hundred and nineteen years I thought it was two fifteen but let's check that Edwardo anyway it's my podcast it would have a better story that was two fifteen two fifteen really sells it two nineteen now anyway but your character's been ravaged and one of the things you know I mean it's you and it's a great performance but that makeup does not look like something that can happen quick.
[727] Like, you can't get a 20 -minute powder to become the ghoul and start riding around in this hellscape.
[728] I've seen that Instagram time lapse of you getting into makeup.
[729] Yeah, how long does it take?
[730] Well, we did three tests, and the first test took five hours.
[731] Jesus.
[732] And on that particular day, it just so happens that I was bit by a brown recluse spider five times that morning.
[733] It's a true story.
[734] It's bananas.
[735] I had to go to the emergency room and get a shot.
[736] Did you keep taunting it after it bit you the first time?
[737] Traykin.
[738] Is that all you got?
[739] Trangin.
[740] And all you got?
[741] Come on.
[742] Stay away from my penis.
[743] Stay away from my penis.
[744] Just the thigh.
[745] Just the thigh.
[746] The spider's like, that's not the penis.
[747] It doesn't look like the penis I saw in Righteous chimstones.
[748] I don't recognize this penis.
[749] That wasn't your penis, his baby Billy Freeman.
[750] That penis was incredible.
[751] Great shape.
[752] Years is all fucked up.
[753] From jerky and weird South American liqueurs.
[754] This is much smaller than I remember.
[755] Hey, easy, man. Come on.
[756] Go on.
[757] Enough with the criticism.
[758] So to have to then go perform after you've, even if you get the time down to four hours.
[759] We got it, we did get it down to two hours.
[760] Right.
[761] Two -15.
[762] It's a lot.
[763] Yeah.
[764] You're there before the sun goes up, obviously.
[765] Yeah, we're there way before the sun goes up.
[766] Me and my buddy, Jake Garber, who's an old friend of mine, who did the application, one of the best in the business.
[767] And we, I mean, the whole thing, it was intense.
[768] I'm claustrophobic by nature.
[769] I've never done anything like this except for one time for this movie for a friend of mine that we shot down in South Africa.
[770] I was extremely, uh, overwhelmed by the thought of the process, you know, once it really dawned on me exactly what this was going to be like every single day.
[771] But, you know, with anything else, you just, it becomes a new normal.
[772] And then it was something that when I didn't have to wear it, and I played Cooper Howard, which is the same guy 200 years earlier before the bombs dropped as the story progresses, I felt vulnerable without it.
[773] I felt like I didn't have my armor and people wanted to talk to me and they, you know, they wanted my attention.
[774] Whereas when I was the ghoul, the ghoul, everyone left me alone.
[775] And I like that.
[776] You can see why, yeah, no one messes with, no one, no one says to the ghoul, hey, what time is it?
[777] Yeah.
[778] And Cooper Howard, everybody's like, oh, hey, what's up, Coop?
[779] How are I, man?
[780] What's going on?
[781] I'm like, just fucking don't talk to me, please.
[782] It's amazing.
[783] I mean, yeah, I'm amazed by the makeup can inform it.
[784] Obviously, you still have to do the acting.
[785] You still have to bring the performance, but the makeup will inform.
[786] that.
[787] It is.
[788] It's what's possible and what's impossible.
[789] Yeah.
[790] And, and it, the very first time we put it on, again, it took five hours, and I was in a drug state from getting bitten by a brown recluse.
[791] But I took it outside for, I just asked for an hour and a half by myself and just sat in the sun and sat in the shade and took a lot of video of it just to see what this Ferrari would do.
[792] Like, what is possible?
[793] How can you take a corner here?
[794] And looked at the neck and like, okay, what if I touch my head?
[795] Am I going to break this skin?
[796] Can I touch my face?
[797] And it was after that hour and a half and kind of photographing it that we applied it two more times.
[798] And then the very first day came where we were filming.
[799] And it happened to be 106 degrees heat index in New York where we were filming.
[800] And I didn't anticipate that.
[801] I didn't anticipate the hot, how hot it would be underneath it.
[802] It was the first.
[803] day that I had put the clothes on with the prosthetics where the boots on, everything was happening, the guns, the gloves, the whole thing, and the last piece that really was the straw that broke the camel's back were these two innocuous retainers that I had to put in my mouth because some people think my teeth are too white.
[804] I don't know.
[805] They don't fit in the wasteland.
[806] So we had to put these in and I thought, oh my God, I can't really see.
[807] My peripheral vision is kind of gone, and now I've got to, you know, I have this speech impediment.
[808] I'm like talking like this, you know, like for the first time.
