Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Tom Hanks Returns

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Tom Hanks feels blank about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Tom sits down with Conan once more to discuss the minefields of moviemaking, the most intense scenes he’s ever shot, and the process of de-aging to tell a story spanning generations in his latest film Here. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan.

My name is Tom Hanks and I feel blank about being Conan O'Brien. You feel blank. I love it. You don't even like give hint words. Could you just put adjective in there in parentheses or something like that? Yeah. What's wrong with that? I feel blessed to be Conan O'Brien's friend.

I feel blessed to be Conan O'Brien's friend. I feel old. Ha ha ha ha. ["Fall Is Here"] Fall is here, hear the yell. Back to school, ring the bell. Bend the shoes, walk and lose. Climb the fence, books and pens.

I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I am of course the aforementioned Conan O'Brien, famed in song and story. I just threw that in. Sonam Ossessian, can I have you here? Yeah, it's good.

Okay, great. You know what I love? The burst of energy you supply. I can't ever. It pushes us. Yes, it's good. And Matt Gorourley, nice to see you too. That's good. Okay, you're clearly on life support.

Like someone, they've decided just double up on the morphine and get them out. Let's slide them out of this realm. I come from Boston, Massachusetts. I've made that clear many times. And Boston, from the second you're born, it's all about your sports team, you know? And you're assigned your sport teams at birth in Boston.

You don't get to decide them. Now, Eduardo, I know in different, like I've talked to people like with soccer who their father might root for one team, but their son roots for a different team. That's exactly my case. Yes, right? That's not the case in Boston.

In Boston, it's all all the minute you're born, they like brand your forehead. Hockey, Bruins, you know, baseball, Red Sox, basketball, Celtics, football, Patriots. I mean, it's just like across the board, these are your teams and it's not open for discussion, which is fine, I accept that. Here's the thing, I've been living in LA for a long time

and I feel disconnected. Wait, because you can't switch even if you move? No, no, I the thing, I've been living in LA for a long time and I feel disconnected because- Wait, because you can't switch even if you move? No, no, I would never, I can't switch. Those are my teams or Boston teams. Sure you can, just switch. You can't switch. You can't switch.

That is just- You can. No, can't. It's just sports. No, no, you can't because I'm from, you don't understand. I'm from Boston and you can't switch. And anyone who's from the Boston area will understand that that's just the way it is. Those are my teams for life.

But I'm here in Los Angeles and my team's out of it right now, it's baseball. And I don't know what the etiquette is. I would like to be part or take part in the Los Angeles sports scene. So you think you can, even if your team's out of it, you can't do a substitute second favorite team? It doesn't feel right to me.

I think because you're Boston... Eduardo understands. Eduardo, speak. You can't, you can't, that's like kind of front runner-ish. Yes. You can root against the Yankees. That's what you should be doing. No, no, no, no, that's okay. But rooting against the Yankees, you can't participate in.

I can't go to a Dodgers game and be shouting, Yankees suck, if they're not even playing the Dodgers game. Coney, you're in an abusive relationship. I know. This is ridiculous. What I'm saying is I actively want to, what's the thing you were telling me about, Eduardo, where there's a Falcon?

Oh, yeah. Tell me about this. This is for the LA football club, Los Angeles football club, which is part of the MLS. It's our home team here in LA. You mean soccer? Soccer. So let's call it soccer, please.

One of two. One of two teams. Although the Galaxy plays in Carson, which is not right. But, please, let's just call it soccer. We just don't wanna piss people off. Exactly. It's scary. So they have an opening ceremony every game

where they have, their mascot is like a Falcon. This is the coolest thing I've ever heard of and keep going. It's really cool and they have an honorary falconer, is it falconer? Is that the person that usually- A falconista. There you go, falconista.

That's kind of kicks off the whole game and there's a Falcon that starts on your arm and gets released and then comes back to your arm. It does like this whole hoopla thing. And I think, and oftentimes there's notable figures who are invited to be that person. I think Conan would make the perfect- Wait, do you think that would let me do it?

Absolutely. What kind of notable figures are we talking? Am I in their league? I mean, if it's a bunch of A-listers and I wouldn't be in their league, that's just teasing me and that's mean. So like somebody like Elizabeth Banks. Oh, I know Elizabeth Banks. Yeah, she's been called upon to do it.

Wait, so I would be in the middle of a stadium and I would hold on my arm and a Falcon would come and land on it? Exactly. See, I just, here's the thing. Maybe soccer is okay because I don't, I don't really, you know, Boston soccer. To be fair, like the New England Revolution,

which was technically the team that you should have been rooting for, they didn't exist by the time you moved over there. Right, that's why I don't think, so maybe I'm allowed to get involved in soccer. Yes. But I feel funny, you know, rooting for any LA team, because I feel like, oh, that's gonna get back to Boston,

and the next time I land at Logan, there're gonna be three guys that are with pipes. They're just gonna work me over. I don't think, I think it's a problem if you root for the Lakers, because there's a very notable- Can't do that, can't do that. Like if you go to Boston with a Laker hat, oh my God, can I please be there for that?

We'll punch you now. It would be, they would brutally beat you. Are you allowed to watch a movie without Mark Wahlberg in it? Uh, it's, you know what's interesting? You have to get clearance. Okay. You have to get clearance first.

So that's essentially what you're doing now. You're kind of asking forgiveness before it happens. I am trying, there's so many rules when you're from Boston. If you get coffee, it has to be Dunkin'. And if you're seen not having Dunkin', again, guys with pipes work you over. God, you're living in the Soviet Union. Jesus, I know, what is this?

Yeah. Why not Boston? It's like the Soviet Union, but, I know, what is this? Why not Boston? It's like the Soviet Union, but it's where guys are wearing a lot of acid wash, Boston caps sideways. They listen to that jump around rap song over and over and over again. But wouldn't you just wanna go watch a baseball game?

Can't you just go to a Dodger game? It's really tricky. You can wear your Boston Red Sox hat. Oh, that's interesting. It's weird. See, Eduardo understands. Why not? You also can't do that. Why? If your team's Sox hat. Oh, that's interesting. It's weird. See, Eduardo understands. Why not?

You also can't do that. Why? If your team's not playing in the game, you don't want to be that guy that's wearing or girl that's Yeah, what are you doing that for? No, you're notably from Boston. That's like going to temple for someone's bar mitzvah, and I'm wearing a quinceañera tiara.

Exactly. And I'm like, it's just my quinceañera tiara. Why not wear a quinceañera tiara to the dog gym? That I could do. But I want it known, I want it announced to the world that I'm going and I just love to watch baseball live, but my heart is with the Red Sox and that's why I'm wearing a tiara.

Or is it tiara? I guess in Boston it would be a tiara. Okay, yeah. But anyway, I- Maybe you could stretch it. For instance, Mookie Betts, long time Red Sox. No, he left. Right, there's some fans who would be like,

well, I still love Mookie and he plays for the Dodgers now. No, doesn't work. No, you can't love them once they leave. Yeah. This is insane. Listen to you people. You can't leave them once. OJ, great football player, I'm gonna go support him in his trial.

