David Oyelowo Returns

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24:33Your last name is so spectacular. What does it mean? Is there a translation? Does it have a meaning? Yes. Oyelowo. It's such a great... So Oyelowo is the anglicized way of saying it. In Yoruba, it's Uyilawa. And don't try. I don't want you to hurt yourself. I don't want you to hurt yourself. Don't hurt yourself. But it means a king deserves respect. Wow. That's what it means. Yeah. That is so... To have a last name that really means something. Great. Does your name mean anything, Movesessian? IAN at the end of Armenian names means son of. So it's just son of Moses. Yeah. Mine's just a verb. Yeah.

25:15Hopping. Hopping. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I almost hired Jack Skipping, but I went with David Hopping. I think Conan is wide face. I looked it up once and I wasn't happy. Broad of forehead. What is the O? The O, Brian? I've heard people claim that it means you're related to kings, but then you walk around Ireland and you go, no. The internet says little wolf or little hound is what Conan means. Right. Oh. That's cute. I've never heard that before, so I think someone just put that in. Also, it's little wolf. Not a full wolf. So your father, is this correct? Your father had tribal markings? Yes. And what was it?

26:07Yoruba is the tribe? Yes. Okay. The Yoruba tribe. So yeah, he had four tribal marks on both cheeks and he had the word ballet written on his stomach. And this was done with blades when you were a kid. I know, really intense. But I grew up with my dad telling me that the reason he had these four slashes on his cheeks was because he had fought a tiger. And I completely bought it. And it was incredibly useful at school every time my dad came to pick me up because anyone who was messing with me, I was like, you see that on my dad's face? Tiger. That was a tiger. Do you want that man mad at you? Exactly.

26:52That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we then moved to Nigeria and I got picked up at the airport by all of my uncles. And literally, I was like, did everyone fight tigers? Like, what is going on? That tiger got around. It just like went rampant on my family, this tiger. I jumped in to save your dad and I jumped in to save him. And I jumped in to save him.

27:25So you were, where were you born? You were born in? I was born in Oxford, England. And I was there till the age of two, so I don't really remember it. Then we moved to London and I was there till the age of six. And then we moved to Lagos, Nigeria. And I was there till 13 before we moved back to London. I've been to Oxford twice and I just went for the second time. I want to say about five, six months ago. And it is hard not to feel erudite when you're walking around in that environment. And people have asked me what it's like. And I say it is the closest thing to Hogwarts on earth that I have encountered.

28:04I'd never seen anything like that. And it's just got so much history. I know Cambridge is the same thing. You walk around these places that have been around for 800 years. I don't know how many, you know, and you think about all the insane talent that walked those streets. I know. I think that's why my dad really wanted to be there, just to be around it, which is why I ended up being born there. And he decided he was going to go into the medical profession until, as he tells it, he realized he had an apoplectic fear of blood. And so, you know, I can't remember if it was a day that they were supposed to be dissecting a cadaver or something like that.

28:46And yeah, he was out cold. That's not unlike my dad who went to medical school. And then I think late in medical school was around, you know, patients and blood. He said, I want to be in a laboratory. And he did great work there, but I think he wasn't up for that part. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, to find the thing it is that you truly love and that it loves you back is, I think, Elysium. My dad took a while to sort of, I don't know that he ever actually found the thing that he really, because he... He would try a lot of different things? Well, he tried the medical profession, decided he didn't like blood.

29:27So I wanted to be an architect. Couldn't really draw. They're going to say, but he hated houses. Fear of houses. So, yeah, I mean, you know, the happiest he became ultimately was he and my mom ran a sort of minicab firm in London. So that, yeah, just driving people around was the thing he sort of became happy with. also I've always thought if I needed to pick up a second job I wouldn't mind being an uber driver because I love talking to people so much and I love trying to find out what's going on in their lives yes and filming them when they don't know I'm filming them oh what we'll get into that part later.

