Jordan Schlansky Interview Conan O'Brien Must Go & Friendship With Comedian

[Music] first of all I just want to say how much I love you you're just so great I've been watching the show since I was like eight like 11 years old uh 1995 uh my parents let me watch the show uh the first half hour because I was too young to stay up for the entire time but I just want to say that you your the comedy on Late Night with Conan and everything that you've done with him too is just it's formulated so much of like who I am so thank you I just want to you're so kind you know I I never intended to be on camera I actually started working when you started uh in 1995 when you started and um it uh it was only meant to be behind the scenes as you might imagine but um when you work on a show like this you often get pulled on front in front of the camera and I'm so glad that you appreciated it of course I'm I'm so thankful for this so um yes I will get right started um so Jordan thank you so much for your time today I'm such a big fan of yours and conin and to get us started a lot of us at collider are actually wondering if you have a favorite food at Olive Garden favorite food at Olive Garden I learned a lot about Olive Garden I've only been there once and it's been on camera I don't believe they add salt to the pasta water which is technically a big no no if the rumors are true but um I kind of blacked out while I was there I don't even remember what I actually ate I do remember that the uh bread sticks the famous bread sticks seemed a little bit like hot dog buns to me um but other than that I'm not really clear on anything that I ate yeah no I I understand that it happens um you're a connoisseur of Fine Food so so you know Olive Garden's not for everyone um so uh so KB must go is four amazing very funny episodes and you happened to be in the Argentina travel log um and that was an episode I really loved uh if you've been on so many Journeys with him um how has the relationship evolved from those early remotes to what we see in this episode I think in the early remotes I was still approaching this um aware of the fact that Conan was clearly my boss and I was kind of uh I felt an obligation to be subservient and play the role of the employ um but I guess gradually over the years I've been able to um put that aside while we're on camera and act just like uh I would be naturally inclined to act should someone approach me in the manner that he does um so in that sense I think it's probably more truer to our actual relationship um as opposed to like employer employee yeah yeah I you know it's admirable how you are so attentive to him and you never break character cuz he is very funny and I feel like you know when we're watching things you're not laughing but the entire audience is laughing so how do you keep a straight face with him cuz he can be you know throwing things sometimes outside of the blue like you wouldn't know well I appreciate that you frame it as a character but in reality this is just my life I mean we've been working together so long so many decades and the relationship that you see on camera is uh exactly what the relationship is off camera and um uh I definitely would like to think I have a sense of humor I mean I've worked in comedy for so long but of course when someone's approaching you and you're the butt of the joke things may fall a little bit differently um I think our uh relation maybe one of the reasons why um it these interactions have been well received is because they are real because um I'm not trying to play a character I'm not trying to react or not react in any specific way um we just kind of uh go about our lives and sometimes there are cameras there to shoot it right yeah and you know the uh the time you spend with him in Argentina is a little um it's very small we don't get to spend too much time with you on the trip you know but I'm wondering um what's one thing about the relationship with Conan in these episodes that fans might be surprised to learn that doesn't come AC doesn't come across on camera because I'm sure there was more b-roll that we haven't seen as yet well the reality of the situation is um despite how it may or may not appear uh speaking for myself I love traveling with Conan I love spending time with him I love spending time with him in foreign Environ ments I do truly think that when you um travel or experience any kind of new event with someone you know it does bring you closer together you not only experience things firsthand but reflect it in somebody else's eyes as well um I genuinely have so many warm memories of traveling to Argentina and other places with him we would have wonderful dinners and we would talk about you know the food that we're eating and and the local nature of that food and the culture around us and um it may surp surpris people to know that we really get along and I would like to think he enjoys my company as much as I enjoy his yeah um has there ever been a favorite remote that you look back and you're like that's the defining one about your relationship with him like that's the one that fans may see as like you know it's funny but for you it was like that was a big personal moment for your friendship yeah it's funny you may have more objective um Clarity than I do because I'm so subjective in these things I loved our trip to Italy and part of the reason why I loved is I had gone to those places so many times by myself on a shoestring budget staying in cheap places and kind of taking you know public transportation everywhere and as much as I enjoy traveling alone there are times when you want to share a wonderful experience with somebody and I would come back and I would tell him and I would tell my co-workers and I wanted to share those moments and the fact that I got to return to all those very specific places right down to the restaurant right down to the table at the resta that I had been so many times alone but now I had my co-workers and Conan with me to experience it firsthand now instead of you know rolling in on a public bus we were we had our own production Vans and you know everything