It doesn't work that way. This is insane. I am so happy that I'm not a sports person because I don't have to- I like that you're just saying sports person. I'm glad I don't indulge in this folder of all the sportistry. My dad was a big sports person and he took me to all these games, and as soon as we get there, I would turn around, get on my knees, and play with my GI Joes with my back to the game the entire time,

and my dad had his head in his hands. You know what's funny? You're a fucking loser. You know what I imagine? USC games? Yeah. Duh. I imagine you're-

Oh, fuck you. I imagine Gorley going, I just imagine Gorley going to a gym, and it's all equipment that you've seen in the Titanic. It's like from 1911. It's wooden pins that he throws around and everyone's gotta have a mustache. I do like soccer though, quite a bit.

Yeah. And don't call it football. I won't. We're not having that bullshit here. We should all go to a game. We should, let's get a box. You do the Falcon thing and we get a box and we hang out. Will Ferrell's a part owner, isn't he your homie or something like that?

Yeah. He's my homie. I'm trying. He hasn't returned my calls in years and every time I call a Falcon answers. Go! Go! I just want to talk to Will.

No! No! He's moved on! Moved on! I do think it's OK if you wear a Boston hat to a Dodger game. Nope. It is. You guys are making shit up. I've seen people wear hats from other teams. Yeah, it's okay if you wear a Boston hat to a Dodger game. It is, you guys are making shit up.

I've seen people wear hats from other teams. Yeah, it's not, I don't care what you've seen other people do. Oh, fly in the face of it. Everyone knows you're from Boston. I know. I've seen other people throw up on a cab. No, that doesn't make it cool.

I'm not gonna do it. Okay, fine. Not gonna happen. Then just don't go to, I went to a game five recently against the Padres. That shit was fun. I turned my back on the USC Trojans at three years old. Oh, you dick.

You'd probably do that now. Those games are fun. You know what I love is you now going to a game and turning your back and getting out your little Dungeons and Dragons figures and laying them out. I hope people beat you. I hope you are beaten. I hope you are so badly beaten.

Badly beaten. You guys are sports people. And you know what? You're assholes. Yeah. So much so that when we first visit you in the hospital, we're not allowed to see you because you're still being stabilized.

There, that's not a mean thing to say at all. What a specific, I hope you're beaten so badly that on our first visit, we're not allowed to see you. I turned my back on you. Oh yeah. So specific. Oh wow, uh oh, look. Back turned on us.

Hey nerd, stop playing with your G.I. Joe toys. You'll get yours, lady. My guest today is a two-time Academy Award winning actor. Hey, one more than me. You know him from such iconic films as Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, League of Their Own, and Toy Story. Now you can see him in the new movie here,

which is currently in theaters. He's a scholar, he's a gentleman. He's one of the great people of all time. ["The Big Bang"] Tom Hanks, welcome. Remember this thing in show business happened. The thing of ours. This thing of ours. This thing of ours. When you didn't have to drive to

a studio and work with the segment producer and have your hair, have your bald spot covered and wear free clothes that Zinnia is giving you. Then you had to go. Then you didn't have to do that anymore because you do a podcast from your house with a decent microphone. And now we're back on TV. Yeah. Yeah. Without Sylas, I appreciate that. We keep talking about this, how I started this

five years ago, because Adam said, do a podcast. And I said, why would I do a podcast when I've been on TV for 30 years? We start doing it as a joke. As a joke. It becomes big. Then they start to say, is it okay if we put cameras in there?

And I said, fine. And then they said, is it okay if we occasionally do five a year in front of a live audience in big theaters, cause people like it. And I said, okay. And then they said, is it okay if we add a band? I said, you fuckers. We're right back.

And listen, we're gonna need a warmup comic. Yeah. It's going on NBC. Yeah, it's gonna be on NBC at 1235. It is, it is kinda like that. All right, I wanna make sure I get you outta here cause we have a lot to- Oh, I don't, I got plenty of time.

I'll give you a ride home. I know where you live. I get, hey, by the way, have you been to Conan's house? Yes. We have competitions in the neighborhood. Who has the longest house? You mean as you're driving up the street, which house takes the longest to drive past

the start of the property line and the end of the property line? And you guys each think it's your own? I think you've got like two and a half miles of property line. I do. You do. A Cessna can land.

And a Cessna has landed on my property. It used to be, you know, Jerry Lewis used to live on the block. Did he really? Yes, yeah. Wow. Are we on yet? So I won't say what the address is,

but at one point, cause I saw this whole thing and I ran, you meet Jerry Lewis and you think, first of all, that's a surreal experience all into it. It's a hang time. My God, Jerry knows my name. Isn't that crazy? I saw the Bulluzzing Buds, you know, and...

And... Why can't we use it? You can, go ahead, go ahead, we're using it. Okay. And I said, is it true or not? Did you live in our neighborhood? And he said, ma-ma-ma-na, the number of the house.

And it's a brick, a white, red brick white house and it is almost as long as yours is. And I just think, cause I saw this, you know, he was really into like making home movies and stuff like that. And he used to do kooky things. And I saw this one thing, Tony Curtis and Janet Lee drove up and did kooky things on their lawn as they were coming into a party at his house.

So how's that for a neighborhood? That ain't bad. He would make films. He would make films. I mean, going back to like the early 50s, he would make films with all of his friends. That's right. And, but I didn't realize he lived in our neighborhood. Right there, right there.

And you know, he had a radio station and he had, I think he had restaurants and stuff. He had a podcast for a while. A true sign. A very, very early while. A true sign. Very, very early version. A true sign that it's over. I was at once, and by the way, you find this thing,

maybe I was at like a thing, they were showing one of his movies and we all kind of like went in order to vet him, you know, celebrate him a little bit. And someone got up, he had a question and answer and somebody asked him about the video tap, the world famous video tap, because he was directing movie,

he was the first guy, one of the first guys to star in and direct his own movies, and he had to have a video tap, meaning that he was the first guy to put a TV monitor matching what the camera saw. So there was a cable coming from the camera and ran into a TV and everybody thought, this is amazing. He said it was, but I didn't tape.

What do you mean? I had no playback. I just had to look when I was doing it, the thing with the stuff and it looks good and now let's do it. But then I do it and I couldn't see it until the dailies. And I said, actually now if he hadn't invented videotape, that, well, he would have gotten the Nobel Prize

along with everything else. He would have got it all. Jerry Lewis, how did we get talking about Jerry Lewis? You just wouldn't mean how did we, you. Yeah, you. Oh, because it's the neighborhood. Yes, we live in this neighborhood and I take a hike. I sometimes go buy your property.

I've thought about, there's a wall. I think I could get over that wall. You know what? You are too, you could so tall, you could might be able to crawl through the razor wire if you know how to do that. You scared the hell out of me. I was on a bike with a friend of mine.

Won't get into the exact, but on a, taking a bike ride with a good friend of mine, Brad, and we're going up this- Pit. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. And Brad Paisley. Suddenly this car, like kind of a Jeep SUV thing starts coming, and all of a sudden the window comes down,

and you lean out the window and start yelling at me. I did it, yelled at me. And you start doing some bit, which was really funny, doing a bit, and then my friend is like, that was Tom Hanks. Happens all the time. But you know what, it was like laughing. Like your head just came out of a.

