Sir Patrick Stewart

My name is Patrick Stewart and, you know, I always would like to do that as if I were on, you know, the radio.

It always falls away, doesn't it anyway? And I....

I am so delighted and honored to be here because the last time we could have done this, I wasn't available.

No, you were very.

It was not your fault, you couldn't make it, but you're here now, and I'm sure you're delighted to be Conan O'Brien's friend.

I knew I'd miss something, but I thought, No, that's not important.

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are going to be friends, I can tell that we are going to be friends. Hey there, welcome to Conan. O'Brien needs a friend. A podcast that gives much more than it ever takes.

Don't know what that means, just said it, What do you mean? I put no thought into these introductions. Sona, nice to see you.

Nice to see you. Your leg is going a little fast today, I know. Why. Are you nervous about something? Yeah, I'm really scared to be here.

I don't know. You might be nervous, your leg is going like a jackhammer. I think I had too much chocolate before we recorded, and I really think it's like sugar is pumping through my veins. We all had a different place at this round table that I grew up at, in our kitchen and my mother. My seat was next to my mother.

My mother was to my right, so I was on her left and I have a jiggly leg. Yeah, you have restless legs, restless leg, and it goes like a jackhammer. And my mother used to just grab it like a vice and squeeze it and go, don't do that, people will think something's wrong with you.

Oh, no, yes, and so we cleared that up. No one's ever thought something's wrong with me, that's what it was.

Yeah, it was that one thing. Yeah, she didn't tell me. Don't make 900,000 hours of crazy, fucked up content and put it all over the internet. Kept that leg still.

Maybe if the leg was going, I'd be perfectly normal. Maybe you should get a full leg cast, like a cast iron cast, or then your whole body would start going. Fake legs so that my torso goes through, my torso's there, but then I just have fake and then I could add. Calf muscles make them more attractive. Where are your legs?

Where are your normal legs? how do you get around? I don't know I would have them removed. Oh, it's not like they're hidden.

I should have had them hidden and I don't know why I went to remove. That was so extreme, I questioned that. That's a bad idea, I don't know.

I'm just going ahead with it anyway.

I'm usually chill. What about you, Gorlie? Do you have any tics like that or any leg stuff? Well, I have the actual restless legs condition at night when you get those horrible restless legs.

I don't know what that is, I don't know what that is either. It's like a syndrome. It's a thing where you get pins and needles and you can't sleep and your legs feel crazy. Oh, that sounds serious.

Oh yeah, are you okay? I probably not. well, you should get checked out, I have.

There's nothing you can be done about it, it's neurological, they don't know what causes it. Oh, I didn't mean to bring this down, I'm fine.

So when you lay down, your legs have pins and needles. Yeah, or they feel like they're half asleep, but you've got to move them, even though that doesn't really help. Okay, I'm going to ask our listeners if there is a doctor listening or someone who knows about this condition. Could you please contact us? Because there might be something going on here? How do they contact us? I'm sure Eduardo will tell us.

Phone number that they can leave a voicemail on. I've spoken to my doctor, it's okay. I love that we're a podcast that has a phone number.

There's a phone number, 1555 Wrigley, 22.

You've spoken to a doctor? I have, yeah, was it a good doctor or some sort of kooky doctor that you might have? It was a witch doctor.

I thought, so, it was my doctor, my general practitioner, everything's fine, no one should have any concern.

You're kept awake at night by pins and needles, feelings in your legs don't go away. That's interesting, I don't know what that is. What if it just turns out you guys have termites?

Oh, no, you're being eaten. it's just an infestation. Yeah, you're really being eaten alive as you lay in bed.

At least there'd be a solution, I'd take it. I have an itchy back, like my right shoulder blade. Recently, my dermatologist said there's absolutely nothing there, and it's just neurological. It's an itch that isn't there.

It's a phantom itch, phantom itch. Yeah, oh my god, do you have a back scratcher?

We did have one, then he fired him. Yeah, I found it illegal to pay a man that little to scratch your back. The better Business Bureau got involved.

