The Amiable Assassin

0:03Conan O 'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hello, Conan. Hi, Joe. Hey, hey, hey, Sona, how are you? Oh, hey, Yosef. Is your name Yosef? I was told it was Yosef. Joseph or Joseph, Joe, whatever you want to call me. Okay, Sam. It's nice to... I love your background. You took the background from my pandemic Zoom shows. That is so crazy. Because I'm at your home right now, yes. I want to call my wife right now and say, Yusef is in the house with you. Get out. Where are you right now? You're in Egypt? I'm from Egypt. So, yeah, a small city that you haven't heard about it before.

0:51My city. It's called the Port Said. Oh, Port Said. So I'm guessing it is on the water. Where is it located in Egypt? Yeah, it's located like, I don't know, it's a two hour drive from Cairo. That's just on the Suez Canal. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's near the Suez Canal. Okay, so you're on the water in Egypt. Yeah, just right there. That's very cool. Well, I'm guessing you must be a fan or know of our show because you're using my background from my house to talk to me in Egypt. Can I say one thing? Yes. My name is Yusuf, and I feel pleased to be Conan O 'Brien's fan. Oh, nice. Yusuf, I like that. That's so nice.

1:39It's really, you know, it makes me very happy when people from around the world listen to our silliness. So that I'm honored. I'm honored to have you as a fan. Tell me about yourself, Yousef. What do you do for a living? You live in, you say, Port Said, Egypt. And what do you do? Well, actually, that's a very good pronunciation for it. Well, I listened to you the first time and I copied it. Yeah. That's how I survive in the world. What do you do? Well, I do many things. I work as a voiceover actor. I also work in marketing. I work in comedy. I work in translation, teaching. I work as tour guide.

2:20So much to ask you about. First of all, you're a voiceover actor. Would you be willing to do my voice so that people, if people heard me or could watch the show in Egypt, you could do the translation? Absolutely. It would be very, like say, katakai, as God made it. Well, let me ask you a question. Let's say I sent you a piece of my comedy or something. Would you be able to put your voice over it? Well, I can give it a try for sure. That has been my motive my entire life. I can give it a try. So yeah. Nice. Okay. And here's my other question. Would you try to sound like me or would you sound different?

3:02Yeah. Yeah, the accent would be very different because as you can see, like my accent is very Egyptian and your accent, yeah. Yeah, we don't know. But they'll try to sound like you. Okay, would you try to sound like me or would, cause you've got a very nice low voice. Would you give me a lower voice? Cause I wouldn't mind that. I can go lower as you want. I can go very lower. It's the second time today I've heard that. So, it's a filthy joke. Don't, please. I don't want to get you in trouble. Let me try and get the story straight here. You live in Egypt near the Suez Canal, Port Said, and you're a voiceover artist, which means you are in the habit of putting your voice over what?

3:47Cartoons? Have you done cartoons? Anything. Mostly books. Books. Mostly books. Oh, I see. You do books on tape, that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Mostly books. But I do cartoon. I do comedy show. So I do like whatever actually pays me money. I do it. I would do the hell out of it. Can I say something? You're a cheerful Charlie. I'll say that about you. So what happens is I work with comedians. I never do shows myself because I'm too afraid, honestly. So I write their jokes and write their skits and everything. And they say the jokes. They say everything. Like they can take their applause. I don't care.

4:21I just care about it. Like pay me and I'll be all right. That's it. Wow. Okay. As long as you get paid, you'll do anything, right? Absolutely. Because, okay, there's someone in Egypt I want murdered. Okay? Will you do it? Consider it done, yeah. Oh my God. That's right. You're such a chipper, amiable assassin. I love it. Okay, so. Yeah, but I like writing more. I don't like performing because I'm very shy. Yeah, I can tell. I don't know how to speak. Yeah, it's really hard to get you out of your shell, Yusuf. Exactly. I can't shut you up, frankly. you're a babbling brook. Yousef, so you don't, do you ever go to Cairo?

5:03I've always wanted to go to Cairo, I've never been there. Tell me about Cairo. I hate it, I hate it, very much hate it. What are you talking about? Terrible city, terrible city. My dream has been to visit Cairo and you hate it? Just don't, don't please. How long does it take you to get to Cairo if you're driving from Port Said? How long does it take? Two nightmares. Oh my God. Yeah, because I'm... What is so bad about Cairo? What's so bad about Cairo? It has everything I hate about life in general. Oh. Yeah, so that's Cairo for me. That's a lot of people, and all of them are running. And I don't know why they are running.

5:40I was just like, why? Why are you running? And I always go to the misrepresentation, and people are shoving each other. Get out of my way. Yeah, well, we call that, in America, we call that Manhattan. You know, that's what we, we have Manhattan, where we all go, we've all agreed, Let's meet there and shove each other and be in a hurry. Nah, nah, I'm chill. I would live like in Montebello, not in Manhattan. Oh my God. Deep cut. Deep cuts left and right. Losing fins by the second.

