You guys were amazing.

It's very hard to relax backstage before you come on

though. After that, I was like, I feel a little

Well, you know, people at, people at home don't realize

they're playing during the whole commercial break.

While everyone else is watching like Mazda commercials,

we're having the hoedown of the century.

(audience laughing, cheering)

And it's amazing.

(audience clapping)

But it is something; it really whips you into a frenzy.

I was shot out of a rocket, I told them. Yeah, it's great.

I tore my clothes off during the break.

You did?

They had to put these back on me just now.

(Alison laughs)

It's insane.

So, well, first of all, congratulations.

Thank you.

This show is, it's not only a big success,

but people really love this show.

They love the performing. They love the writing.

You guys have done an amazing job.

Thank you. Yeah, we were all sort of surprised

that it's doing so well.

And we, you know, we're in Burbank and we're

in the studio and we're there like, our entire lives.

It's the most grueling schedule ever.

But, so we don't really have an idea of

how people are reacting towards it

until we get to Washington.

We just finished in Washington last week,

we were working like 18 hour days, and-

You shoot a little on location then.

Yeah, just, we go two times a season.

Because I've heard that on Capitol Hill

and in the government, they're nuts for it.

That in Washington, D.C., they're really

sort of crazy about the show.

Yes, they are crazy about the show.

I had one experience coming out of my hotel room

where a woman was coming down the hallway to her room

and she saw me and she fell on her knees, with her coffee.

She had gone out to get coffee because

it costs $60 to order room service coffee at the Ritz and-

Yeah. And at Starbucks, it's only $50, yeah.

(Alison and audience laughing)

So she fell on her knees and she was like,

(gasps) CJ! Oh my God, CJ, are you Jewish?

And I said, no, I'm not, actually.

She said, do you know what a mitzvah is?

Doesn't matter. A mitzvah is a good deed.

You're gonna do a mitzvah. Come with me, come with me.

You're got to come wake up my son Elliot. He's in bed.

He's got a big screen TV just to watch West Wing.

He's the biggest fan of your show.

Please, you've got to come.

And she dragged me, and I went.

[Conan] You went?

I went! I went into a room!

[Conan] I guess that's nice.

That's very nice that you would go.

That's right, I mean you should go.

(audience clapping)

I think more celebrities should accompany

perfect strangers into hotel rooms.

(audience laughing)

I know. I felt, what am I doing?

But I went in there, and poor Elliot. Her son is Elliot.

[Conan] How old is her son?

He looked to be in his twenties, I think.

[Conan] Right.

(audience laughing)

And Elliot is asleep.

This is great.

He's asleep? Wait, wait a minute. He's asleep?

He's asleep and the bed, it's all dark.

And I'm like, you know what? Maybe this is not a good idea.

And she goes up to the bed and starts smacking Elliot.

She says, Elliot, get up, wake up!

And Elliot wakes up. And he's like, Mom, what's going on?

And she said, CJ's here! It's CJ! Look at CJ.

And this poor guy just was like Mom, Mom,

what are you doing?

And she ripped the covers off and he's in his underwear,

and at that point-

[Conan] No, what are you talking about? That's terrible.

That's the worst thing I've ever heard.

I felt sorry for Elliot. She was so sweet,

And I, I was embarrassed. I felt embarrassed being there,

and I think Elliot's embarrassed-

I think Elliot's embarrassed,

because he's in his BBDS and you're in the room.

That is so weird.

But I have to say that Elliot did

send me a bottle of champagne in my room later.

(audience awwing)

Yeah. I was going to say,

maybe he delivered it in his underwear.

(Alison laughing)

This is for you. Sorry, so anyway...

I have to say, I went back into my hotel room, after that,

and watched movies and ordered room service,

'cause I was a little shell shocked.

[Conan] You were afraid to go out.

I was afraid I was afraid of what might happen,

'cause it's sort of extraordinary,

but I think it's just Washington.

Cause you know, we're about Washington and they go crazy.

[Conan] People love to see things about themselves.