I think my wife found one and then it disappeared. And now I swear to God, we'll be watching TV at night and I'll stand up, get off the couch, go over to the wall, find a corner. I'm like a bear in the woods, I start raking my back across the edge of a doorway, and I'm told it's quite common. It's something that happens.

It's neurological, it's not real, but it feels real to me. We're fucked up.

What do you mean? I don't know. I know that your parents are very old school. Yes, they are old school. You tell me all the time that your father grew up in a village, right?

Yes, yes, and so I don't know if you grew up. I mean, did they? I don't know what happened.

Did they? What? Did you grow up in a small village, you know what? We weren't as dependent on doctors as a lot of people are, but maybe that's a good thing, sure.

But I also.

I don't think I have anything with my body, that's like a neurological thing. I mean, I feel like you guys, that should be more concerning, but you're both like, Eh, whatever? When you say it's not a bad thing that you never went to the doctor as a child, yeah.

I say we didn't rely on doctors as much as a lot of people. You said, dependent, and that's not a bad thing. Yeah, yeah, it's not bad to have that.

The first time I met your dad, I noticed that he has a pipe going through his head. And I said, What about that pipe? And he went, Oh, it'll go away on its own, he said. This truck ahead of me dropped this off on the highway, went through my head.

1969.

But it'll be okay. Why do you pick on my dad so much? I love your dad, I know.

He's got the best mustache I've ever seen, my dad's the best. What would their remedy be for his neurological phantom itch? Yeah, what would your mom say to do?

Because I do trust she has some old like folk remedies she does have, she's very much in the old, sort of like voodoo thing. Like when we wanted to have babies, I think I told you she like, buried a baby under a bush, not a real baby.

That was so upsetting, you did bury the lead you have, so upsetting. We really wanted a baby, so she buried a baby in the backyard.

Was it one of the Is it a talking doll? No. Once we had the boys, she was like, this, it's done, it worked. Can I say something? I was by your house, remember the last time?

And I was walking around the backyard and I stepped on what i a loose piece of grass, and I heard, Mama, mama, is that baby still alive? No, it's a talking baby. Where is this baby? So somewhere there's just a dirt crusted baby sitting in your mom's house, or what?

Yeah, probably hundreds of them. Oh God, Bloom house, are you listening? For every day that Sona was married? For every day Sona was married, she would do it.

900 plastic baby dolls were stolen yesterday from a Walmart plus a shovel.

If police find either one, please report. Oh man, so, uh, yeah, but I don't know, I mean, they would, I think. I really think you two need to figure out why these things are happening to your bodies.

I think we should talk to your mom, I think my mom could fix it. Can we have her in? Yeah, your mother? Uh? Because I've noticed in the past when I have not felt well, you have told me, Oh, here's what my mom would do.

And it's it sounds pretty cool, like your mom has good I'm, I'm. I'm saying this. It sounds like she has really good remedies for some things. The burying the plastic baby. Uh, there's. There's a few missteps, but for the most part, she's been pretty. Like my brother and I are are are pretty healthy people.

Like, we don't, you know, we don't, We've been, we're okay, we're alive. Yeah, you don't sound convincing, yeah.

We're alive. Okay, Mr. needle legs and weird itch on my back. I'm itch.

Restless legs. Thank you very much. Restless legs. You two have fucked up and you're getting mad at me because of the way I'm dealing with my body shit.

We never got mad at you. You come from a very judgy place. I don't think so. yes, you are. you're coming from a very judgy place.

This whole thing started with you going, you guys need to get that fucking checked out. Yeah, you went from telling us you got to get that fucking checked out to. My mother buried a baby in the backyard. That we're allowed to judge by the way, by the way, that some judgment is in order.

It works. I have two, it's the sentencing. How do you think my two children happened? You think that just happened?

Well, I have a theory.

Did she bury two boy baby dolls? No, just one. She just wanted children of some kind. I don't think it matters how many you bury. How does this work?

If you're like, I really want a turkey sandwich, do you just bury a turkey sandwich? Oh my God, no, you just go get a turkey sandwich. Matt, that's how it works.