30:15That's a good time. But you know what's funny is your career, your start as an actor was, as all the best things are, a little bit accidental because you said there was a, I've heard that there was a, or read that there was a subway strike happening and you think that this contributed to you becoming an actor. And I'm curious, how does that happen? Well, because I was at this youth theater group that I'd only attended because I fancied this girl who, you know, I don't know that she knew it. And I just kept on going for her. But I was very shy. And we were rehearsing a play. And I would always just sit, you know, hoping I would maybe be in the chorus or something so that I could keep seeing this girl.

31:04and then one day there was a tube strike like a subway strike and the three guys who were being touted to play the lead were all stuck on trains and so the director said to me David just read in while we wait for the guys to arrive For the real actors to come Literally and I very much thought of them as that and I had the page and I guess I just did it the way I thought it should be done And I finished this speech and the room just went completely silent. And I thought, oh, it was that bad. It was that bad that these people are speechless with how bad it was. And then three days later, I was cast in the lead of this play.

31:52And although I didn't understand the significance of it at the time, this youth theater was at the National Theater, like the Royal National Theater of Great Britain on the South Bank in London. And so the very first thing I did was playing the lead on what was then the Cottesloe stage. It's called the Dorfman Theater now at the National Theater. And yeah, it literally happened because that day, those guys didn't turn up. Wow. If I had been one of those guys, I would have suspected that you messed with the tube. I did. I did. You did. I absolutely did. That's how my mind works. You know, you're down there.

32:30You're like switching the tracks. Yeah, that was me. That was me. I knew a guy.

32:39You know, I've always noticed that it's not a rule, but it happens about 95 % of the time that people from the United Kingdom, actors are also sort of charming storytellers. And I have not found that to be true in other places where someone can be a terrific actor, but it's almost like it's something in the water or it's something that's prized and respected that in Britain, Scotland, Wales, whatever, you have to be, or Ireland as well, you must be a good actor, but you must also be a raconteur. And it's almost like that is taught when I know it's not. But I think it's very much the rule. It actually is taught because you're around these actors who there is a tradition of it, actually.

33:31And as a young actor, what you're looking for is to sit at the feet of a Judi Dench or as I did with Judi Dench or Alan Bates or Ralph Fiennes or Kenneth Branagh. You know, these are people I literally had the opportunity to work with. Like I did a film called As You Like It with Kenneth Branagh. I did a show with Judi Dench. I did a show with Alan Bates. I worked with actors who were awe-inspiring when you were on stage with them. They had mastered the craft. And what I mean by that is when you get on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage in front of, I think that stage is about 1 ,500 people or on the Olivier, which I think is maybe 1 ,200 people.

34:18when you see someone be nervous in the wings, someone who you watched in the rehearsal room playing with language like Shakespeare that is four to five times our vocabulary and finding their way to the truth of it, finding their way to the meaning of it and finding different interpretation time and time again, and then watching them nervous in the wings before they go on and become supernatural on that stage. When you're around that enough, it gets on you. And then when you're with them after the fact, and they're talking about when they were on stage with Gielgud or Olivier, because there is something, and this is more in the British tradition, it is lauded, it is something that is celebrated, and it is a tradition that is very much outside of financial remuneration.

35:16The gift is the doing of it. And I think that in and of itself creates this aura of camaraderie and being part of a tradition that has been ongoing. And so there is something, and I sound so pretentious saying this, but there is something celestial about, I remember being 21, 22, being in a rehearsal room with a guy who had been on stage with Olivier and just going, okay, just soak it all in. And what I mean is it gets on you. And what then happens is as you climb the ranks of being a spare carrier, playing Dacritas, like I did in Anthony and Cleopatra with my seven lines. And then within about three years, I was playing Henry VI in that same theater.

36:09So you go from Holt, who goes there, to giving these incredible soliloquies. Speeches that you will never conquer. Every night is basically an exercise in humility because it will kick your butt every night. It's why that playwright, especially Shakespeare, has lasted over 400 years. He tapped into humanity in a way that I don't think any writer has done before and ever will. And so it's the Everest for actors. And so when you have that, and then you combine it with an audience. And what I mean by celestial is that there is this vibration where they start telling you if, and you must have this as a comedian, they start telling you if you're telling the truth.

