Werner Herzog

28:40We have to stick to it or else. and he would know that this or else would mean he would be a dead man within 30 seconds flat. I didn't have to spell it out. You just did, though. Yeah, that's incredible. You're doing it now. You're doing it now. No, let's put it simply. You have to have it in you to stop at a certain moment And to understand, yes, you do not do this. You're not going to kill each other. It's a beautiful script, which is outside of the movie. And the script is not going to happen. Otherwise, you end up on death row. And I have made nine films on death row. And I know that every single one on death row that I met, men and women, we're only a step away from what i am or what almost all of us are yeah that's true very human human beings it's interesting because there's this new movement that's being discussed lately and it was written about the other day i think in the new york times which said if you when dealing with someone who's out of control yeah or psychotic they say become a gray rock become bland and very very sort of almost disinterested and they say it's the best way to treat them so had you screamed back at kinski no no and and and entertained and tried to meet him scream for scream the whole thing would have blown up by staying yeah almost inert as you did no yeah we had a plane crash and only garbled messages in our camp we didn't know exactly where was it how many people can we was this a plane that was coming to this film shoot to our filmed two-hour set, transporting extras.

30:39And I tried to make sense what it was. In Kinski, at that morning, we served coffee in all the huts, and he was the last one because we altered the line of who would be first or last. His coffee was lukewarm. He just lost it over it, and he kept yelling and screaming for an hour and a half, foam at his mouth. I mean, literally, I'm not exaggerating. Screaming at the top of his lung that close to my face, that close. And I tried to explain, Klaus, there's a plane down. We need to understand what the radio, the garbled radio, is transmitting to us. So, and finally, I couldn't get rid of him. I went to my hut.

31:29I had one little piece of chocolate, very good chocolate left, and I stood right in his face and ate the chocolate. That was too much for him because chocolate was the most valuable item in the camp. Yes. And I ate my last piece of chocolate and he just fell silent. Yes. Yes. It's like you shut down the computer. It just went to the Apple logo. There's nothing he could do at that moment. Yeah. I, it's fascinating because you've done this very intense and beloved work and you explore these intense themes. But because of your fame and notoriety, you're also being asked to do these other side projects, which are very popular in popular culture.

32:24You've been a guest on The Simpsons. Yes. More than once. Mandalorian you're in the Mandalorian Jack Reacher Parks and Recreation and I'm curious how you reconcile because it's such a chasm between being in Peru you're life threatened by a madman trying to make this magnum opus and then you're on the set of The Simpsons or you're with Baby Yoda on The Mandalorian is it it must be quite fascinating to imagine the trips you've taken in your life. Sure. Yes. And it's, I do not want to miss any of that because I found The Simpsons very fascinating, intelligent, and a lot of anarchy in it. And when I was invited to speak a role, I immediately said, do they speak?

33:21I cannot believe that. I thought there were only like comic strips printed in newspapers. I'd never seen it. And I think Matt Groening, who started it, he said to me, don't you know, since 24 years, we are on a TV station. One of the most popular TV shows of all time around the world. I did not know that it existed. So I asked for a DVD to show me a little bit so that I could see how cartoonish the voices would be. They actually sent a few of them to me, and they said, you don't need to be cartoonish. Just speak with your accent. It's wild enough. Yes. Wild enough for us. So I acknowledged, yes.

34:10And I really, really enjoyed it. Did you work? I'm good at that. And in Jack Reacher, they're bad guys. They open fire. They have huge assault rifles. They swear, they shout, they yell at you, they have fistfights. I'm the epicenter of evil. I have very few fingers left. I ate them in a gulag to avoid being sent to a lead mine and lose my life there. And I'm blind. I have one blind eye. And I only have my voice to spread terror and a calm voice. and one of the villains, the sub-villain who made a mistake, I tell him you can get away with it. If you are really determined not to do that again, you have to eat your fingers as I do it, as I did it.

35:08And he tries and tries and I very calmly encourage him. I say, that was already good. I know you can do it. Just try harder. And it's so frightening that when the film was out, friends of my wife in Paris, they called her and they said, Lena, are you married to that man? You know, we are only one night flight away from you. We can give you shelter. So I knew I was good. And that's my best reward. The Mandalorian, there's so much secrecy around that shoot. What was that experience like for you? Well, secrecy went so far that I had to sign a contract for a film, Huckleberry Finn, not Mandalorian.