Okay, now, if you have to bury that sandwich, then hope another sandwich comes, and then when that sandwich doesn't come, you have to buy that sandwich and bury it. You die of starvation. With 900 turkey sandwiches buried underneath the ground, go rub your back on the wall.

Go rub your back, go rub your back. I love that put down. ah, go rub your back, you know what?

True story, My mother, if she was losing an argument to one of my sisters, and I swear to God, I was there for this. She said. Ah, go wash your face. I heard this in, like, 1970, my sister, one of my sisters, would go like, No, but mom, I don't know what she was saying.

No, go wash your face, go wash your face, I'm going to use. go wash your face. I'm going to use that on Liza.

No, don't use that on Liza next time she's talking to me, next time she's saying, You know, how dare you smash all the dishes in the kitchen? which I do occasionally? It's sort of like a zorba, the Greek thing, you know, like, Yay, Zorba, it's good luck.

Yeah, and then she gets mad at me. I'm going to go, Ah, go wash your face, I'm going to try it and see how it works. No, I don't want you to say it to Liza, but I want to definitely say it to someone.

Ah, go bury a baby. ah go bury the baby. Okay, dark, very dark.

It is dark. You got to say, plastic baby or baby doll? Yeah, which is not what you did, I know.

I should have said that, well, your own fault anyway. My guest today, horrified that he's here, I know he should leave.

He should leave, he should beam out. Talented actor who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek, The Next Generation and Professor X in the X-Men movies. Now he's written a new memoir, making it so.

Sir Patrick Stewart, welcome.

I'm going to start by saying something I don't get to say often, which is, I think one of the last times I saw you. We kissed full on on the lips. It was on my show and I forget how it happened. Something was in the air that night. I've only kissed two men full on on the lips. One was you, the other was Mr.

Ryan Reynolds We did a piece where we did a parody of the notebook, a pretty good track record. Yes, I am killing it with the fellas.

Passionate, yeah.

It's taking everything in my power not to say I've never been kissed like that before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I won't, I won't, don't go near him.

I'm putting up a salad guard between the two of you. You got in, your physicality changed, like you were going to do it, and then I got. It's like, Oh, it's so exciting. It was like a cobra rising up looking at you, do I?

Do I not? But I have to say the one difference with Ryan Reynolds is he has a technique. I guess where kissing, and it was a longer kiss. And you can look at it on video. It's a parody of the notebook. He reaches over. And he started fondling my ear. And I thought I just got a weird peek into Blake Lively's life at this moment.

Very strange, anyway. Welcome, thrilled to have you here. You're a consummate actor. you've got, I believe, the greatest voice in the world.

You've accomplished so much in your life and you've also written this book. Man, you have lived a life. I will say that you have lived an incredible life and you've written about it beautifully in this book, which tells your story.

And there's so much in here that I didn't know starting with your childhood. You're such a good actor. You've gone through this transformation that I would never, in a million years, believe that you came from the north. Very little means, I don't know how else to say it.

What you would call, I think you referred to it in your book as sort of the rust belt of England. What's this area? what's it called?

I think she was actually made Queen of South Yorkshire, I'm not quite sure, but she was. But it's well known as an industrial center. Sheffield, of course, which was only a few miles away from where I grew up, was the steel center of England, probably of Europe at the time.

Because we lived in what was called in our neighborhood, a one up, one down. There was one room downstairs, you stepped in off the pavement sidewalk and you were in the living room of the house and there wasn't anything else. There was a cellar downstairs and you went upstairs and there was one room upstairs. So one up, one down, and it was very, very basic.

Yeah, I mean the toilet aspect of it just being one of them. And it wasn't really until I went to secondary Modern School because I was not academic.

No one must know.

I mean, these were my father told us to do this, it was our job on a Friday evening. And we would have a big boiler that stood in the middle of the floor, a gas boiler and that would boil the water for the bath, then we would ladle the water out of the gas boiler into the bath. And the first person to take the bath would be my father. Because Friday night was the beginning of the weekend, which was often not a good thing in my house.