36:55And the moment there is fracture in that, you feel it instantaneously. And if you do that night after night after night after night, it becomes muscle memory. We've all been around each other since we crawled out of the sea. And we pick up on this, you could call it electrical, you could say there's a biochemical reason for it, or it's just mystical and you don't want to think about it too much. But we know when someone's tapped into the truth. Yes. It's why I think juries, you know, they can make mistakes, but overall, you say, let's get a bunch of let's get a bunch of your peers and have them listen.

37:31And together they'll have an intelligent, a common intelligence. You've said it. It's truth, I think, is the thing. And it's why anyone's favorite actors have probably at some point been on the stage. I truly believe that because you have had the opportunity to be around the truth enough that that is now, as I say, muscle memory that becomes applicable to film work where everything is artifice. You know, it's a room like this with contraptions like this, and you're supposed to be in love with someone you met that morning. And it is an exercise in artifice. But if you know what it feels like to tell the truth under those circumstances you're describing, you sort of have more access to it.

38:16I just think, I mean, I'm thinking about the people that you've worked with, not just on the stage in London, but in your film work, you've worked with giants in the industry. And, you know, you said that you worked with Dame Judi Dench. I don't believe I've met her. Someone now will come up with a video of me interviewing her. I'm serious. I guess this happens to me all the time where someone will pass and I'll say, a shame I never met them. And someone will show me seven videos of me talking to them over a 15 year period. Wow, is this what I have to look forward to? Oh, I see. Oh, the minute you go, I'll be like, I would love to meet you.

39:011998. Damn it. All right, well, she made no impression. I've always heard, I mean, she's spectacular, but I've also heard that she's just lovely, that she's just a lovely person. Lovely. And funny. Very, very funny. But what was so surprising about her is she said, I can't bear to watch myself. Yeah, she's one of those actors. Yeah. You couldn't bear to watch her. But the thing that was really surprising is she said, I learned my lines and I try to forget them. So that I am completely fresh and present in the scene. And I thought, how do you trick yourself into like... And I was in a scene with her and I saw this thing that is happening between you and I right now, whereby you don't know what I'm going to say next.

39:52And it is affecting your brain chemistry in a way whereby it's precipitating. It's a real hitting the ball back and forth. Correct. Correct. And she has maintained the discipline of being able to hold it close enough, but hold it lightly enough that she's constantly alive. And I just thought, whoa, that is so brave and why she's so brilliant. Now, you do hold the distinction of being slapped by Oprah. Yes. I think we should talk about that. My claim to fame, guys. I mean, as part of a scene, I've been slapped by Oprah just in life. Just for existing. No, I tried to cut. It was an eight items or less line.

40:36And I tried to cut in front of her. That'll do it. And this was up near Santa Barbara. And man, she packs a wallop. But I had it coming and mad respect. But what was that like? Well, you know what? This was during a film called The Butler. Yeah, yeah. And we were doing this scene. And it was a scene. And it was a tough scene because Sidney Poitier is literally my hero. Yeah. And it was a scene where my character was being very, shall we say, uncouth about Sidney Poitier. and as a result she quite rightly decides to give me what for now of course in the film she's supposed to slap her son in the world of like cameras action all of that yeah don't actually slap me um now with each take she got more and more into it and she has probably reserves of anger about things in her life that she wants to get out i could feel her dragging up things that were helping her tell the truth yeah and what what was happening is you know so initially you know i couldn't feel any wind as she as she as she went and and it started like i was like each time she does this so i i could feel i could feel she was getting ever closer each and every time and the very last time she she she got the end of my nose oh okay it wasn't a full slap but it was the moment where i went i think we got it i think we got it guys i'm just gonna mention i'm just gonna mention i don't know if this occurred to you she has deep pockets there's a lot of money there i saw i've heard yeah and you could say my nose i've never i don't think I can act again.