Yeah, yeah. Knock, knock. Yeah, or it was like Batman when he was climbing up the side of a building and suddenly a window would open and it's, you know. It's Jerry Lewis. It's Jerry Lewis. It's Tom Hanks.

I thought I live the most amazing life where a darkened window can come down and a goofy Tom Hanks. I thought, I live the most amazing life where a darkened window can come down and a goofy Tom Hanks can pop out and yell at me when I'm on a bike. But think about everybody else, because on that, there's a lot of people that come there to walk that, you know, it's a long line and they're all kind of like

bicycle weenie geeks, you know, guys with $6,000 mountain bikes and on your left, you know, as they're going up and coming down, but they're gonna see you. I mean, you're as tall as Big Bird for crying out loud. And they're gonna say, I believe I saw Conan O'Brien struggling up the hill. Have you heard that halfway up that ridge,

there's this place that apparently in the late thirties, you probably know about. Absolutely true. In the late thirties, some people who were pro-Hitler and pro what the Nazis were doing. So Nazis. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. As a lay historian, I'll come in

and get the record straight. Okay, they were members of the party. There were people who were sympathetic to that cause in the late 30s before America was in the war and they purchased a piece of land, am I correct? You are correct, sir. That they thought would be a place that the Fuhrer would like to hang

when and if he comes to America, maybe because he conquered it. I don't know the whole story. Do you know the story? It was owned by the German Bund. And there was a period of time, a German Bund, the Bund was essentially, hey, we're all Germans, we all live America, let's form a fraternal organizations

like other nationalities do. Yeah. And I'm gonna hope that before they found out just how bad Hitler was. But there, I swear, I have seen photographs of like a Fourth of July in the 1930s up there with a fireworks thing, and they would have, no lie, a picture of the founding fathers and a picture of Adolf Hitler, an American flag and a Nazi flag, the German Nazi flag. And they were saying, our country is coming back,

et cetera, et cetera. And I just hope that maybe you can get away with that in 1930, you know, but it continued along. And in fact, it is now a scout camp, or it had been for a while. I have gone there to scout a location. And there was like the main lodge, you know, there's tents and stuff like that.

But there is a main lodge that there was like the main lodge, there's tents and stuff like that. But there was a main lodge that honestly looks like, a German Alpine chalet that all you have to do is paint it red, put a couple of Haken cruisers on there and you are right back in Naziville, USA. So this is a place that in our neighborhood you go up this, there's this big hill and- Did I say Jerry Lewis also lived in this neighborhood?

Yeah. And why did you choose to live here, sir? Listen, we have these meetings that are none of your business. All right. No, but this was my story, which is that they, that was something I've always heard. And then occasionally you'll find that it mentioned

that this piece of land lives and that maybe, and some people get the story, they get it wrong and they think that Hitler spent time there like in his board shorts, looking out at the Pacific. He did come out for pilot season one. Yeah. And he needed a place to stay. Six pilots didn't get one of them.

Not a one. It was almost a seventh friend, but anyway. Um, but I'm with my friend once, my same friend, Brad, that you saw, I'm riding, grinding up that hill on our bikes to just try and get to this very steep and parts where grinding along these two women, like blonde, 22 year old, I swear to God, wearing like bikini tops, very,

and they just looked like they were just come from a sorority party. They flag us down, like they were in trouble. And I said, what is it? And they went, do you know where the Hitler camp is? What? Where's the Hitler camp? It's about that.

And I went, oh, ladies, well, all right. Like, God, he's still pulling in? What about that? And I went, oh ladies, well alright. God, he's still pulling in the trim, that Addy Hitler. Oh my god. Still pulling in the trim? I know, what? Jesus. Oh wow.

We are making light of a very, very dark period, without a doubt. So yeah, I mean you don't want to say, how do you get to Codin's house? Oh well, you've gone too far if you hit the Hitler camp. Right. Make a U-turn at the Hitler camp. When you get to the Mussolini cul-de-sac. Yeah, yeah.

Take a left. Yeah, right path to the time triangle. But yeah, that's up there and yeah, yeah. The, I'm gonna switch gears here real quick. Okay. Let's see how you do this. And I wanna talk about the Japanese and Jerry Lewis. And 1944.

What year did we, the first year I was on SNL and you were back in, we called you the- 1988. I called you the boiler room boys. Yes. It was you and Odenkirk and- Smigel. Smigel in the back.

The guy back in the day when I was working at SNL who was money in the bank and still is to this day was Mr. Tom Hanks because he would show up and- Caffeinated. There were the caffeinated, ready to go, hey, everybody, what have you got? And he, I remembered coming out once and I swear to God, I think it was maybe two in the morning.

Most hosts, they hang around a little bit. They sense the sadness, the desperation. They smell the odors and they leave and then they come refreshed at read through. I came out and there's this giant in the conference room, there's this big table and you were sitting there and you had been working on your own idea and you were lying on,

they had shoved all the tables together, you were lying on the tables like Christ with some pages over your eyes because you were trying to catch a couple of winks before you woke up and got back to writing at three in the morning. I'd always heard that that was the, that was a great power of the hang,

that you got there and all night Monday and all night Tuesday, you're going from, now they kind of like take the hosts around and the extra, but I want, you know, I want to get in there and get in there and mix it up. Because here's one thing I learned about, maybe the third time I did the show, there is, you say, hey, you're the host,

I say, hey, I have some ideas for some sketches. And every writer goes, well, that's just great. Oh my God. You have ideas that will rob us of the opportunity to get our ideas read. How wonderful. And I would like to say, I don't think, you then learned that, look, you're the host,

concentrate on the monologue and then walk away. But it's a great hang, man. Everybody's carrying on. Yeah, it's amazing to me that, again, I've had this experience at The Simpsons, I've had it at Saturday Night Live, I've had it at places where I worked there and as I left thought,

this probably has a little bit of time left. You know? I remember thinking that at The Simpsons, like, this is going great, I bet you they got a couple more years, but I think I'll step off now and get a, you know, or the same thing with SNL, I remember thinking this is great,

but when I got there, I get there in 88, I'm there only 13 years after it begins. Oh yeah. And I'm looking at the wall and it's black and white photos of Ackeroid, Belushi, and it looked to me like Civil War photographs. It looked to me like the oldest- Deguero types.

Yes, like, oh my God, the olden times. Now, if someone says, hey, let's look at Conan's first year, 1988 as a writer, that is on a giant one and a half inch brick that someone has to put into a machine they don't. Yeah. Could you cut away your little. No. No.

There was a period of time where to watch TV, you needed a $8,000 video deck that had more moving parts than the cars we drove to Conan Land. Conan Land, Conan Land today. But you know, I went to the Joni Mitchell jam at Hollywood. My wife Rita was singing along with everybody. I sat next to Fred Ormiston. Fred's a really prepared notes on how many.

Listen, I'm a guy who grew up in a house without any women. I know four Joni Mitchell songs. They're going to sing 32 of them tonight. I'm going to love it. It's like going to the opera. It's great. But I asked him, you know, because, cause no, I mean, no, I don't, I completely appreciate it.