Yeah, yeah. So that's why.

The, the Bush administration,

they're pretty friendly with the cast?

They've been, they've been kind to you people?

To everyone, but Martin.

[Conan] Martin Sheen?

Well, Martin sheen said something about President Bush.

He's said some pretty incendiary things about George Bush.

Didn't he call him a moron?

(audience laughing)

Is that what he said?

I think he did. Yes.

[Conan] Okay.

(audience cheering, clapping, laughing)

No, please.

That's our president; we must always respect him.

(Alison laughing)

Unless he's not too bright, and then, you know, you can...

Go to town, I say.

No, so he's probably not going to get invited anytime soon,

to the White House.

Martin didn't get to play at all.

He doesn't get invited to any, anything.

And we got invited to the White House Correspondence Dinner

and to the party afterwards.

And we also got invited to the White House

and went and I met Ari Fleischer, my counterpart.

And everyone's incredibly gracious.

And it's a much more formal administration

than the Clinton administration.

[Conan] Yeah, yeah.

Probably. I'm just going to leave that one alone.

I'm sure there are some things they're

doing a little differently over there.

(audience laughs)

They got rid of the disco ball, you know.

(audience laughs)

But they were really gracious,

and really, really nice to us. So I was glad.

Then now what's interesting to me is that the,

I've heard that the Oval Office that you use

on your set is an exact, I mean, exact duplicate

of the Oval Office that the real president uses.

You've been to both.

I've been to both and ours is bigger. Ours is bigger.

[Conan] It's larger.

Yes, it's larger, bigger.

Well probably 'cause it's, yeah.

To, to get cameras in there and everything.

But other than that, the dimensions are the-

Other than that it's the same.

But I have to say, I mean, I've, I walked

into our set before I ever saw the Oval Office.

So I had that feeling when I walked

onto our set and saw the Oval Office

it was like, it was that, it was amazing.

I got tingles all over. It was really exciting to be there.

And then when I saw the real one

it was just like, eh, ours is bigger.

(audience laughing)

It, okay, this is the actual seat of power.

Just that ours is bigger.

Yeah.

Do you hang out in the Oval Office set on the West Wing?

We work there were a lot.

And whenever there are all of us in the Oval Office

it takes two days to shoot a scene.

So we're hanging out there all the time.

So do you ever just like hang out, like what do you,

what do you, what's fun in that office?

I mean, one thing I love is that, this is a true story.

Somebody gave me as a gift,

the company that makes Oval Office chairs,

somebody gave me one of those Oval Office chairs

that I have in my desk, and it's so great.

'Cause I'm sitting in a presidential chair deciding,

should we do masturbating bear today? You know...

(audience laughing, clapping)

I think we shall! I decree it is so!

Which chair was it modeled after? Whose was...

You know, that's a good question. I don't know.

Maybe the company is just lying.

Because Brad Whitford actually did that as a present

for some of our producers, got chairs made,

and it was a Kennedy chair.

There is a company, right. It's the same chair.

It's that chair. And it's an amazing chair,

but what's your favorite thing about the Oval Office set?

Well the president's balls.

(audience laughing)

They're they're glass balls.

I don't know why people would snicker at that.

I thought more of this audience.

(audience laughing)

Clearly I was wrong.

On the desk there are these glass balls

and they're beautiful and I love to play with them.

(audience howling and cheering)

It's the feel of...

It's the look and feel and they're, they're just...

Is it commercial time? Yeah?

No. I intend to dwell on this for a long, long time.

(Alison laughing)

They're going to take that out on the,

what they're gonna do is,

they're going to take that out of context,

and like, ram it into Access Hollywood

or something like yeah.

Alison Janney flips out on Conan O'Brien.

"I like the president's balls!"

That's what's going to happen!

You realize now that's what they do.

This is just more fodder

for Pat O'Brien and one of those people. Yeah.

You're so right. That's going to happen.

You're destroyed, it's over now.

I hope you enjoyed working in television.

(audience laughing)

It was a nice run. I enjoyed it.