42:24I use the tip of my nose a lot. You know? And then she's living at the Motel 6 and you're living in her house. This is where you go. You go straight for the velocity. This is America. Straight for the velocity. This is America and that's all we do is sue the shit out of each other. If only I'd met you sooner. Damn it. All the billboards. You could call Sweet James. Sweet James. Yeah, that's the guy. That is. Oh, his billboards are everywhere. Sweet James. It was funny you mentioned that because we did something. The lovely Sophie Turner was going to be on our show. And I've always had a good time talking with her and she was coming on and I read the notes and they said she might want to try something where she it involves her lightly slapping you.

43:13And I told her just before the show, so this is really on me. I said, if those things are going to work, you really have to go for it. So I told her, if it's going to work, you have to really go for it. You can't kind of half do it. Right. So, and I'm not thinking. So we get to that part of the show and it's on tape, but I'm standing up and Sophie just lets me have it. She's a very strong woman. You took a shot of tequila first. I took a shot at tequila first and then she hit me and you can see I'm just, I went to a different place for a while. Yeah. For a while. I've traveled through time. I met many famous people.

43:52And then I came back all in an instant. But give me some context. Was it for a bit? It was a game. I think she called it tequila slaps. Yeah. But I don't know how it's a game. Because it just involved me having some tequila and then her punching the shit out of me. Yeah, you just take a shot at tequila and the person just slaps you and that's it. What a fun game. She left the bottle. Not only did I agree to it, I saw it in the notes and I said, oh, and if you're going to, if we do get to that, I like to keep it kind of loose out there. I said, if we do get to that and it starts to happen, if you do that, it's not going to work.

44:26You have to let me have it. And God bless her. Yeah, she did. She was like, all right. She went for it. He told me. And yeah. Is this because you wanted to sue her? Is this why you? What's that? That was the plan. Unfortunately, she had it. why I read she's destitute now.

44:47The, no, it's, it was, it is something to be in that moment where you're hit, which doesn't happen. Were you ever punched at all as a kid or were you ever in a fight? Yeah, yeah. I went to boarding school in Nigeria and I remember getting into a few fights. It is nothing, until you experience being punched in the face. Nothing can prepare. The ringing, the flash of white you see. You know, you're saying, yep, yep, like you've been punched. Oh, I was, yeah. I was, yeah, punched really hard in the face. Oh, really? It was a mugging. By Sophie Turner? It's always Sophie Turner. What happened? It was, again, it was Sophie Turner.

45:36And she was robbing me. about two years after she was on the show. And I had sued her into destitution. And she said, I want my money back. She's still carrying tequila. You kind of deserved it. No, I think I was 18 and I was walking around the north end of Boston and some kids wanted money. And I said, no. And they said, why not? And I said, I don't feel like it. And just as I said, like it, as I hit the T, I saw all the white. Yeah. Yeah. Then they had to rebuild my nose from scratch. Did you get the blood when you suddenly, your own blood goes down your throat? Oh, I had the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:17I think I was like a sprinkler. I was like, you had a sprinkler system. It was just, no, it's standing dark now. I was fine. I bear no emotional wounds. Said the guy who's clearly packed with emotional wounds. But what I do remember is they had to reshape my nose and I had the whole black eyes and I was bandaged up for a while and I'd be, there were bars in the neighborhood where I lived and I'd be walking home from, you know, to my house and guys standing in the doorways of bars, I always thought this was, you know, something you just see in movies, but they, 201 would all step out and go, how's the other guy look?

46:53Wow. And I'd say, the other guy looks just fine.

47:01Not a scratch. No. He looks, He's got the dewiest skin

47:09He's, you know, just I mean, he looks better than he did before

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48:38Well, I want to congratulate you because I watched your film, Newborn. Oh. And I very much enjoyed it, and it was not what I expected, which is rare. Usually when I watch a movie, I think, oh, I can see where this is going. And I was completely surprised by how this unfolded. It's a very powerful movie. And you, am I right? This movie was made a while ago? When was the movie made? Yeah. It was made a little while ago. And it was one of those, the alchemy of making movies, man. We made it with a company that went into insolvency. And so we had to get the film back and, you know, all that. And then there was a writer's strike and all this stuff before we're now getting the movie out.