I'm an absolute fan. But I asked him that question that I always, you're trying to say like, anytime somebody has retired, you know, I said, when you left the show, did you know that it was time to leave the show? Or, you know, five months later, do you start getting cold sweats at the same time you got cold sweats?

Do you start writing things? And God bless anybody who is a really great thing. They said, no, no, no. After all my time there, it was time to move along. Because I come from that school of you do not walk away from a gig. If they are inviting you to come and be funny, make sandwiches, sharpen pencils, have an idea. I don't walk away from that gig, but I guess after a while it devours you

and you gotta go along. Or did you get fired, Conan? Leno came and took my writing job at SNL. Did you get this? Oh, oh, oh, here's a note from Lauren. Did- Did- Leno came and took my writing job at SNL. Did you get this? Oh. Oh. Oh.

Here's a note from Lauren. Let me open it up. Conan, thank you for all your service. We're not gonna let you. No, I burnt out. I burnt out. Yeah, I was gonna go the same. And Lauren could not have been nicer.

I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. I mean, she was so nice. No, I burnt out.

I burnt out. Yeah, I was going to go to the same. And Lauren could not have been nicer. I said, I've got to go. And that's when I went to the Simpsons. I just have to, I wish I could go back in time. People always say no regrets. I regret-

Nothing but. Nothing but. I regret being so intense about that job. Yeah, you guys were. I was way too intense, and I think I robbed myself of some fun that I could have had. I did have a lot of fun,

but I think I could have had more fun, and I think I could have maybe written there a little longer if I didn't make it such a grind for myself. Well, people have asked me, what is it about? And I think the creative atmosphere of that is the writer is on the floor producing the piece. And that's not standard stuff. A guy who wrote it with great passion

is over there in between sweating bullets and vomiting out of anxiety. He's telling Sting how to do a comedy bit, you know, or, you know, say, could you make, you know. But that's, I think that's a great power of it. You get to produce the thing that you wrote then and there. The thing that Lauren does that's brilliant, that I didn't exist anywhere else,

I had only worked about three years in television before that, but no one had let me near anything. You get to SNL, you write a sketch, and Steve Martin's gonna be in it, and Lauren says, well, go in and tell Steve how it should be done and what you're thinking,

and then go and talk to the props people about how the restaurant should look. And I thought, I'm 26, I've never been to a restaurant. I don't know. And I remember Lauren once saying to me like, what restaurant are we in here? You bought fast food, I don't know. And I remember Lauren once saying to me like, what restaurant are we in here?

You bought fast food. That is soda actually sitting down. You did a sketch that a couple of us did called Mr. Short-Term Memory. Oh God, yeah. And so we wrote the sketch, Mr. Short-Term Memory, and Lauren called me in and he said, what restaurant are we in?

And I said, what do you mean? And he said, are we in Orso? Are we at Elaine's? And I didn't, those are just, I don't know what those are we in? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, are we in Orso? Are we at Elaine's? And I didn't, those are just, I don't know what those are. And I said, the worst thing you could say to Lauren, I said, it's a restaurant like in a Carl Burnett sketch. Immediately nine assistants took me out of the room. Lauren was immediately anesthetized.

Not that she isn't a legend. I just thought like, oh, restaurant, like big menu, snooty waiter. Now, I have to, by the way, you gotta, it is a merit, you do have to learn how to survive, physically, when you do the show. And the last time I did it, I told everybody who was in charge of me,

particularly our wardrobe and stage manager people, I said, I want you to understand that my goal on this week's Hosting Duties is to take as few steps as possible. So I am going to come here and I will get dressed. And where can we get dressed next time? Because I don't have to walk all the way back here. I'm going to take as few steps.

I've noticed that you were sitting in most of your sketches. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do that as much as possible. Because look, you know, it's a young man's game and there was a time, there was a time that you just, you know, it's just balls to the walls and you just fill up every minute with activity.

No, no, no, take it easy, Tom. Just before we started the podcast, we were chatting and you were talking about how both of us having highs and lows in our career. And I was thinking, I know what you're talking about, Tom, but no one thinks that about you. I think you have the career. Well, let me just, I printed up my IMDB.

Okay. Now you notice I'm almost to a hundred films here, right? Yeah. I'm getting up there, but I'm gonna say- It's really crinkly paper. I'm gonna say, well, you know, come out of the printer. I'm gonna say, see it out all these, I'm gonna say six of these are pretty damn good.

You know, the rest of them are checkered. It's all a checkered career. Well, no one here is buying it. Nobody's thinking about the time when you were down and out because I don't think it exists. I don't think that's ever existed. Okay. First of all, everybody wakes up at three o'clock

in the morning sometimes, splashes cold water on their face and asks this question and decides, guys, what is happening to me? Why can't I rest? Why am I tormented and haunted? Yet again. That's your mattress, I think. Okay. Look, without a doubt, I really dig my job and I go into everything with an insane amount of enthusiasm and faith in the collaborative process. And it is, I don't wanna go over you sports analogy,

but it really is the baseball analogy. Ted Williams hit 400 for one season of his baseball career. And that's about the best you can do. If you're somewhere between 282 and three something that, they will put you in the Hall of Fame. And the thing that there is nobody, nobody starts a movie and says one of these two things, this ain't gonna work. No one says that on the third day of shooting.

We have made a terrible mistake. None of this is actually a thing. All these people that are getting paid are liars. They are in c... No one says this. Nor does anybody say on the third day of shooting, we're in clver, boys. Well, that's because it's not 1940. This thing's aces, fellas.

Hold on to your quarters, Jasper. No one says this. I was... Roger Spottiswood, who is about as facile a filmmaker as I, we were shooting Turner and Hooch. And this was back when I really put an import on the reports. You wanted like, how's it going? Great. Oh, we saw this and it was great and that was great and everything's great.

How about that scene and how that was it? And Roger Spotswood came back from looking at dailies one day at lunch and I said, Roger is English, and I said, hey, how were the dailies? And he said, they were not half bad. And that's all you can shoot for. How was it? Well, I don't know.

You know, maybe, I hope it'll cut. That's all you can hope for. And so at the end of the day, the thing that is now an advantage of is, I talk about this sometimes with people who are as old as I am. We got into this, I'm gonna tell you a story about technology,

speaking of one inch VHS cassettes. The in between the two years of the buzz and buds, the VHS machine was invented. The first season was in 1980, and in 1981, you could go to Mad, Mad Months or something and for $4,000 by a video cassette machine. That altered absolutely everything. So as of episode 22 of Kip and Henry's adventures in Bosom Buddies, everything has since been rentable and it sits there forever

so I have had count and now of course you can watch a movie any damn time you want to I can't tell you how often I've been somewhere and someone will come up to me and say excuse me mr. Hanks yeah oh hi I just want to say your films have always been a great salvage for me. I've really enjoyed many, many times I've turned to you and I was home at one point and came across and saw a film that you made in 1993 that really, really spoke to me. You played an Air Force pilot in World War II in Israel, and I had never heard of the film before,

I didn't know it existed, but I really, really, really enjoyed it. And I said, oh, that movie was called Every Time We Say Goodbye, it was directed by Moishe Mizrahi, and I made it for about eight weeks in Jerusalem, long before the Intifada began. Very good, sir.