And then there was a whole complicated evening in which my elder brother would bathe in the same water that my father had used while the water was heating up again. Then he would empty that, and of course, he was made to do that. Then he could leave for a Friday night himself, even though he was only 10 or 11. Then we hailed the war.

Actually, no, we didn't. We had a rubber tube and we put the end of the rubber tube in the bath and I would suck it up. Which always meant that you would never-.

There were a lot of issues with your dad.

And he was brilliant at that job. My one favorite remark I ever heard about that was soon after he died. A neighbor who I knew had served with him in the army said. He saw me in a pub and he said, Let me buy you a drink because I want to toast your dad in this, he said. He was an extraordinary man, he said. You know, when your dad walked onto a parade ground, the birds in the trees stopped singing, Oh, wow.

I mean, it still gives me goosebumps.

And this guy shows up, and it's a guy who's been on a destroyer for four or five years fighting the war. Not in any cuddly mood, you know, it's just it's a very, it's a. I think it was a very common occurrence.

I was in my forties and I was just like, I'm joining the army, and she said, There's no war and you're too old. But I just wanted out they wouldn't have me. I failed the physical.

So it didn't work out.

He was born with a mustache.

And the man then told him about connection that he had at the Dorchester hotel, where you've probably stayed. I've been to the Dorchester in Park Lane. Yeah, one of the top five or six hotels historically, as well as present day.

And he said, they need a doorman, an assistant doorman, and that job is available. And you can have it as soon as you get out of the army. In a couple of weeks time, there is an apartment or a flat, as we would have called it. I'm bilingual now.

But my mother refused to leave her hometown, which she had never left ever before. She'd lived in this small little community in the west Riding of Yorkshire. And said, No, I will not go to London, I will not now. I've often thought my father could have said, That's fine, you stay here.

I will go to London and I will send you money through the post and you can come down and stay. But he didn't, he stayed and that was the beginning of the end for much of his life, as he was concerned he was a weekend alcoholic.

Monday through Friday. Nothing rigid about that. And, of course, the first five years of my life were bliss. My mother and I. I had a cot next to her bed, and when the side was let down, I could roll out of the cot straight into her bed. Which I did often. And we would cuddle all night long.

And then 1945.

Initially, you thought, Oh, I guess I'll be a lorry driver, a truck driver. Because you think you look at your world and you think this is what's possible. And then what changed?

I never held a copy of Shakespeare in my hand, and it was just a surprise. One day in the English class. And he was handing out these books, slim little books, and said, All right, this is Act four, scene one. And OK. You're playing Portia, you're playing Bassanio, you're playing Orlando and Patrick. finally, you're Shylock.

And we read this scene and my character didn't speak for half a page or so. And then he had a speech of about 40 lines, which is one of the most famous speeches in Shakespeare. And I had no idea what I was saying, I was trying to say the words, though most of them I didn't understand.

And yet something happened. I made a connection, I loved pronouncing these words. I was never. I'd never spoken a language like that out loud. I mean, I hadn't even spoken English.

When I was a child, I spoke not just with an accent, I spoke dialect. So do you want an instance?

And the word I was using was playing. Lakers stood in for playing at a art. are you? Lake in playing art, out at a lake and art.

Because if I talked like that in the classroom whack, I would have got thumped, you know?

You say that you remember? This is a quote, word for word, the one comment about me in a newspaper review of the first amateur production I ever appeared in. And it said Quote as Hopcroft minor Patrick Stewart was barely adequate. And you said, you remember that line for line. Despite the fact that you were getting a lot of positive affirmations left and right, that's still. And my God, do I know what you're talking about?

Jerry Tarkovsky We all remember, we all remember it, and you're thinking how much? There is no amount of success that you can ladle on Sir Patrick Stewart or Harrison Ford.

There is no amount that can take that away, and this is just the blessing in the curse.

But does he show respect?

Oh, really well, that's three great actors.

His name was Freedom Barrowclough, and that's Victorian, if ever there was.