[809] I just didn't anticipate that.
[810] I hadn't tried everything on it once.
[811] And, and we got out there and we did it.
[812] And the first couple of days, Conan, honestly, I would look at Jonah after every take, frustrated and deeply insecure about it and say, are you, what are you seeing here, man?
[813] Are you seeing anything that I'm doing?
[814] Are you getting what you need?
[815] Yeah, I can't, I don't know how to indicate.
[816] I don't know how to alter what's going on inside of my body and my mind.
[817] I don't want to, I don't, all of us, I'm not just going to gesticulate to, to, uh, inform the audience about how I feel.
[818] I, or is this just going to look like, am I going to look like a, it's just a blank page.
[819] Yeah.
[820] And is, are you going to get anything from this?
[821] And he kept saying, Walton, we see it all.
[822] Everything is in your eyes.
[823] Yeah.
[824] We see your, it's true.
[825] Yeah.
[826] It's true.
[827] You are, you are, you are blessed with, you've got those, I've, I've got sneaky, beady eyes.
[828] You've got those big you got those big peepers you know and you can do so much with those and also I have to say I mean as a fan of fallout and you've been watching it too.
[829] I love it I'm a huge fan of the game and you are absolutely incredible in it and it's so fun to see you play that character.
[830] It's such like I'm rooting I know I shouldn't be but I'm really rooting for the ghoul he's awesome.
[831] Thank you very much I always root for the ghoul.
[832] Yeah well in any situation.
[833] I also very nerderly I love how Cooper's outfit then kind of become like the blue and gold like in the beginning.
[834] Like that first scene is insane with the bombs dropping like truly.
[835] At the party.
[836] Yeah.
[837] Oh my God.
[838] Like iconic.
[839] And not many people have picked up on the fact that that he never changes this costume.
[840] He's entertaining at a children's party.
[841] And then all these years later the script has flipped and he's in this completely other reality.
[842] And now he's the most feared man in this wasteland.
[843] Oh, it's great.
[844] But that's his origin story, and it's still part of him.
[845] But the biggest question is, why is he performing at a children's birthday birthday party when he's a Western movie star?
[846] What happened in between that?
[847] And they bring that up.
[848] Geneva and Geneva, Dwart Robertson and Graham Wagner and Jonah, these are amazing writers, and they put together a great group.
[849] Yeah, and it's beautifully done and talk about, sometimes they spend money on something and you don't see it on the screen.
[850] This looks absolutely fantastic.
[851] Have you ever interviewed Jonathan Nolan?
[852] No, I've not.
[853] Okay, I don't think he would get mad if I say this.
[854] Jonah Nolan is not a funny man. Like, he's not a funny guy.
[855] Right.
[856] He is arguably one of the smartest people I have ever met in my life.
[857] I mean, he is menza level.
[858] Right.
[859] He's a genius, really.
[860] And just in a conversation about anything, about fucking water.
[861] He's so entertaining.
[862] but um but i know i've been a fan since memento like everybody else and i know his body of work and and he just turned on a dime man and and photographed this world in a hyper uh absurd stylized way you know the violence and it's like i i've never seen him do something like that and that's what i was blown away by most when i saw the first two episodes back in october or whatever.
[863] Well, I'm a huge fan of not just, I mean, that's funny.
[864] Fallout is great and that's what you were, you know, here to mention at the end, but I just look at all the work that you've done and you always deliver every single time.
[865] And so just a thrill to have you on to get to talk to you.
[866] And if nothing else say, thanks for the dead squirrel that's rotting in.
[867] Can I say, can I see?
[868] The reason why I chose a word cozy, I knew that this was, you had to pick a word when you kind of came on here, because I knew that this was going to be a familial experience.
[869] Oh, good.
[870] Not that we're a family, but you have been so kind and generous to me over the years.
[871] Oh, I was a fan from day one.
[872] So, like, the first time we met and then, you know, just delighted, delighted.
[873] And also delighted for you that, I mean, we didn't even mention what's bigger than the White Lotus.
[874] and that's upcoming.
[875] So you've got to come back.
[876] Oh, I'm definitely, I'm definitely coming back.
[877] Do you remember the last thing that we said, and I don't know if this was the last time we were together, but it was a significant time we were together.
[878] We were talking about how people always butcher your name, Walter Scrigans and Scloggins or whatever, and we had a great laugh about it.
[879] And the next day, I was flying off to go back to work, and I stopped at the Starbucks right by L -A -X.
[880] And then the woman had my order.
[881] She brought my coffee out, and I looked at the cup, and I started laughing my ass off.
[882] And I sent you a photo because on the cup, it said, Wilton Schneigens.
[883] Like, do you remember that?