And I also enjoyed Toy Story very, very much. So all of this stuff lives. All of this stuff lives. And now what happened is that time has become one of the metrics for how these things matter, right? In the day, I mean, it was just a fist fight. It was every movie you came out with, are you going to make the playoffs or not? And guess what? No kid, you're two and 12 and you ain't going nowhere or you got a shot. It used to be, you had these Rubicons that you crossed

when you came down the job. First of all, do you love it or not? That's the first thing. Hey, I read this thing, I love it, I can't get it in my head. Yes, okay, you have crossed the Rubicon, right? The next Rubicon you cross is when the movie is completely done, a year and a half later, and you see it for the first time,

and you might like it, or it might, it doesn't matter if it works or not, you look at it and say, hey, I think we acquitted ourselves pretty good. That's Rubicon number two. Then the critics weigh in, Rubicon number three, and that's always up down. We hate it, we like it.

This is the worst thing, oh hey, oh hi Tom. I saw you in a movie. Oh did you? It was cute. Oh! Yeah, yeah. That's when you ask the wife,

hey honey, could you take the revolver out of the glove box and hide it somewhere because I think... This is saving Private Land. I think it's cute. And so then, but then this other thing up is how it does at the BO, how it does at the box office with a bone of flake. Then a ton of time goes by when none of that stuff matters anymore and the movie just exists exactly as it is outside of loser winner status, thumbs up, thumbs down.

And that's when this stuff comes around where it's like that this thing that didn't work back then kind of does work now or just the opposite. The thing that was huge back then is a museum piece and doesn't really speak to any. That thing you do. Oh yeah. You were disappointed when it came out and it has this whole other life now.

It is. It is this cult classic. Okay. But that's an example of. Let me tell you something about these cocksuckers who write about movies. Can I say that? Yeah.

Okay, it's a bar cap. Yeah. My father writes about movies. And his name is cocksucker. Somebody, somebody, somebody who, somebody who wrote about it is, is that this is just, you know, Tom Hanks has to stop hanging around with veterans of TV, because this is just like the shot on TV and it's not much of anything, you know. That same person then wrote about the cult classic,

that thing you do, same exact person. It's all you need is 20 years between now and then, and it ends up speaking some words. But you know, that's the thing we all signed up for. That's the carnival, that's the contest. I got faith in that. You had a moment on Forrest Gump, and of course you're working with Robert Zemeckis, you You had a moment on Forrest Gump, and of course you're working with Robert Zemeckis,

you're working with him on Forrest Gump, you're sitting there on the bench, and you just thought, is anyone gonna watch this? That's exactly right. What did you say, is anyone gonna watch this? Is anyone gonna care about this guy? We had already, we had worked so hard, so much, and we were only about 40% through with the movie.

We still had a ton of stuff that we had to do. We had shot, we had shot 27 straight days in a row, which included helicopter rides to places in America where Forrest runs across the country, with a beard, without a beard. We'd been all over the place. And I'm exhausted. I'm frightened.

And we've got 36 hours to shoot this stuff in Cherokee Square in Savannah. I'm there dressed, and we have a ton of actors that are coming, they're gonna sit next to me on the bus bench. And we're trying to shoot so much that I said, Bob, there is no way my sad little brain can learn this much dialogue because I've got a page and a page and a page

and a page and a page, and that's just up to lunch. I, you know, if you think I'm gonna be word perfect on this, you're out of your mind. And don't worry about it, Tom. We'll just put it on cards like it's I Love Lucy. And, you know, we'll slide the cameras around so you don't wanna have to get in the barn and then I got mine and then I get, get, get, get, get.

Well, slide the cameras around so as to say, you don't wanna have to get a boner. And then I got boner. And gah, gah, gah, gah, gah, gah, gah, gah. Robert Zubeckis is a ventriloquist dummy. We've worked together a lot. So I actually know what, and gah, gah, gah, gah, gah. I know what that means now. I know what it means.

And so we were doing it. And in all honesty, you know, you do it twice and then you get it down. So it goes pretty fast. And we were midway through like a day. We shot all that stuff in a day, all the stuff on the thing. This is you on the park bench, iconic. Yeah, we shot it in a day.

And at one point, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm trying to read it. I said, guys, can you make the print a little bit better just for these first couple of takes, but then I'll get it down. Don't worry about it. The other actors are coming in. You want to run this? Go like that. And at one point, you know,

Bob is sitting there next to me and I said, I don't know, Bob, you know. Anybody gonna care about this guy dressed up in like this kooky ice cream suit sitting on this bench? And saying stuff, you know, is it gonna cut together? Is it gonna matter? Is it gonna make any sense?

And Bob, well, that's the thing about making movies, Tom. It's a minefield. It's just a fucking minefield. We don't know if we're sowing the seeds of our own destruction or not. Like... Like... Like... Like...

Like... Like... Like... Like... Like... Like... Like... Like...

Like... Like... Like... Like... Like... Like... And that, you know, that is the truth of every single moment that you're standing in front of. Look, I made this movie that was altered, you know, and I always say in years to come we'll be talking about a movie called Cloud Atlas. I made it with the Warshowskis and that was one of the most vibrant, loving, hardworking, magnificent thing. And when it came out, it was just like, oh, oh, hey, nice movie.

Meanwhile, the Incredibles are all, you know, you're always, we got lost in the horse race. So all you can do is show up and go there. Everybody says, how'd you do that scene? Oh, I'll show you. I showed up that day and we all went there. Is there any trick to it? Yeah, here's the trick.

Go there. And if that means you got to put yourself through some sort of psychological hell in order to get there, go there. Now, you might know this. You show up to work and you're going to do a convivial, happy, hilarious scene, right? Everything works great. And you know what happened the day before that? Your dog got hit by it. Every tragedy has happened to you dog got hit by it.

You know, every tragedy has happened to you. Eight hours prior to it. Show up and just be. Isn't it fun to be in love and shoot a montage where we're licking ice cream and we're holding hands and we're skipping stones and playing we're playing a beach ball, and then we're dancing in a gazebo. And it's on one of the worst days of your frigging life.

Right? And then the other days where you gotta go and you have to like go to a place that's incredibly dark and stormy and crazy. And all you did last night was laugh like crazy at the karaoke bar with the rest of the guys and the crew. I said, guys, it's two o'clock in the morning. I love to sing another Elvis song,

but I have to weep and cry at eight o'clock in the morning. So I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna go return. All you can do is go there no matter what. Because guess what? You don't know where you're stepping. It's a minefield, Conan. It's a fucking minefield. Just think about it. You worked with all these directors, Spielberg. More than once. More than once.

But you've worked with all these iconic directors and Ron Howard and Zemeckis. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And Nora Ephron. Nora, yeah, worked with her three times. You've gotten to a point where is it possible for you, Tom Hanks, to be intimidated by a director on the setter?

But is that gonna happen now? The first three days are three days of terror, because it's a combination of everybody else who is there. And also just, on the third day you realize, no matter what the movie is, you realize I should have said no. Uh... Uh... There just should have said no. Uh...