was done you know at a higher quality than I would if I were traveling alone that was something that was pretty special to me just to be able to share something and kind of have a sense of closure yeah there were piatas where I would sit at 2: in the morning alone just pondering the secrets of the universe and now suddenly I was here and there were lights in their cameras and it's it's an interesting phenomenon yeah no I love that I think that's it's so much fun it that's I know for you it must be because you're in that moment with him spending it but like for the fans to see in that Dynamic it just keeps growing and it's just so heartwarming and it's just like sweet and funny and it feels very familial at the same time um so that's just something I really love but um you know you and Conan have an interesting chemistry and you do play very well together um you know sometimes though you know I've been watching some of the um like podcast things on the Conan radio and sometimes things come off a little contentious and so I'm wondering has there ever been a time in a film segment when all of the playful annoyances became a little too real and you to turn off things for a minute um no I think that there have been situations where things kind of um went in unexpected directions one of them was um going back to our Italy episode uh we were at a wine tasting and um Conan and I were very much um in sync with our understanding of the situation but the winery was very pristin ious a very high-end a very well respected and they take themselves seriously as they should a very dignified and I believe that the um really nice woman that was conducting the the tasting wasn't prepared for exactly the genre that we were about to unfold and um it she kind of didn't know how to react and um even in Argentina this upcoming episode there's a segment where Conan and I go to um spend some time with some goutos on the pompas and um these guys are real working goutos and um we're just clowns and um there was a moment in there where um Conan and I were dressed in ridiculous costumes um and the surreality of the situation just hit me and um I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen yet but a bit of chaos ensues yeah um you know I'm sure you got to watch the entire uh you know Season the four episodes I I do have to say the four episodes are not enough like they're so good but they're just not enough I wish there was more um was there a favorite moment watching those episodes that you were like oh this is a very funny scene or this is something that the fans should really look out for when it's coming to Conan's defining comedy I think that um Conan has his particular brand of Comedy which I like to think is universal and I think travel shows are kind of evidence of that but it's fun to put that comedy in very specific cultural situations and I love the Tango segment in the uh art Argentina episode and I love that um we tried to approach it really authentically we tried to get real authentic music and real authentic musicians and costumes and um I love the way that particular segment turned out yeah so you admit though it is Tango not tongo well of course we're speaking English and I'm uh I'm here to adapt my cultural uh language skills to the audience of course um so you've been with Conan since the 90s um what is about the dynamic that you think you know makes this Odd Couple relationship work that people just want more of because we do love seeing you in so many segments with him and I wish there was more I mean as mere humans I'm we're not qualified to understand these complex psychological matters but um I'm very aware that personally I'm an introvert and um a textbook introvert and Conan I think is a textbook extrovert and um he feeds off the energy of others and I could never personally identify with his energy and he probably can't personally identify with mine and when we do exist together um I think one of the natural human inclinations is to try to match the energy of the person you're speaking to even if it's not your own um whereas I just approach it as um he's operating at such a high frequency that I can never even pretend to mimic so I kind of just approach it as myself and he approaches it as himself and maybe it's that disparity that creates something compelling for the viewers I love that um so you know uh before I do let you go I want to ask if there's going to be more episodes of Bri must go because you know four is great I love the quality of these you know they're produced so well they're so sharp and they're something that just makes the production value looks so like different from like what we saw with con without Without Borders but I'm wondering if there's going to be any more that we're going to get from Max you know we're coming from an environment of producing a Daily Show where I'm used to seeing ideas go from conception to execution to broadcast within sometimes a matter of hours and now as you mentioned we had a lot more time to put more energy into All Phases of the production from pre-production post- production and it does um appear more cinematic which is great um uh I as a producer I'm not privy to such matters I would hope that we can travel more and do more of these but um we take it one day at a time and and I'm handed tasks and I complete those tasks yeah well you do you you guys do a great job and I'm just so excited for the show and I everyone's gonna just love it so much as much as I do so Jordan thank you so much for your time it's been such a real pleasure and congrats on konob brine mus go which is streaming on April uh 18th on Max oh you're very kind thank you so much

Channel: Collider Interviews

Views: 137,735

Keywords: collider, celebrity interview, collider interview, interview, movie stars, Jordan Schlansky Interview, Conan O’Brien Must Go, Jordan Schlansky, Conan O’Brien, Hot Ones, Conan O’Brien Hot Ones, The Conan and Jordan Show, SiriusXM, Sona Movsesian, Catriona Crowe, Matt Gourley, Matt O'Brien, Emily Topper, Scott Cronick

Id: QMx0gNBHWbM

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024