36:02They misnamed it, yeah. And you had your costumes, you couldn't leave the studio unless you put a big tunic all over you and you were not allowed to speak about what was going on inside. So I understand that because it's such a worldwide phenomenon and fans were lurking outside the hedges with their little cameras and trying to snap a few photos. But the experience was very interesting because Jon Favreau, who is a mastermind behind all this, he invited me. I was always invited. I never competed for any part. I never was in any audition. And he apparently loves my films and loves my writings. and he wanted to make me as a person visible for a larger audience in the world.

37:00That's a guy who did all these things. And you see, we are speaking about my films and my acting, but equally important, I think, is writing. From the very, very beginning, I've been a writer and I started out writing when I was 15, 16 and I published my first books decades ago in the early 70s. And they are still constantly being reprinted, reprinted. And I keep saying, and it's basically to deaf ears and it will fall on deaf ears here as well. But time is on my side. I keep saying the written things, my books, my prose, my poetry, with all probability will have a longer life than my films. I will be remembered for my writings, not so much for my films.

37:55You write beautifully. You are a terrific and disciplined writer and your writing is very lyrical. And I think that that can travel through all kinds of changes in how people experience entertainment probably more safely and durably than maybe film can. And so I think that's possible. Books are more durable than movies. It's a strange thing, but it's a fact. You can see it. And I've always loved to write poetry. You see, when you look at my memoirs, people are looking for, let's say, content. What did he do in this period of his life? It's not an encyclopedia of my life. It's memoirs and it's prose.

38:42It's very, very intense writing. I write, for example, all of a sudden in this book, Every Man for Himself and God Against All. I insert five ballads of the little soldier. I was once in Nicaragua, Honduras with child soldiers between 8 and 11. And I mean, tragic, tragic. And this is 8, 11-year-olds with weapons. With weapons and in warfare. And some of them whom I filmed were dead three weeks later. And I still have them on film. An eight-year-old boy, angelic looking and with a catastrophic, tragic life behind him where his parents were killed in front of his eyes. And he decided to become a soldier, a warrior.

39:33and all of a sudden there are five ballads of the little soldier I insert diaries when I traveled on foot around Germany I followed once all the situations of the German border to hold the country together when it was not united yet I said to myself politics has given up so it's only the poets who can hold it together and I traveled on foot around my own country and I'm riding while I'm walking and some of the most beautiful, intense prose that I ever wrote was on that traveling on foot or off walking in ice when I traveled on foot from Munich to Paris when things were essentially somehow reduced to a pilgrimage, to a big quest.

40:33Not the joy of walking. Of course, I also enjoyed it. I knew that, and I'm not superstitious, but I knew when I arrived on foot, Lotte Eisner would be out of hospital and she would live. And she actually did. And she believed it was because you put a spell on her. No, she said that jokingly years later, just before she oh i thought you had that ability and i was going to ask for it before you go i was going to say please before you go one more thing i'd like to live to 98 um and then i'll ask to see you again because that's going to be i'll be in a lot of pain i've there was a revelation in the book that i found interesting because you're such a thoughtful person i don't think your mind ever shuts off you don't believe in therapy i'm very cautious about it because it hasn't done no good to no one.

41:27I think it's one of the monumental mistakes of the 20th century, among many others. The big social utopias, communism, fascism have led to incredible disasters, overpopulation of our planet, and you just name it, destruction of what nature is. All of that started really in the 20th century. And one of the great mistakes of the 20th century is psychoanalysis. Of course, it started some decades earlier, but it really blossomed in the 20th century. And I do believe that the 20th century in its entirety was a mistake. And going back to psychoanalysis, I can give you a parable. When you move into a new home and you illuminate this home to its very last recesses and corners with neon lights, everything is illuminated.

42:35This house becomes uninhabitable, and human beings illuminated to the darkest corners of their soul become uninhabitable, I say it in quotes now. And you should be careful what you do. Of course, there are clinical cases, and you better do it. But this mass phenomenon, to think that everything in your inner balance and in your soul and in your emotionality and so will be solved by psychoanalysis, I do not think it is a good approach. it's funny because i think it's it's a byproduct of this obsession and you live in los angeles so you see this now in the 21st century in los angeles there's just this obsession with i want to eat all the perfect foods i want to make sure that i get all the perfect treatments i want to achieve this perfect state of balance yoga classes for five years old five year olds Well, they bend so easily.