There just should have been something wrong with the DI'd or no. Because here we are. Here we are. Uh, the intimidate... I will... Look, I've done this long enough so I now am aware that I intimidate other people, you know, because, you know, because you show up

and then somebody says, okay, okay, I'll tell you this story. Okay, here's a show business story. We are shooting perhaps the most scary, intense, truly scary, intense, real life scene in Captain Phillips. We are, honestly, we're overweight, old, middle-aged guys who are gonna be taken over by these pirates, and we have never met the guys who play the pirates.

We don't know who they are. All we know is that they are coming. Because the way Paul Greengrass shot that, he had cameras on us and cameras on the four guys, Barkov and Abdul and Big B, Little B, all the guys. And we have never met them. And they are firing automatic blanks, you know, machine guns. We hear all this stuff that's going on.

And we don't see anything until the camera outside the bridge of the Maersk, Alabama. We see the camera backing up with the guys pulling the cable. And then four of the scariest human beings I have ever met come in and they are screaming at us. They are slapping us, they are hitting us, they are pushing it down, and they're holding... They're real guns, you know?

They're holding them in our faces, screaming at us. ["SHADOWS"] And it was, honestly, we are all bug-eyed with some form of terror, even though we know it's a movie. That is removed because guess what? We all went there. All right? So we're all there. This initial scene went on for about 20 minutes because Paul does this thing where he has a secondary

and third cameras that don't start shooting until later on. So film is always rolling, and then one camera will go quickly reload and then join back in the scene. So this is gonna be... You gotta stay in that space. We are right there because the camera's on us and it's working. So four of the skinniest, scariest looking guys,

their eyes were all bloodshot, they all had this teeth, they were all built like wires, they had muscles like rope, they're dressed in rags and they're holding AK-47s on us and they're screaming at us. And it went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, relatively unrehearsed. When it was finally done, Paul says,

all right, all right, okay, all right, all right, that went well, that went well. Why don't we, and while they're, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, we're all like this. And we said, if we can, what I'd like to do is just take it back and come back in. I said, okay, yeah, all right.

Okay, good. And then one of the actors, Mahat was his name. Mahat says, I can't believe I'm working with Forrest Gump. He just tried to kill you. So a countenance, right, comes along with the whole bit. And you know, once we got that done, we were just guys making a movie. It was fantastic. But that's an example of, you know, there was a moment where you have to do all this suspension of the reality of, you know, what it is.

And all you can do is go there. The only thing I have that it's a little similar is for years, occasionally we would have a band on, like Slipknot for the first time. Guys with skulls, you know, just, and they would come out, or a band would come out and they were literally like blood capsules out of the mouth and fierce. And the song is just like, you know,

and then you'd, I'd come out and I'd say, we'll take a break, death kill, murder baby. We'll take a break. We'll be right back. And I would always be a little intimidated because I'm in a suit. I'm the late night host, I'm the whatever, the game show host, and I'm just saying, okay, we'll take a break. And these are the guys that are from Manchester. Oh, yeah. And whatever.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. We'll take a break, we'll be right back. And the person would always go, just lovely meeting you, I really enjoy. Oh. And it's just, it just such a nice sensibility. And you're like, I can't handle that! I can't handle the psychic breaks.

This is why so many of us go Stark-Rabbit nuts. Yeah. Because that surrealistic divide between why you are there and what are you creating begins. It's too malleable after a while. And yet it starts and it finishes within the wink of an eye. It's that type of thing where the massacre is over

and cut. And all the dead guys start getting up and moving around, you know? And you move on and you get the other shot. I wish we could just keep it all secret, like the Coca-Cola formula. around, you know, and you move on and you get the other shot. I wish we could just keep it all secret, like the Coca-Cola formula. I wish we didn't have to, but I don't watch movies

that I'm in, because they haven't changed since I saw them. So I know how they end, right? But every now and again, like you're blowing through the grid or something like that and a minute comes on or a scene comes on. And what I remember is what happened just before we shot that scene. That's all that I, that's all I can recall.

I look at it and I don't remember doing the scene per se, but I said, oh, it was cloudy that day. And, you know, I dropped a script in a mud puddle. And then that's all I can recall. And then I had some flan. Yeah. And then it was time to go. Yeah, what do we have?

Oh, you know what? Somebody made Reuben's sandwiches that day. That was really great. Oh, I remember, craft service made Reuben's sandwiches that day, yeah. And I think it was Annie in the accountant department's birthday. And so we all sang happy birthday in the catering tent tour.

There you go. There you go, that was that day. I wanna talk about here, which I've never seen a movie like this. I really loved it. I was riveted by one thing, which is the camera. It's hard to explain. Yeah, it is. But basically-

It has a cinematic technique to it that is very unique. Is that what you could say? I love the graphic novel. And the graphic novel is it's one shot. what you could say? I love the graphic novel. And the graphic novel is it's one shot. So you open the book and it's one shot. And then it's everything that's happening that's ever happened in that one shot.

You have done our job for us. And you haven't even seen the movie. No, I love the graphic novel. And Blake, remember when you interject and it's a guest of this caliber, you have to submit a form first. That's right, I'm so sorry. And you didn't submit before. I'm sorry, I apologize.

Based on your question, I'd like to say, will you shut the fuck up? That's true! Harrison Farks! Hey, I'm a good company. I'm trying to talk to Conan. What the hell, Blake? Oh, you read the comic book

Drive did you come down Beverly? Did you come down? Because that's how I got We had Al Pacino here not long ago Wow and he Fantastic interview He brings up I just say we had Al Pacino here not long ago. Oh, wow. And he, fantastic interview. We're talking about everything. He brings up, we're talking about the Godfather and Blay leans in mid interview and says, I read the comic book.

And it startled Pacino when he said, I gotta go. And he left. Oh, wow. And they ended their interview early. Thanks, Blay. All right, there you go. Sorry about that. But you talk of something because I was talking to Bob.

Bob and I get together all the time. Bob Zemeckis, just so everyone's clear. Robert Zemeckis, he co-wrote this and he directed it. Right, right. Yes, yes. And I did Forrest Gump with Bob. I did the Polar Express with Bob. I did Cast Away with Bob.

And I did Pinocchio with Bob. I played, I playedippetto. Thank you And while we while we were doing that I always say yeah, we had seen this we had seen this movie I had he had talked about this movie a long time, but we got time to talk about this stuff, right? We don't have to hurry through this He had talked about this movie that he had seen and he said I said The most amazing thing last night. I would say I couldn't figure out where how they got the shot How did they get this shot? I said, I guess the most amazing thing last night, I couldn't figure out how they got the shot, how did they get the shot? I said, what was the shot?

He said, well, it was in the back of a Jeep and the Jeep's going down this bumpy road and all you see is the window and the cage of the Jeep and the driver in the back and the camera's whipping around and then the Jeep stops, the guy gets out and I go, where did they get this, how did they do this? Where's the camera? What was the rig? How did they mount this thing? And then they opened the guy over the back and the suddenly you're in the grass and you're going through the thing and I realized they put the camera on a dog. The name of

the movie was The Truffle Hunters. It's a great documentary. Wow, I don't know it. It's fascinating. It's about essentially the relationship between the people who hunt out truffles and the dogs that find the truffles for them. And then there's examination of also the sociologic, the business of truffle, and also the people that do it. And a lot of the movie was shot from a standard, what we call static POV, the camera never moves.