And I think that he was right, so losing my hair felt like a failure. And also, no, no dating. Who wants to go out with an 18-year-old who's just got a few percent? And I used to do all this combing it over, you know? And then one day, a director I was working with who was very, very conscious of costs, said to me, Oh, no, no, no, you're two actors for the price of one.

And one of the stereotypes you'd been taught was, Don't trust the Irish. you move into a flat and there's some Irishmen.

So you come to this wonderful revelation that, no, that's wrong, these are wonderful people. I think whoever told you don't trust the Irish was spot on, but we'll let that go for now. I'm glad you had a good experience with them.

And people were dying because they couldn't feed themselves. And all these young guys had come over to London to get work, and they were all working on building sites, they were laborers, nobody was a skilled constructor.

They were laborers, and they welcomed me into their—.I shared a bedroom with one. Over the first night, when we had dinner, one of them, he introduced me to everyone. They were all Irish, and he said, Listen, when dinner's over, we go out because there's a pub around the corner that's very Irish friendly.

And he said, Your name is Patrick. I mean, it couldn't be better.

We can introduce you to anyone.

You had this experience that, I mean, I think, is absolutely mind-blowing. You were in a production in London with the great Vivien Leigh, you became friendly with her. And at one point, they are showing gone with the wind.

The reason being that I was the humblest member of the company, I had been a last-minute inclusion. Two days before rehearsals began, I got this offer and the working hands-on producer was a very unpleasant individual. And he found—he chose me as his one to go for.

And he did once say in front of the whole company, Patrick, we're doing this in honor of billing and you're at the bottom, so sit down. I mean, you know, you wouldn't get away with that today.

And I went to look, and I couldn't possibly afford one, they were so expensive. But on Charing Cross Road, there was a used garment men's used garment shop. And I went in. And there was this tuxedo, and I don't know what it was made of, but it looked like a blanket.

And it was huge.

And it's upsetting me so much, so thanks for sharing this. I hope you enjoy the night. And she got up and she and John walked out and I was so touched.

She could have just left. She didn't have to say thank you for coming and it's very good of you. And explained to me why she was crying. She was a superstar.

There was a wonderful actress, who I cannot name, but she is dead, too, who was playing a character and she had a leading role, very important roles. And during the curtain call one night, she was on one side of Vivian and John was on the other side. I was at the back on another row and this other actress leaned forward.

I heard her say something to the other person who was leaning forward with her, I didn't hear what it said. But as she was standing up, Vivian, who had just been presented with a bouquet of flowers, lifted it up and hit her across the face with a bouquet of flowers.

Apparently, she had said something that Vivian didn't like.

And about two years ago, I found it.

It's cologne that men wear, I wore it once. The dream was to be in the Royal Shakespeare company, and you made it happen, which, to this day, of all of your accomplishments, it might be hard to top that being in the Royal Shakespeare company.

They had been to see other actors when I was in Bristol and one of them who has left us. May he rest in peace. Charlie Thomas, who was only an assistant stage manager and playing little parts. And they cast him, the Royal Shakespeare company, they wanted him, and they cast him.

It's mine, all mine, I tell you.

What next?

You took it, which I think is brilliant. You said, Oh, this is a television show and this is part of a generation of. There's another star Trek. I'm going to approach this as if it's lear or hamlet.

That's the seriousness with which I'm going to take this. It certainly served you well.

And Whoopi? When she joined us? One day, I called a meeting. Because I thought I'm captain of the enterprise, but because I'd led companies in the theater, I felt this should be my role here. I'm a leader not just of Star Trek, of Starfleet, but of this band of people who are working. These endless days, 12, 14, sometimes 16-hour days to get all this done. And so I called this meeting and I said, All right, listen, what it seems to me, you people don't understand, is that there are two sets of work going on here.

There's the work we do and the time off that we get occasionally a day, a long weekend. And then there's the rest of the crew and people in the office who are here every single day and working brutal hours. We have got to make their lives easier and the problem is we are having too much fun.

That was the phrase that has still not left me today. I mean, I heard Jonathan Frakes say it to me, Yeah, I'm sorry. We're having too much fun.