[884] Yes, I do.
[885] I do.
[886] What a joy.
[887] All you want is your coffee.
[888] Hey, so please come back anytime.
[889] And I just congratulations.
[890] on your insane success.
[891] It's, uh, it's borderline absurd.
[892] It's all going your way and I just jinxed it.
[893] So, uh, and hey, and let's get together with, you know, you, me, let's get Billy Bob, because I've had dinner with him.
[894] And Oliphant.
[895] Yeah, we'll get Oliphant.
[896] We'll get Oliphant in there, but we want to lean Southern and then Oliphant and I can be the odd guys out.
[897] Perfect.
[898] You know, who we're saying, we have to go, we're tired.
[899] We have to go home.
[900] And we'll just serve biscuits and country fried steak and fried chicken.
[901] Get out our fiddle.
[902] and you'll put on your clogs.
[903] All right.
[904] Thank you so much, brother.
[905] Thank you.
[906] Bye, bye, bye, y 'all.
[907] Thank you.
[908] Ladies and gentlemen, we are attempting to do a segment in a way we never or rarely ever do, and that is without a net.
[909] We don't know what we're going to talk about.
[910] That's every single time.
[911] We've never known what we were going to talk about.
[912] But there's always a general idea for the segments.
[913] Oh.
[914] This time, we have no subject.
[915] We couldn't think of any.
[916] anything.
[917] Sona was talking about Circuit City just a second ago.
[918] We are in real dire strait.
[919] I really thought she was hitting gold when she was talking about Circuit City.
[920] We're free ball with it.
[921] Let me understand something.
[922] Circuit City no longer exists.
[923] No. No, what do you think it exists?
[924] You don't think it exists.
[925] I'm in a bubble.
[926] I know what, no. Hey, has Radio Shack gone?
[927] No, Radio Shack is not gone.
[928] Okay.
[929] Yeah.
[930] Wait, I dreamt about Radio Shack the other day.
[931] So you think it's not gone because you dreamt about it?
[932] I'm just realizing it was a dream.
[933] I think it's gone.
[934] Is it?
[935] So many things.
[936] from my childhood are just gone.
[937] And it's crazy.
[938] And then if you ever accidentally mention it, people think you're just this insane out -of -touch fool.
[939] But it was a real strong memory in my youth.
[940] Radio Shack?
[941] Radio Shack.
[942] I remember Radio Shacks were a big deal.
[943] Which one hurt?
[944] Do you remember anything closing?
[945] We were like, oh, man. I remember Howard Johnson's, when I was a little, little kid, like, you know, really young was a big deal.
[946] And my grandfather would take us.
[947] I mean, these are my earliest memories, would take us to a Howard Johnson's.
[948] A hojo's.
[949] A hojo's.
[950] And then I remember when I was working at SNL in the late 80s, one of the last hojos was in Times Square.
[951] And I used to go there occasionally, just because it was this connection to my youth.
[952] And it was when Times Square was a very different Times Square.
[953] Now it's all been Disneyified.
[954] Oh, yeah.
[955] And there were robots walking around saying, be happy.
[956] But back then it was that other Times Square.
[957] that you see in the, in the 1970s movies.
[958] Yeah, sex workers.
[959] I was a sex worker in Times Square.
[960] Oh, okay.
[961] All right.
[962] Are you just standing there trying?
[963] That's how I got the S &L job.
[964] You were the main reason they Disneyified it.
[965] Yeah.
[966] They're like, we gotta Disneyify this fast.
[967] Get the mouse in here.
[968] He's a bad jigolo.
[969] And so, but I would go to that, I would go to the Times Square Hojo's and get a, the thing that we would get when we were little kids was just a chocolate ice cream soda, with chocolate ice cream and sit at the counter and sort of chat up the waitress, you know what I'm saying?
[970] No, I don't get what you're, like just have a conversation with it.
[971] Yeah, basically just say how much is this and I'll pay you.
[972] Wait, was this a sex worker?
[973] I'm confused.
[974] No, no, this was a waitress.
[975] I was the sex worker.
[976] Anyway, but then that, I think when that went away, when that Hojo's went away, when that Howard Johnson's went away, it was so iconic and you can see it in old movies.
[977] I think you can, you can see it in Sweet Smell of Success, I think.
[978] When that went away, I remember that was a bit of a blow.
[979] It was like, that's over.
[980] That's over.
[981] It's time to embrace.
[982] That big Arby's on, is it Hollywood Boulevard with the big hat?
[983] Yeah.
[984] Oh, they just closed that?
[985] Yeah.
[986] But the pizza place is taken over and keeping the hat.