And yet the scene will go on for eight, nine, 12 minutes. And I was talking about because I ended Up saying I said God there was some stuff in there that was the most evocative movie making I've ever seen and it was a Documentary there was no music. There was no score. It was just people behaving and I was fascinated I mean, I wonder Bob it I wonder if you could do that in a feature film and he looks at me and he says Buddy you should ask that And he looks at me and he says, buddy, you should ask that, Tom. Then he has the screenplay that he wrote with Eric,

Eric Roth, who did, he did Gumpo with us as well. And he said, you need to read this. And then he also handed me the graphic novel by Richard. I can't remember what his name is. Blai, you're allowed to speak. I don't know his last name. Idiot! Sorry, I'm sorry.

You're an idiot. I blanked out, I'm having a stroke. What did I call those people who write about movies? What word did I use? Don't make me say it again! But then he gave me that and honestly I had to read the graphic novel about three times in order to figure out how it was gonna translate to this thing. And then when I got it, I literally said, ow, my God, this is a deep throat, baby.

["Sweet Home Alone"] Just to inform our listeners, or if you're on YouTube, viewers, that's right, I know how to play the game. Uh... Or if you're an alien and you're in space. Um, the camera is locked. You are looking at one point of view.

Time jumps. You're gonna see Tom and Robin and their characters. You're gonna see them at 17. 17, yeah, yeah. 19, 20, 30, 40. Into our 80s, yeah. It is absolutely mind blowing because it's you. It's you when I, before I first met you,

but it's you when I first met you in 1988. I see no trickery, I see no sleight of hand. It's you. Yeah. The tool that we use, everybody, you know, everybody's like, what's this mean? You used AI in order to make movies. AI is evil. What is this? What's it gonna make you movies? Um... It's all over! When Tom Hanks goes to a donut shop,

you want a donut? Do you want a donut? Do you want a donut? You have this effect on people, it's you. It's my countenance that I bring in it. There is a, it's called Deep Fake. All it is is a movie making tool. In the old days, and by old days I mean 2019,

before it all changed. We still had hours in the makeup trailer because we had to have wigs and hair and they'd do things like... Jennifer was... I'd sit down in the chair and she says, hello, she's a very lovely lady, says, hello, Tom, hello, how was your evening last night, Tom? And as she's asking me these questions, she's grabbing both of my ears, squeezing them, lifting them up on the side of my head, and gluing them up higher on the top of my head as I'm going.

And I said, is that gonna hold? Oh, it has to, Tom. Because as you age, your ears grow larger and they fall down the side of your head. And today is the scene where you're only 22, so we have to raise your ears and glue them, glue them to the side of my, and by the way, it works, it stays glued, it's like, I said,

you might need a staple gun there. No, no, it all works. You go and you do a data scan, and then they match it with every photograph that exists of me, and they go back and find as many photographs of me at the age of 17, 19, 20, 20, for my entire life. Then they jam those in using... Are you ready for the scary word?

When I say it, can you guys, like, react like the word? And they use AI. Yeah! Yeah, right. In order to do all the work and make it happen faster. You used to have to put a dot on your face, glue it so the computer would read it

and then match it later on. Now it uses the pores of your face. Oh my God. Just to match it like that. So we would have two monitors as we were shooting. One monitor was the way we really looked, and the other monitor with just about a nanosecond lag time was us in the deep fake technology.

So on one monitor, I'm a 67-year-old man, you know, pretending he's in high school. Yeah. And on the other monitor, I'm 17 years old. That's unbelievable. So the big question would be, you talked earlier about how you're hesitant to watch your own work. This, sitting and watching this movie for you

is watching you at 1767 and everything in between. How was, have you had that experience yet? Are you prepared for that experience? I've seen just enough of it and seeing me at that age, it has finally answered the question for me is, which is no wonder I never got laid. Oh!

Oh! The original title of the film. Well, I mean, I had a lot of energy and I was loud and, you know, I could make a laugh. Well, you just describe anything. I've occasionally been forced to look at myself in 19, from 1990, every day of my life was televised from 1993 up until about, and I'm not happy with any of it. And I always watch it and I look at my wife and I go, why?

Well, so what, we did actually have to examine this probably more than you ever do on a movie, because we had to literally go right, and we had technicians that were looking at our skin and stuff like that. But we also had to look at the timing and the cadence of what it is. Because there is, I don't know what the actual name of it,

but there is a factor, I can't remember what it's called. We thought that we were speaking at a very realistic cadence. And then we would go watch a playback and it was as slow as molasses. It just took forever. But I would say, it's like the cinematic time slip. It seems like it's fast, but it plays in real time. So that's one of the things we discovered about it

that didn't make it any more fun to sit there and look at ourselves in, you know, dressed up as we were. It just occurred to me, I know that I've talked to you and you've several times where you've slipped into a Ron Howard impression. You've just, you've destroyed Robert Zemeckis's career. And yet he comes back for more.

Is anyone who directs you, you know, is liable to be impersonated by you? Some are a little, you know, some I guess are. I don't even know what a Spielberg impression would be. I don't even, I don't get a sense of him. This would be, oh, I don't care know what a Spielberg impression would be. I don't even, I don't get a sense of him. This would be, oh, I don't care what you say. Oh, I don't care what you say. On every movie I've done,

I think I've worked with Steven five times. Let's see, Ryan and the terminal and Catch Me If You Can. Bridge of Spies. Bridge of Spies. Bridge of Spies. Is there another one in there? I can't recall. Is there another one in there? I'm going to get my IMDb.

And he always does this thing. I wake up and I see, you know, Stephen uses, the screenplays of Stephen's movies are the most basic blueprints. They are not the Rosetta Stones. They are not like set down. So it'll come and there'll be a lot of dialogue and you do this and explain this and you get there.

And I'll go, they said, oh man, there's an awful lot of stuff in there. I think I'd like to cut that. I'd like to cut that. I'd like to cut that. And then I get to work and Steve will say, okay, here's the shot. We're gonna start here and the camera's gonna be right here.

We're gonna be following you and you guys will be saying all your stuff right there. I say, okay, here's the shot. We're gonna start here and the camera's gonna be right here. We're gonna be following you and you guys will be saying all your stuff right there. I said, well, I was thinking that maybe we don't need all this. Oh, I don't care what you say. I doubt the last couple of gigs that I've had, I said, I said, when everybody is in town, and we did this on Bridge of Spies and also about mostly just on Bridge of Spies, I said, look, we'll get together with all the guys.

Oh, we did, and the post, we did the post together. Did the same thing with the post, get everybody together and we'll read through some of the scenes and I'll just explain. Said, listen, everybody, there are some days that we will come to work and we will have all of this stuff memorized and we'll be hot, we will have read through it, we'll be prepared and we will get to this stage and Stephen will have done all that work for us.

We don't have to do anything except inhabit the space because Stephen is telling the story from the cinematic perspective, where the camera is and what he's doing. It's not even gonna matter yet. But then there'll be other times, my friends, when we will show up and we'll know it all, and we need to know it, because we have to get there.