6:13Listen, there'll be a meeting after this is over. Listen. Just say to come on. What's that? Honestly, don't care if it's aired or not. Oh, could you do me a favor? Could you look in the camera, Yusuf, if you don't mind? Yeah, look straight ahead. Were you watching another television show while you were talking to me? Is that what you're doing? Exactly, exactly. Okay, well, that's terrific. Let's just call it a TV show. Okay. Very nice. It's a very nice, polite word for pornography. Now, let me ask you something, Yusuf. And if it's not too personal, you can tell me, but are you Muslim? What is your religious affiliation?

6:49No, I'm Christian. You're Christian? Okay. That would put you in the minority, would it not, in Egypt? Oh, yeah, baby. Oh, yeah. Egypt is a very religious country. Like, whether you're Muslim or Christian, you are religious. You are born and raised religious. Yeah. But if you're Christian, that adds layers on it. And to me, honestly, because, again, I love comedy, so I always look at the fun part of it. So it has been, I don't know, let's say oddly funny. to be Christian in Egypt. It's a little difficult to be, is there a prejudice against you sometimes because you're Christian? Or I bet that's not always true.

7:30I bet you probably know plenty of people of the Muslim faith who accept that you're Christian, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. But it's, let's call it microaggression. Like you would get someone say, hey, after the meeting, you're going to say, wow, man, you're a very good person despite being Christian. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, to be fair, I get that too, Yusuf. Constantly people saying, you seem okay, despite the fact that you're Christian. Exactly. So you always get like things like that, which kind of, I don't know, like you adapt to it. Yeah, because like my name is very Muslim.

8:07Like my name, my Arabic name, which is Yusuf, is very Muslim. So it's actually like it can be Muslim and it can be Christian. But many, many, many. Like Ram Yusuf, for example, I think he has been on your show. Rami Yusuf yes he has been on the show so he's Muslim and of course he's Yusuf as well so yeah my name is very Muslim so people assume that I'm Muslim once they ask about my name so that all is like ah let's speak about these Christians and I say let's you know got it so yeah exactly so I play along like all day long baby all day long I never stop wait a minute you play along you pretend to be Muslim is that what you do absolutely absolutely Absolutely.

8:49It's actually my favorite hobby in the whole world. That's funny. That's so funny. I like mountain biking and you like pretending to be Muslim. I guess we each have our thing that we do. You know, I tried your hobby for a bit. No one was buying it. No, no, I don't think they'll buy it. Not with history, David. I'm sorry.

9:15Tell me what, you know, I've never been to Egypt And I'm just curious, you must have observations about Egyptian people that you could share with us because you're a you write comedy. Tell us, you know, describe, you know, Egyptian people for me. What's the what are the kind of the things about them that you find kind of fun? Well, Egyptians. And again, I'm not going to say all Egyptians. I know. I know. But you know, we we have generalizations that we make. That's a lot of comedy is, oh, my God. And so I'm just curious, as an Egyptian living there, if you're thinking of comedy, what are your observations?

9:50Yeah, I'm going to get so much hate into the comment section, you know, the internet warriors are going after me. I never read the comment section. It's kept me alive. 30 years in the business. So, yeah, you're not like, and I'm included. I'm not like excluding myself or anything. We always say like, we know it, like we can do it. It's fine. Like we never say, no, we don't know. We'll say, yeah, we know it. Like we can do it. I think that's how we survived. So if I were to say to you, if I bumped into you on the street and said, hey, I need someone who can help me fly a helicopter. I need to, and you would just say, let's go.

10:25I got it. Immediately. Without any hesitation. Like I wouldn't even think about it. Let's go. Let's fly. So I should be very. I'd actually call off my cousin, so not to fly it. If I ever, if I, that makes me wonder if I'm flying, if I'm on an airplane flight in Egypt, who's in the cockpit? It might be some guy who just said, I got this. I got it. No problem. Yeah, absolutely. I got it. You know, absolutely. Absolutely. We all got it. You know, like I drove a car without knowing how to drive.

11:00Yusuf, I hate to tell you, that's half the people in Boston. Just so you know. So you just got in a car. You didn't have a license or anything? You just started driving? I didn't have anything. I was like 14 years old, and I got in a car, and I said to my friend, I told me, you drive. And, of course, I didn't learn how to drive, but I didn't tell him. I didn't learn how to drive. And I said, okay, just tell me how this car works, because it's my first time on this car. I said, I'll just do this one. And boom, and we bumped into a tree straight away, two minutes here. So, yeah, that was. The first thing you did was hit.