49:28But weirdly, I've had so many instances like this. Like Selma took seven years to get made. Is that true? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. From when I first auditioned for it to when it actually got made. And it's amazing too, when you see the finished product, you think, well, this was obvious. Yeah. And it wasn't. I mean, when you walk out of the theater after seeing Selma, if someone said to you, well, that took seven years from beginning to, you'd think, well, no, this just looks like a slam dunk. Right, exactly. And it was the opposite. I mean, I watched five directors come and go before it ended up being Ava DuVernay.

50:01I watched that film go from Lyndon Johnson being the central character to it finally being Dr. King as it always should have been. And to your point, you know, I truly believe these things because I'm a big believer in the power of storytelling. And I do think often the ones that really go on to be impactful, they sometimes take time to come to fruition in the right way. And what happened with Newborn is that through the course of this protracted journey to the now that we're in, we got to go back and do reshoots and really analyze what it is we wanted to do with the film. Because the film is about my character, Chris Newborn, who endures seven years of solitary confinement and is dealing with the detrimental effects of that mentally and is trying to reconnect with his family after coming out with his wife and his son.

50:56And that's very delicate, you know, because I talked to a few people who had dealt with that reality, specifically a guy called Richard Rosario, who had been wrongfully incarcerated for 20 years, seven of which were in solitary confinement. And the effects of it, I mean, after 13 days, studies have shown you're never the same again, because it's 23 hours a day in a nine by six cell with fluorescent lights on all the time. And what that does to the mind, the psyche, the soul is, is it's torture. What is the possible reason that lights would have to be on all the time other than to torture you? There's no rehabilitative effect to having lights on all the time.

51:42It is the opposite of rehabilitation, you know, and that's the point. It is, it is punitive. It is purely punitive. And so it's the height of punishment, anything and everything to make your life uncomfortable is what solitary confinement is. And you say it perfectly there, it is the opposite of rehabilitation, which supposedly is what we're supposed to be doing with prisons. But what people don't know is that 80 ,000 people, men, women, and children are in solitary confinement today in America. And so in order to tell this story in a way that wasn't just dark and challenging and traumatic. We chose to see what life was like for this man post the incarceration and how he goes on a journey to trying to reconnect with his family while dealing with this trauma.

52:35So it's a psychological thriller, but that's wrapped around a love story. This guy trying to get back to his wife, trying to get back to his son. I thought of this analogy, which is they've, it was proven long ago that if, I think they found this out at the end of World War II when soldiers were liberating some of the concentration camps, that the first instinct is to give all these people who are malnourished tons of food, which can kill them. because their bodies have been living with almost no food for years at a time. And you need to start very slowly and then slowly raise the calorie count in order for people.

53:15That's, this movie to me did a very good job of showing me that if someone's been in solitary confinement for seven years and then they're out and they're free and they're allowed to be out in the world and walking down the street and being outside, it's overload. It's absolute sensory overload and traumatic. And so things that we think of as, oh, this would be lovely. I'd love to be with my wife and my son at a cabin in the woods, wandering around this beautiful countryside. What a lovely time. That's horrifying. And that came across really thoroughly in the movie. And I thought, this is a story I haven't seen before.

53:58Where someone's in an environment that I would love. And to them, it's a nightmare. Well, so perfectly put there, Conan, because it's also about the things we take for granted and how desperately as human beings we need connection. Like human beings are designed for connection. And the ultimate way you dehumanize someone is to extricate them from human connection. I mean, we all, to a certain extent, felt that during the pandemic. And that was one of the most debilitating things is this feeling of a lack of connection to other people. But, you know, that's exactly it. Him trying to reconnect, having been denied connection for so long with the very people that essentially their existence is what kept him going.