43:48Yeah, but I'm the great defender of Los Angeles. Everybody chuckles and says, I love Los Angeles too. You think, yeah, the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, but everything in the last half century somehow set the pace and the thinking and the trends of the world without, I mean, being completely trendy, originated here. The internet was born. here, the internet. And I've seen the place where the first contact was made with routers and servers. Reusable rockets are being built in the perimeters of the city itself. I mean, a southern outskirt, but southern part of it. All the great painters are here.

44:37I think the art scene here is very impressive. They are not in New York anymore. That was early 50s or so. Now they are here. The writers, the mathematicians. Also, of course, the stupidities, crazy sects. Inline skating is fine, but... You're listening to Röner Herzog's list of what's in and what's out. What's hot and what's cold. I actually am very much beloved by skateboarders. Oh, good. There's a community of skateboarders who reach out. It's good to have them on your side, yeah. Yes, and they're on my side and I'm on theirs because the futility and the insistence, try it again, try it again, try it again.

45:18You will do this jump up onto the railing of this. No, don't do that. No, I'm too old for that. And I've done ski jumping and ski flying and almost died in doing that. But anyway, you do the wild stuff when you're young. But the crazy things also come from here. originated here and they have worldwide repercussions. It happens and there's no other city. Does it happen in Chicago or in London or in Florence or in Mumbai or in Buenos Aires? No, it's Los Angeles. It's wonderful to live in a city where all these things are happening. All these things are happening. it's a very vibrant community I guess what I was you love to participate you love to know what's going on so you do watch some things that maybe your typical person might think Werner Herzog doesn't view you watch the Kardashians very very few but I do watch I do watch some trash TV like let's say Wrestlemania hell yeah Hell yeah.

46:38Sonia's like, hurry, hurry up. Enough about madness. Yes. Let's talk about wrestling. No, but it's very interesting because it's a very crude form of drama has emerged. And it's a drama set are not in the fight itself. The fights are interrupted by commercials, meaning they're not that important. But the owner of the franchise shows up in the ring, his wife, alleged wife, in a wheelchair and blind. And he has three sexy women in his arm and rants against his wife in the wheelchair. And all of a sudden you have a form of drama going on, a new form emerging apparently. probably as crude as ancient Greek drama started out in the 5th century before Christ.

47:38So I watch it for number one. I think the poet must not close his eyes, avert his eyes. You have to know in which world you are living. See everything. Yes. And I have nothing against, let's say once in a while, It isn't on the air anymore. Here comes Honey Boo Boo.

48:09That's my favorite. The way you said it is going to be a meme. No, but very, very fascinating. There's something deep about society in it. deep about something, deep about the American dream that goes awry somehow. And I can see how the American dream is functioning because I've been in the heartland of America. I have worked in Wisconsin. I've worked in Louisiana. I've worked in North Carolina. I've lived in Pittsburgh with a guest family who picked me up from the street when I was homeless. Without hesitation, I was part of the best that America can give you. And I think much of the political chasm between left and right is due to the neglect of the center, the heartland of America.

49:21People say, oh yeah, they're the flyovers, but they live in Boston or in Seattle or in Los Angeles and New York. And I ask, have you ever been in Wisconsin? No, but I have worked there. And I find it an outrage that some of the best of America, very good people living there, of course, underrepresented in the media with much less access to education, underpaid, without that open access to the American dream. And this is why you have such conflicts now. I say, why don't you contact your old school buddies? Tell them what you are doing and be interested in what they are doing. What are they thinking?

50:20What are they doing? Put them on your radar. Let them know they are around there and you like them. And you like Arkansas and you like Wisconsin. And do they do it? No. unfortunately too very few now you are very prolific in your with your film work you're writing what's the plan now what are you what what what's in the next couple of years well i've written a screenplay for a story that's long in me and i describe it in my memoirs it's called bucking fastered it's a great title a slip of tongue yeah and it's about twin sisters um identical twins who spoke in unison and we have had twins we know sometimes they develop their own secretive language but these twins unique we have never seen or heard of anyone else and i was in very close contact with them, they spoke in unison.