That was a real gift to see that if someone who's accomplished all this can let go a little bit, that's a great gift to give to people.

And I pulled the gun on them and it was just one scene because it didn't end up happily for me, I mean, the character.

And it's a long anecdote. I'm not going to even start it from the beginning. But when Rod learned that this was my first day on a film set, he said, Oh well, what are you doing for lunch? No, no, he said. What are you doing for lunch?

And I said, Oh, I don't know, I mean, what do you do? Do you find a cafe? He said. No, no, no. Over there there's a counter and a bar, and you can get what you want there and bring it to my trailer.

And I said, You sure, yeah, I'll bring it, so I did, and we had lunch. Sitting in his trailer, he was one of my heroes.

Yes, you might think it should have been Marlon Brando, and it was.

Goosebumps, goosebumps. And anyway, one of the things he said to me during this lunch was just as we were about to leave, he said, one thing.

What's remembering?

The camera, photographs, thoughts.

And that was all, and I have never forgotten that.

And you know, you're involved.

And it's riveting. A lot of it is people yelling at him, they're angry with him. You know, this isn't you. I don't like the way you're running this investigation.

What are you doing? And it's him and his eyes slightly moving side to side, and you see the wheels turning. And he's got all this coiled energy that he's not spending, and it's fantastic.

Cobb, Eva Marie Saint, all of whom, by the way, I have met, except for Brando. I had an invitation from somebody who was very close to him to go up to his house up on the top of the Hollywood Hills.

An appointment was set and I pulled out. Someone had said to me, he's very difficult, you know? And all I had was this memory of this brilliant, believable, real actor.

And I didn't want it to be changed. I want him to remain as he was when he moved Ron's gun aside and just saw the sadness in his face. It's a great job if you're lucky and you get the work to do.

And, of course, right now there is no work.

And there's so many great revelations in this book. I love reading about how you heard that Frank Sinatra was a fan of your Star Trek, and I just imagine Frank Sinatra shut up, get out of here.

I've got to watch punching somebody and then saying, Shut up, Star Trek's on Next generation. I just love that.

I love that, and I just, I love that. My favorite people have careers that define categorization, and I think that's you fit that beautifully, because it's there's so many different phases.

You've done so many different things, you've put on so many different hats, slash, wigs, and then you write this book, which is beautiful and ultimate, ultimate respect, really.

This is, this is quite an achievement and I love that you are still, you're still in it. You are still, you're still interested in trying something new, you know, you're still interested in what's next.

And I think that's next.

Two or three times a year, you're stuck in that, huh? You know? I try to say no.

That's not a bad idea.

You get 20.

Trust me, we can work on the numbers, but it's 80-20 and it doesn't change.

Not you, I'm looking at you, but you are not a fool, Sir. You are far from a fool. you are a fool.

Yes, yes, oh yes. I played Touchstone once.

It's a good role, yeah, and he's not just funny, he's kind of tragic as well.

Sir Patrick Stewart, onward and break a leg in all your endeavors.

I like to support the people around me.

Why is that the biggest laugh in a while? I do, oh my God, I like to lift and elevate those around me. Oh, my water.

My punch down and bury. My only joy, my only real joy is watching those around me thrive. By the way, I'm a hostage right now, I'm being held at gunpoint and being forced to read this.

No, I do, I'm happy, but then there are limits, there are limits. And Matt Gorley, a very talented fellow, works on this podcast.

You add so much to the chitter chatter. But then behind the scenes, you're constantly making all these great edits and audio choices. And you're putting it all together and getting it out to the people of the world. So I do commend you for that, but then you have these other projects.

And I'm trying to think of the way to put this. It enrages me that you would ever divert your eye from this. This is a golden egg, this is a lightning in a bottle, what we have here. And yet every time I turn around, you say, Well, I've got to get going now.

I'm going to go work on Gloop, Dilly, Gloop, and I'm like, What's that? and you're like, Oh, it's one of my 700 other podcasts that I do. You have one called Mall Walking. Is that right? Yeah, that's a culturally significant and important podcast where my friend Mark and I just record ourselves walking through America's malls.