54:46So he wants nothing more than to reconnect with his wife. His son has become nonverbal because of some of the trauma he sees in his mother due to what has happened to his father. So, you know, all of that is happening and you can't tell what's in his mind and, you know, what's perceived and what is real. And that's where the psychological thriller aspect comes in. But, you know, what we also hoped to do is to tap into how we can all relate to feelings of isolation, whether it's loneliness, whether it's, you know, in your own head, whether it's, you know, childhood trauma, whatever that may be.

55:23And what is the path to healing for that? I believe it's love. And, you know, Richard Rosario, the extraordinary thing, his wife stuck by him for the 20 years he was incarcerated. And her name is Minerva. And it's extraordinary to see him now, 10 years after he's been released, still dealing with a lot of what he dealt with. But it is extraordinary to see how love in relation to that thing you talk about of how you slowly bring someone back as opposed to just giving them a full meal has sort of got this guy to a place where he can now stand up in front of people and talk about his experience. You know, I was watching the film and your performance is extraordinary as your performances always are.

56:09Then I was thinking about your quote accident getting into acting. You go to the acting class because you, you have a crush on this girl and you just want to tag along. And I look at, I think, wait, something isn't right here because someone who can act at that level must know when they're a kid they have this inside of them. That could not have been a complete surprise to you. It was. Really? It was. And this is where, gosh, especially as an artist, if there is someone who sees in you what you haven't seen in yourself yet, that is just the greatest blessing. And often Oprah talks about this. I've heard a lot of artists, whether they be actors or musicians, that music teacher or that drama teacher or that literature professor or teacher that goes, hold on, you.

57:07Yeah, yeah.

57:37say this to any of my other students, I think you could do acting professionally. And I didn't even know what that entailed. And she went, well, have you considered drama school? I said, I don't know what that is. And she introduced me to what drama schools are, and she helped me with my auditions. And that's how I ended up, well, getting a scholarship to go to Lambda. And, you know, the full circle of this, because within the last month, I went to see my son at the drama school I went to playing in an adaptation of the play that I met my wife doing. And it made me think all the way back to Jill Foster, that what she gave to me by way of advocacy is now having a generational impact, not just for actors I will never meet, my own son.

58:35Yeah. And, you know, when I went to Lambda, I was the only Black student of 300 students at that drama school. I went to see my son in his play, and I graduated 27 years ago, and I now go and talk at Lambda every now and again. And a decent portion of the school is people of color from all walks of life, from all over the world. There's been some really great work done. And when I say to those students, when I say to my own son, I cannot believe what I'm seeing in relation to what my experience was. They have no real connection to what I'm saying. And I find myself thinking, that's exactly what you want.

59:16You want them to not be able to understand what it would feel like to be the only. I want you to take this level of diversity for granted. Yeah. And that is the driver for me with storytelling, you know, in terms of the characters I play. I'm always, to a certain degree, taking roles as a kind of gift to my 12-year-old self in terms of the things that I didn't see on screen. C.D. Poitier was my hero because it was like looking at a Martian in relation to what I saw on British television, in relation to what was possible growing up on a council estate in Islington. And to be in a world now where that is not the experience of my kids, where they're going, oh, I have no one to aspire to in terms of someone who looks like me.

1:00:14That is a big, big driver for why I do what I do. Yeah, it's really incredible. There's an amazing book. I don't know if you've come across it ever, but it's called Pictures at a Revolution. And it's about, it's a snapshot of the movie industry in I think 1967 when it's all changing. But there's a big part of it that's about Sidney Poitier and how he came along and what a pivotal figure he was. And I think in 67, he's in two big movies and he's in Heat of the Night where he slaps a white man, which is still, still, I get chills every time I see that scene. He slapped and he slaps the man instantly back.