51:20When they opened the door and they said, ah, please come in and do you want to have a cup of tea? That can be ritualized and rehearsed. But they would answer a question that they could not expect in unison. There was a court case, a truck driver, an ugly purple-faced truck driver had a restraining order against them. And in court, they were allowed to testify in the witness stand together. Oh my God. But it's an iron principle. If you're in court, you, Conan, will testify and then your sibling will testify and then the next person. There was an exception. They spoke in unison because they would be terrified and would unravel and start shouting and so on.

52:10And across the courtroom, they shouted to the truck driver, he's lying. every word he's saying is a lie. He's lying under oath. And then simultaneously, the bucking fostered is lying. So they both made the same mistake at the same time. Same slip of tongue in the same moment. Even that. I need to reveal that Sona has twins. She's shown us video, the cameras of them communicating with each other before they could really talk. Yes. And they are having full on, it's nonsense to us, but you understand it is a full-on... They're having a full conversation. I don't understand a word of it. It's fascinating to watch.

52:52But it's a separate language. They do not speak in unison. No, they don't. I said, hey, girls. I said, girls, even though they were not girls anymore, they were in their early 40s or late 30s. I said to them, let's go out to a restaurant. And they whispered to each other, making up, but they whispered in unison. And they said, ah, no, a restaurant and there are these waiters in tuxedos. And so I said, now, now, let's go to a fish and chip place around the corner. They speak in unison to each other. And then they said, yeah, let's do it. So when is this coming out? There's only a screenplay. It's not financed yet.

53:34It's not shot yet. I'll give you the money. That would be nice, but... Oh, you doubt I have it, do you? Well, I have tens of thousands of dollars. So I think about the famous story about you is that you stole your first camera. You didn't have a camera and you stole it. And I actually, I love this line from the book. You say, I refuse to think of it as stealing. You said, I was exercising a natural right to put the camera to its intended use. I thought that is such a fantastic rationalization. but also it makes perfect sense but you had so many limits and i wonder uh werner herzog if you went into a black hole and you appeared today as a young man your early 20s and you have iphones yes and you have computers that can laptops that can edit uh how different uh are the films are they completely different films or are you telling me films wouldn't be different No, I don't think so.

54:38It doesn't matter if I shoot it on celluloid. When I started, it was 35mm celluloid. Very clumsy, expensive, took a long time to make a film, much longer than today. And yet, with the clear vision that I had, I've done one film after the other. I've done, I don't know, over 70 films by now. And I've published at least 10 books. And I've acted in at least 20 films. And I've staged operas. So it wouldn't look different. Because writing a book, whether you write it on a laptop or in longhand, doesn't make any difference at all. this has been a wonderful treat I have spoken to you before yes I do remember I do thank you for remembering I do love this format because in the other format I could talk to you for seven eight minutes about Grizzly Man or nine minutes and then thank you very much Runder Herzog and the band plays and to be a commercial yeah and this format enables me to have the kind of conversation with you that I've always wanted to have.

55:51So it's a gift. I had the feeling when I walked in here and I knew this is your new home now and you've created it for yourself. I would have advised you at that time in conflict with, was it NBC? What was the station? Who can remember? Yeah, NBC. Whatever it was. Buy the station. Buy the station and fire them all. yeah yeah i didn't quite have that money at the time uh 60 minute segment well maybe i'll be hitting you up for financing but you will out talk them you will out number them yeah you will out uh out brilliant them you will nice outshine them and you will out out talk them you have the gift of gab uh you know that's the funny thing is if you just uh if you love the work, you're okay.

56:46So it doesn't matter what the platform is. If you love the work, and that's what's so inspirational about you is you were not raised with a silver spoon in your mouth. You weren't sent to USC film school at a young age and given a posh internship. There's no reason why you should be a prolific, amazing filmmaker. You didn't see a film till relatively late in your childhood. I didn't know it. You didn't know cinema existed. And yet it was in you. And here we are. And so I think if you're doing the work and you have things to say and you have things that you need to say, the rest will take care of itself.

57:28I believe that. That sounds very encouraging. And I will walk out here 10 pounds lighter.

57:39Absolute joy, Werner Herzog. Thank you so much. And the book, I just want to say, this is a fantastic, lovely book, Every Man From Self and God Against All, a memoir and a very special memoir because you're right. It is not just recounting what happened, A, B, C, D, E. It's a fantastic story, but also beautiful and poetic and worthy of your time. So thank you, sir. Thank you.