And you've been manhandled during those recordings, haven't you? Yeah, Sona joined us once and we got kicked out. You make it sound like we got kicked out because of me. No, what did you shoplift?

Just curious, How dare you? What did you well one time? How dare you?

Have you shoplifted in the past? No, we did reparations. well, yeah, we went to the store that I did shoplift from, and then I apologized. Oh, good.

All right, and we bought something from the store to Atone. Yeah, that's nice, OK?

Well, Matt did so. You have these other, and you have a lot of other projects as well, it's true, and I look at those as moonlighting. This is my day job.

This is, you know, I take this seriously, you do, yes. I mean, I just worry that. Even though they existed before this podcast, but still.

I know, but come on, OK, you know, you're a guy that's been mucking around making little sculptures and then you got a chance to work on. I mean, this is the parthenon it sits upon.

That's it, you know? This is a massive structure that sits on a high mesa in a hill in Athens, and people look at it and marvel at its beauty. Corporate entity that's rotting America from within.

Well, an apt analogy. Yeah, you say tomato, I say tomato.

OK, but the important thing is that you do have these other podcasts. And even I have to admit, someone with a grinch, shriveled heart like me. I have to admit that. You do have these other ideas that sound cool, and you have these other projects that that sound like they're kind of interesting.

And you've got this new one that I heard about. Adam mentioned it to me in the hall today and I said, Wait a minute, that sounds like a really good idea. I'd listen to that.

And I wanted to bring it up on the air. That's very nice of you. I mean, I will say that my podcasts are stupid, this one is legit. Oh, this is erudite.

It is, I'll tell you why, because my wife and I are doing it together, and she adds a level of respectability that I cannot bring. Well, OK?

Let's talk about this because the project that you're working on is called Keys to the Kingdom. And what's interesting is it's about the experience of working at a theme park. And first of all, that's how you met your wife, that's right.

We're both recovering theme park employees. She was a former princess, she played a bunch of princesses. I was just kind of an actor, performer, improv person there, and we met at Universal Studios that we both worked at Disney together.

And through the years, we were beset through crazy stories of shit that goes on there that you wouldn't believe. And this whole podcast is like a eight-episode docuseries of people telling stories about when they worked there. You guys are the hosts. And then you're talking to a bunch of people you know who are coming forward and just telling you the funny, crazy things. That happened to them while they were working in theme parks, yeah.

And some people we don't know, and some people actually that are going under assumed names and having their voices changed. Because they're either worried about job security or past job security, they might not even work there, and they still don't want to upset certain theme parks. It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek Watergate exposé.

We're treating it like we're busting the lid off something when, in fact, we're just having a good time. With. Some stories that are really ridiculous, some stories that are kind of spooky. And then Sona was a guest as well. And she tells her story of getting busted by the Disney police trying to smuggle in edibles to the park. Yeah, I did, yeah.

And also, you don't even need to tell me what it was, because you could guess what Sona got in trouble for. It usually revolves around a certain theme, but keys to the kingdom and how do people listen to keys to the kingdom? It's anywhere you can find podcasts.

It's out now, you can subscribe on any podcast player. There's also eight behind-the-scenes bonus episodes with extra material that you can get in the show notes of the podcast. Like I said, I would listen to this. Because as someone who, every time I go to a theme park, my mind is racing, wondering what's really going on here?

It's crazy and there's no way to find out because you can't just ask people. But it sounds like you've blown the lid off this story. It's a crazy creepy cult and I'm happy to be out of it.

But also all respect to these major companies. Oh God, and I look forward to doing business with you in the future. Because I didn't just say that. Well, anyway. Look out for keys to the kingdom. I'm excited for you.

Thank you, this was very nice of you to do too well. This will never air, okay?

I just want points for doing it and then just make sure it never really happens. Okay, cool, that's the Conan formula.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien. Sonam Ovsessian and Matt Gorley Produced by Me Matt Gorley executive produced by Adam Sachs. Nick Liao and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by the White Stripes.

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