When we shot the stuff on the Gleimnirka Bridge, on Bridge of Spies, which was the real place where the spies were exchanged, crazy, we were freezing to death, it was very, very cold. And Steven came up to us and said, hey, I hope you guys know all your lines, because I haven't the slightest idea how we're gonna shoot this.

And I just turned to all the guys and said, what did I tell you? And then he's the most malleable guy. Well, what if we stand here, Stephen? What if we come out here? What if he comes out there? Great, great, great, great. Oh, that's a great idea because I'm not gonna come in.

He's very excited about all that crap. I do have to let you go because- That's too bad. We're having a good time. I know, I swear to your people that I would- This is your job? You know what? No one, I stepped in shit when this thing came along.

I'm the luckiest guy in the world. Can you believe that? No, I- Trust me. No. Okay, let me ask you a question. Outside of celebrities, what is the hardest amount of research you had to do before someone came in and talked for it?

Where did you guys all have to get educated on what they're, what is gonna be talking about? Okay, the, I'll tell you this. I'm just gonna guess, Pacino was a bunt, I'm gonna say, because you know. Well, I read his book. You love the Pacino, right? I read tell you this. I'm just gonna guess, Pacino was a bunt, I'm gonna say, cause you know, you love the Pacino, right? I read his book, but I would say the funniest part of my day today was coming in and David Hopping handing me my research on Tom Hanks.

And I was like, first of all, no one needs research on Tom. The whole country. And also you don't need like, yes, more about this Hanks! Tell me of him! Ah, yes! You know, it was a funny moment to me

that I would need that. But no, there are people who I'm not as annoyed with. And had somebody like come in like an astrophysicist or something like that? Oh, no, I'm very, I am an astrophysicist. Yo, you're not gonna work that hard, is that what you're saying? Well, you had Robert Carrow,

but you were so versed on him anyway. I didn't really need to, I mean, you know, the thing is, I have people on that I love to talk to, it's- The author Robert Carrow, who wrote, you know, the- The porn star Robert Carrow. Oh my God. Yeah, and you had to do no research on it. Oh, no.

None. For Robert Carroll, the Lyndon Johnson historian, I needed to bone up. And I do mean bone up. Bone up! Bone up! All he had to do was go to that web browser history and it was all right there.

His favorites tab. I mean, that tab's just always open. No, I, that's's just always open. That's what I love about this is that I'm talking almost exclusively to people that I really enjoy, that I wanna talk to. And so there are occasionally youngsters, up and comers, and I feel like I need to educate myself on what's happening with the new rock and roll.

But other than that. This is Slipknot. Yeah, I other than that. This is Slipknot. Yeah, Slipknot. Yeah, yeah. But for the most part, it's just a joy. I mean, this has been a joy. I have to say, you're not just one of my favorite actors of all time, and I think that that's true for many people, but as a person, you've been unfailingly nice to me.

Kind of. Over the years, you've been unfailingly nice to me. Over the years, you have been just a mensch to me. And so has Rita, your lovely and talented wife, who's by the way, an amazing, I mean, I enjoy watching her perform. She's fantastic. She just had a, she had dropped a new record, as the kids said, just last Friday.

But she never quits with, I mean, I had dropped a new record, as the kids said, just last Friday. But she now records with, I mean, All the time. I mean, you know, I've actually seen her live, but she's recording with these incredible people. She did a bunch of duets from the 70s with Eric, excuse me, with Elvis Costello and Tim McGraw and Jackson Brown and, oh, and Smokey Robinson. No, she blows me away.

What I love is that I love going on stuff with her jobs, cause I don't work, man. The most that is expected of me is to carry her lip gloss. You know, I'm not working. Honey, do you need your lip gloss? Yeah, that's about all I, that's all about all I have to do. Then I get free tickets to the show.

It's pretty great. Well, when I heard you were coming in today, I was over the moon and I really did enjoy here. And I think you guys would love it. And you'll watch it on a real screen. Yes. Yeah, okay. So this is a problem.

This is like striking terror in the hearts of anybody connected with marketing, you know, with the studio, or even my crack publicity teams. Essentially the ladies who work for me part-time that are outside right now. The idea that this is playing only in theaters, and you really do need... It's best to watch it on the biggest screen possible

because there is so much stuff going on screen it's like oh my god this is the worst thing how are we gonna do that I think I believe people understand how movies work no but you don't understand the whole sidekiss has changed we don't have what social significance of motion pictures have anymore do they go to I hope they go to Alamo draft house I hope this place to Alamo Drafthouse. I hope this place is Alamo Drafthouse. All you have to do is put out there that you're playing only in theaters and let's see what happens. We'll go on from there.

But this is what we do down at the office. Literally, this is all we do. Every show business atmosphere I'm in, we sit around like we're on a podcast and say this story, that story, what's the name, how that happened, do that, that's essentially how we work in show business. And it's been that way since I was in high school. You know, it's all been done. Well, so you, I can attest to this,

having met you all those years ago and watched you work up close, you bring an energy and a, hey, we're all in this, we all have to make this work, that is not common. Not everybody does that. And some people have walls and insecurities and you have always been someone that, and I saw it in 1988, I've seen it when all the times

that you would come on my show over the years, all the times I've interacted with you, hey, we all have to do this thing. Let's all pitch in and make it work. And that's a beautiful quality to have. It really is, and it's rare. Oh, well, listen, it was Beth said to me by Darlene Love, right, Darlene Love?

We all know Darlene Love from all the other records. I was on the Letterman show for the Christmas show. Every year she would come on and sing It's Christmas, that fabulous, fabulous, fabulous song. And I was there and it's like, oh, you can go into hair and makeup as soon as Darlene Love is here. Darlene Love is here?

You know, it's like, oh my God, what am I gonna say? I gotta go meet Darlene Love. And so I went, it's like, oh my God, what am I gonna say? I gotta go meet Darlene Love. And so I went in and she was sitting there and said, oh, hi, hi, hi, Miss Love. Well, hello, Tom. So nice to meet you, my goodness, it's just so fantastic. And thank you for your records from the get-go, all the stuff that you have done.

And I reeled off some of her stuff that she appreciated. And just the fact that you are still here sharing your voice and your gift with this. Your spot on this show singing this song is one of the highlights of my air, so I'm just so glad that you're here. And she said, oh, honey, I'm just here for the hang. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And ain't that a thing? Yeah. Yeah. You know? I get that. Yeah, yeah, it's here for the Hank.

So thanks for hanging guys, that was great. You know what, you're welcome, Tom. You really owe us one. So here, I'll say, okay, so hi, my name is Tom Hanks and I feel cuckoo about being Conan O'Brien. No, no, my name is Tom Hanks and I feel joyful about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Is that good?

Yeah. Okay, one more time. Hi. Hi, my name is Tom Hanks, and I feel competitive about being Conan O'Brien's friend. You're not competing against many people, trust me. God bless you, sir. Great. Thanks guys, great fun.

Wow. Wow. Conan O'Brien needs a friend, with Conan O'Brien, Sonam Avsesian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. 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 Melnik. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Battista, and Brit Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts,

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