58:13You know, recently we did a segment about a new voicemail number, and people could call in and leave a voicemail, and maybe we could answer the questions, and it worked. We've got some voicemails. Oh, good. New voicemails. I love to hear the Vox Populi voice of the people. Yes, I know. I'm sorry. Sana, I know you're new here. Very excited to hear what they have to say. Hit it, Eduardo. Hey, Conan. I am a high school U.S. history teacher, and I have to teach high school juniors about Abraham Lincoln sometime around November, December. I know you're a big Lincoln and Civil War buff, and so I thought, surely you can make a great connection to the TikTok generation or whatever they call themselves and help me find a way to just really hammer home the historical importance of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln.

59:01So if you could help me out, that'd be great. And also, that truly was the worst outgoing voicemail message of all time. I loved it. Thanks. Is it me? It's all of us. Oh. I don't remember what the outgoing voicemail message was, but my apologies. It was us kind of coaching Sona on how to do it. Yeah. Oh. There you go. Well. This is a huge responsibility. You're up to it. No. No. To explain the significance of President Abraham Lincoln and to explain the Civil War to these students in what? And what length of time? I'll give you three minutes. That's insane. look kids put down your iPhones you lost them already you lost them already just photoshop his head onto a dancing tiktok person oh there you go yeah photoshop whatever you just said help me Sona how would I communicate with the tiktok generation I'm beyond this generation I don't know I have no idea you have a really good way of connecting with people and it's something you like right civil war crazy, crazy carnage.

1:00:07Yes. I mean, aren't kids into that? I mean, just insane. You know how many people die and if you added up all the John Wick movies? Yes. Multiply that by like 100 ,000. Yes. Yeah. Imagine just, there's a whole bunch of John Wicks in the South and there's a whole bunch of John Wicks in the North and they just go towards each other. The ones in the North are wearing blue suits and the ones in the South are wearing gray suits and they just go at it. And then there's this guy, who's the guy who runs the hotel? Oh, Ian McShane? Ian McShane, but what's his character's name in the John Wick movies? I have no idea.

1:00:45We'll come up with it. Continental. Yeah, the hotel is called the Continental. Well, in this, the Continental Hotel is the White House. Okay? It's run by Winston. So Abraham Lincoln was a British guy played by Ian McShane. Oh, okay. Yeah. And he's the one that's sort of watching in the background and really not doing anything, just sort of sipping. Oh, you said Abraham Lincoln's not doing anything? He's just sitting around watching these armies, these massive armies of John Wicks fight each other and going, and so it begins. Ah, yes. And now it has begun. And just keeps and seems pretty ineffectual and doesn't really do much at all.

1:01:25Unfortunately, that's Lincoln, except he did do stuff. wrote amazing speeches, Gettysburg Address. No, they're boring. You're losing them. Okay, okay. Civil War was started by the killing of a dog. What happens is the South killed our dog. Yes. And then the South called its dad and said, don't worry, it's just some asshole. I just killed his dog. And he went, what? You killed the North's dog? And then all the John Wicks from the North came after the John Wicks from the South. And look, I'm going to get a lot of mail from people in the South saying, no, they killed our dog. It's like, no, no, no.

1:01:56I just had, I'm from Boston, so fuck you. Anyway, all these John Wicks are fighting each other and it's absolutely insane and it goes on for four years and you name it. Antietam, Cold Harbor. You're losing them. You're losing them. Oh, oh, oh, oh. They're fighting in Japan. Just steps in Japan. They're fighting, you know, oh, around the Arc de Triomphe and when there's no door on the car and John Wicks leaning out and he's firing. It's so fucking cool. And Lawrence Fishburne's there. Yeah, and Lawrence Fishburne's there, and that's a little bull run. Yeah, and the car. Yeah, and then, wow, oh, man.

1:02:33And then every now and then Abraham Lincoln thinks about his wife who passed away a long time ago, and he's really sad. Oh, yeah. And he thinks about that, and that's Mary Todd Lincoln. Although she didn't pass away in real life. She lived, and she was crazy, batshit crazy. Yeah. And spent a lot of money and really lost it all the time. Yeah, she's so hot. Yeah, so hot. Yeah. But anyway, that's what happened. It's just incredible. You've got to check this out. A John Wick that lasts four years. Check it out, motherfuckers! Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend. With Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Ovsessian, and Matt Gourley.

1:03:08Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Nick D 'Leal, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. me. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. 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?

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