1:00:56And it took people's breath away in the theater. And it still has that power. Absolutely. Like you can see in some frames of a film, the world changed. Absolutely. And I think he's also in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner that year. So those are the two films he does in that one year. But then you think about, okay, he fought those battles, and then Denzel Washington had his battles to fight that were different, and it just keeps getting passed on and on and on, and you want your son to grow up thinking, what's the problem? Yes. What's the big deal? Absolutely. That's the gift. Absolutely, it's the gift.

1:01:35And what's great about that story you tell, anyone who knows Sidney Poitier's body of work always thinks he won the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night because of the impact of that slap and that role and how groundbreaking it was. And he wasn't even nominated for that. Neither was he nominated for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. He won for Lilies of the Field. Yeah, yeah. Earlier. Earlier. Earlier. And for a role where he was being nice to white nuns. And that was what was deemed permissible for him back then. It was deeply controversial to in one year, you're going to slap a white man and then fall in love with a white woman on our screens with us having given you an Oscar.

1:02:29Oh, no. Oh, no. And, you know, this is the thing about, I've heard it said, it's not about any given role, it's about a body of work. And that body of work is the thing that someone like me now takes for granted. I look at Sidney Poitier and I go, wow. But when you read about him, I met him and it was just, oh my gosh, I can barely believe it actually happened. And I remember Oprah introducing me to him and she said, oh, yeah, David's going to play Martin Luther King. And his eyes lit up. And I just thought, OK, just be present. Just be present. Just soak it up. Soak it up. This is really happening.

1:03:07Don't say anything stupid. Just, you know. And you were saying that out loud. I was. I was. I was.

1:03:15Oprah, what's wrong with this idiot? I was going to get him out of my presence. but you know as you say you know that's that's that's what you want you know is to i look i think at its height storytelling and this is what i tried to do with newborn that was an incredibly uncomfortable role to play my dad passed away on the first day of filming um he was dealing with colon cancer and you know i i i had considered not taking the role i said to him look daddy i i i i just can't leave you we were shooting in canada and he was no no you must go you must go this is what you're here this is what you're on this earth to do you must go and this is from my dad who originally was so against it yeah against what i i i wanted to do as a vocation as a profession to that was his his last gesture well what i mean what a gift that your dad got to see it all happen and as much you know as much as we'd still like these people to be here I always think about the fact that, well, my parents got to see plenty.

1:04:35They got to see plenty and they got to know that it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for them. So that's, and that's a gift that just keeps on giving. It's huge. It's the only reason I went and I did it, but I watch newborn now and I can see, I can see I'm now removed from it because I've gone through or I'm in the middle of my process of healing from the loss of my dad, but I can see the price. I still carry guilt about going off and doing this movie, even though I felt very passionate about doing it. My dad insisted I go and do it. But at its height, I do think these stories cost to hold up a mirror to humanity, especially when humanity is going through these very challenging things.

1:05:23But it's just, it's the greatest thing in the world to sort of, in service of humanity, kind of try and show us who we are. Well, I always go back to, it's a crazy world. It's always been a crazy world. And there are bad things happening and bad things have always been happening. And everyone just has to try and be, do their work well. And be a good citizen, whatever that means. Be a good person. And so, because sometimes that's all you can do. Everything is so big. But I think this is a tragic story because I think you would have made an amazing lawyer.

1:06:06We have a lot. David, we have many good actors. But to find a really good lawyer is hard, right? He could have been the next Sweet James. You could have been Sweet James. sweet James and his new protege, David. On it, all those billboards I could have been on. You could have been on so many billboards, but whatever, keep fucking around with acting. Well, the movie's newborn. I loved it and I am just enthralled by you. You're such an amazing person to talk to. And it's like a tonic when you come by. I always feel good after you've been here because you're delightfully funny and insightful and just lovely across the board.

1:06:53So I will see you at the wedding.

1:07:00You know what this funny thing is? He thinks I'm kidding. It's going to be like The Graduate where this ceremony is happening. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Oh, dear. Can't wait to do it. All right, thank you, sir. Thank you. This is great. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend, with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Avsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

1:07:38Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair. And our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message It too could be featured on a future episode You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash Conan And if you haven't already Please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

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