11:30But I drove it for two minutes. Well, your accomplishment was you went two whole minutes without hitting a tree. so I think for your first time yeah we were going towards it so yeah and then did all of your Muslim friends say that's a Christian for you that's a Christian for you two minutes his first time behind the wheel and he hits a tree absolutely that's a Christian for you but my friend was Christian as well so I didn't think he had this privilege Yusuf do me a favor if you could if you were to dub my voice so that the Egyptian people could enjoy me. Can you tell me how you would try and sound?

12:09First of all, you can actually, do you want to speak in Arabic or in English? I think in Arabic would be, yeah, I think Arabic would be good. Absolutely. And just say, hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. My name's Conan O 'Brien. Welcome to the podcast. That kind of thing. Yeah, but give me like, give me your best, like, give me something hard. Don't go easy on me. What are you talking about? Give me something hard? What are you talking about? Don't just say, hi, my name is Conan O 'Brien. So today you said, I'll go as low as you want and give me something hard. Those are the two things you've come up with today so far.

12:41You filthy, filthy man. And remember, I am watching another show. Yeah, I am. I'm trusting. I can tell. So, all right. I'll say, hey, everybody. Welcome to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend. Hello. My name is Conan. And welcome to Conan Needs a Friend. Welcome to Conan Iحتaki a Sadiq. Oh, this is okay. And I'm here with my friend, Sona, of course. who of course is my assistant, but she's never done any work. I love this. That's cool. And I love the way you go after Sona. Say, Oh yeah. Say, Hey, say I bet right now Sona's high on gummies because that's the Sona I know.

13:31Oh my God. God, that was so long. Yusuf, how dare you? Yusuf, what I said was so short and you just went to town. Is the word gummy like seven syllables? What the hell was that? How dare you? That's Arabic for you. Yeah. Yeah, and just say, it's tough for me, Conan, because I'm a genius. And I'm saddled with people around me who drag me down constantly, but I always persevere.

14:09Wow. You know what? I'm a huge fan of our podcast if it's in Arabic. I didn't understand a word he said, but I could still sense the bullshit that was coming from it. It's utter nonsense. Yusuf, what if I'm just going to give you one direction. Try one where you just introduce the podcast and hi, I'm Conan O 'Brien, but try to match what my voice sounds like as best you can, but still speak in Arabic. Can you try that? Five. Which episodes? Some episodes you try very hard. No, just do the standard Conan. Five, four, three, two, one, and go. Hello. My name is Conan. And I'm here with you in the show, Conan.

14:48I'm here with you in the show. Yes. Wait, what? Was that me? Yeah, that is you. How? How is it? Like some of the episodes, you're like, hello. Some of the episodes, yeah. Okay, hey, Eduardo over here is laughing. Eduardo, shut up. That was spot on. That was very good. That was pretty spot on, yeah. That was very good. So you had my, that's me trying to be professional. Is that it? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, wow. All right. Well, man. I can go low, but I can't go high. Like you have a very high pitch. I can never reach it. If, ever. But I can go very, very low. So it's actually a compliment. I don't think it's high pitched.

15:24I think it's called, Yusuf, it's called an Irish tenor. And for you to say it's high pitched is insulting to me. No, no, I have some Irish friends and believe me, I have a high pitch. It's okay, it's okay. You did fine for yourself, you know. I've been working for like 30 years in comedy. You're doing fine. Take it easy, take it easy. Okay, I'm sorry I snapped at you for saying I had a high-pitched voice. I think we should sing an Irish lullaby now. Can you do an Irish lullaby in Arabic? Can you do that? Why not? Let's go, let's go. I'll do you the first part. I'll give you the first part. As a young boy in Killarney.

16:05So many years ago. Me mom would sing this lullaby.

16:20In tunes so sweet and low. No, I don't understand.

16:32I love, I love my new Arabic Irish lullaby. This is fantastic. I'm very happy. You know what? We're going to record this and we're going to get this on the top of the charts. Okay. I doubted. Well, at least you were honest with me. Highly doubted. At least you were honest with me, Youssef. It was very nice talking to you. Yeah, it was. Youssef, it was really nice talking to you. You're a funny guy. and I'm happy to know that you're out there listening to us. Thank you. It's nice to have you. Honestly, I just want to say you really helped me in 2020, 2021, 2023. I honestly listen to some episodes to sleep.

17:13No offense. No, no. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. If I put you to sleep every night, that's kind of what I'm – no, that's not what I'm here to do, frankly. No, but I'm glad. I'm glad that, yeah, we've had a lot of people that said that during the pandemic, they enjoyed listening. And that makes me happy. It makes me very happy. Well, I hope our paths cross someday, Yousef. I really like you, and I'm glad that you're my friend. Thank you. Thank Conan. Thank you. All right. Take care and be well. Bye, Yousef. Bye, Yousef. Bye-bye. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan. With Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Avsessian, and Matt Gourley.

17:53Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Joanna Soloteroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blaird. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

18:30This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.