[987] I think, if I'm not mistaken, once upon a time in Hollywood has a great sequence.
[988] I think in the third act where Tarantino shows all the neon signs coming on in L .A. that would have been around in 1969 when the Tate murders happened and one of them, I think, is that Arby sign coming on.
[989] Okay.
[990] Okay, that's...
[991] Well, I just don't know what's...
[992] Do they still have Froyo?
[993] What, like the concept of frozen yogurt?
[994] Oh, I thought Frojo was a store.
[995] Are you just looking for something that rhymes with hojoes?
[996] No. Like, Froyo?
[997] Hey, is there still a Mojo magazine?
[998] Hey, is it still, do they still have slow -mo technology?
[999] Hey, is there still, you know, people that ride the rails, hobos?
[1000] Is there still bros before hoes?
[1001] And what about that group, the go -goes?
[1002] What?
[1003] How about Han Solo?
[1004] Is the do -do still on?
[1005] Yeah.
[1006] Oh, God.
[1007] What about that caramel treat the rollo?
[1008] Remember the rollo?
[1009] I love rollo.
[1010] Rolo's were good, man. They're still around.
[1011] Hey, what about Chunky?
[1012] Remember the chocolate candy bar chunky?
[1013] It was a brick?
[1014] Yeah.
[1015] I love that candy.
[1016] Yeah.
[1017] I love that candy.
[1018] I can't find that candy anymore.
[1019] I don't know what that is.
[1020] I'm telling you, life used to be better.
[1021] Well, I think one thing we can agree on is that we should agree to talk about something before doing a second.
[1022] Well, I love you.
[1023] And guess what?
[1024] I'm always in favor of that.
[1025] And you're the two hippies that are saying, no, man. You're preparing.
[1026] And I'm like, yeah, preparing is what you do.
[1027] Whether, you know, if you're in comedy as you think about what you're going to do.
[1028] And then you guys are saying, no, man. And it's podcast.
[1029] Just say it.
[1030] For a segment, we always have an idea.
[1031] For the intro, we don't need an idea because we're kind of, whenever by the time you introduce Sona, something's already happened.
[1032] Yeah, that's true.
[1033] Yeah.
[1034] I do like your Howard Johnson's.
[1035] I can't believe you had like a treat.
[1036] Like, you would never eat that treat now.
[1037] Probably not, no. Right?
[1038] You would just, that's a time in your life.
[1039] That's special.
[1040] Yeah.
[1041] Now I'd, my life has changed since I met my wife.
[1042] And she's very healthy.
[1043] And now I would take some spinach and some pea protein.
[1044] and a little bit of banana and I whip it up in the blender and that's the sound of your blender and then I drink it and my dog looks at me and looks sad for me you know the way a dog usually if you're eating something the dog's really interested in having it man when I eat pea protein and lettuce shake my dog just goes in the corner and starts making a noose and dogs can lick their barf Yeah.
[1045] Yeah, their standards are so low.
[1046] No, if I was making dog barf in a blender, the dog would be really interested.
[1047] But pea protein and whole food spinach.
[1048] All organic.
[1049] I'll just put a little banana in there just to be naughty.
[1050] Hey, dog, do you want some?
[1051] I would rather die.
[1052] You sure you can lick out the...
[1053] Oh, I'm okay, my girl.
[1054] Roof.
[1055] I'll go in a rock instead.
[1056] That's my dog.
[1057] My dog.
[1058] Feeling sorry for me. See, we always find it.
[1059] You did.
[1060] I always find it.
[1061] You got there.
[1062] Just him?
[1063] Yeah, just me. Okay.
[1064] I feel like I did a bit of an assist.
[1065] Nope, you've been listening to Conan O 'Brien and two lodestones.
[1066] Also, my favorite part when he tries to figure out whether this is a segment or it is.
[1067] Nope, it's a segment.
[1068] You're looking at the list of intro.
[1069] You looked down.
[1070] You look down.
[1071] I'm not confused at all.
[1072] It's actually intro.
[1073] Well, it's Conan the two albatrosses.
[1074] Hope you had fun.
[1075] See you later.
[1076] Stay in school.
[1077] Be good to your waitress.
[1078] Conan O 'Brien needs a friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Goorley.
[1079] Produced by me, Matt Goreley.
[1080] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leia.
[1081] Theme song by the White Stripes Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino Take it away, Jimmy Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair And our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples Engineering and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns Additional production support by Mars Melnick Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Brick Con. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode.
[1082] Got a question for Conan?
[1083] call the Team Coco hotline at 669 -587 -2847 and leave a message.
[1084] It too could be featured on a future episode.
[1085] You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM .com slash Conan.
[1086] And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.