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  • My next guest,

  • you know him if you're watching this channel,

  • he needs no introduction.

  • Please welcome Andy Richter.

  • Hi, Moses.

  • Thank you for having me.

  • We were taping, so I'm in the courtyard of Largo.

  • So you will hear some traffic noise.

  • I hear a lot of traffic.

  • It sounds very-

  • I feel like the man on the street.

  • The last time we talked

  • was when we were still doing the show for audiences,

  • and you were telling me that, on the old stages,

  • you had a place where you could just go and disappear.

  • Have you found a place there at the Largo,

  • where you could just completely disappear?

  • Well, this courtyard is nice.

  • (car engine rumbling)

  • It's noisy, but it's nice.

  • And I come out here when Conan is doing interviews,

  • the Zoom interviews, because I just don't want to make...

  • I'm certainly not going to listen to the interview because-

  • No, it's a speaker phone conversation.

  • Yeah, he talked to Colin Quinn today,

  • and I heard everything that guy had to say in 1995.

  • Enough with the Colin Quinn.

  • I'm just kidding. (laughing)

  • Do you know there's different races of people in New York

  • and they came over at different times?

  • No, I love him, but honestly,

  • no, I stay out of there just so I don't have to worry about

  • if I get up, or that the old seats in the theater will clank

  • or something.

  • 'Cause when I first started here with them,

  • I was in there for one of them,

  • and I just was like, "I'm too clumsy,

  • "I should be out here just so I don't interrupt."

  • But yeah, but also too, this place,

  • I've known this place for a million years.

  • I mean, and I've known everybody here for 20 plus years.

  • So I was always very comfortable in this place,

  • even before we started doing "The Conan Show" here.

  • Yeah, because for people who don't know,

  • this is the hub of essentially all comedy,

  • where you can really work out stuff

  • before it becomes a special,

  • people have taped their specials there.

  • So it is a cool spot.

  • So the place that you've found to disappear to

  • is the Central Courtyard?

  • (laughing) Yes, yes.

  • Although, you know what?

  • I mean, it's a different thing.

  • 'Cause I'm not here.

  • If I need to hide in the hour that I'm here,

  • I got real problems.

  • I shouldn't be on television if I'm that-

  • Right.

  • (laughing) If I'm, yeah.

  • If I need to hide that much.

  • Yeah, yeah.

  • But this is how you got roped into this show.

  • You were just too central.

  • You were outside, you were not smoking.

  • And they're like, "Hey, there's this kid

  • "that did stand up once."

  • They asked me, and then when I found out what time it was,

  • it was like, I just did it here.

  • Rather than, normally I would be at home,

  • in my sad, dark little box that I live in.

  • But here it's, like I said, I feel like a man on the street.

  • That is something I've noticed.

  • I think people, when they do the show for the first time

  • they're like, "Oh, I hope Conan likes me."

  • Immediately I was like, I hope Andy doesn't scowl at me.

  • 'Cause I think, and please tell me if I'm wrong,

  • I feel like you watch stand up

  • like comedians watch stand up.

  • Conan's very gracious and like,

  • "Let's keep the show on the rails,

  • "even if you're bombing."

  • But you, you feel like you know the mechanics of it,

  • of like, "Uh-huh, yeah, that happened, sure."

  • On "The Conan Show,"

  • and Conan has said this, and and God bless him.

  • He never wanted me to be any different,

  • but you know I will sort of laugh

  • as a conversational lubricant.

  • Yeah.

  • But most of the time,

  • I laugh when I think something's funny,

  • which I guess is unusual.

  • And I definitely felt when I went from New York to LA

  • and came out here and had to go through the sitcom process

  • of the table read and then the rehearsals and everything

  • where everyone laughs real hard at everything

  • over and over again.

  • Way too hard.

  • Yeah.

  • Yeah, and I just feel like you're crying wolf.

  • Like you're ultimately going to not be able

  • to tell the difference between

  • that's really funny and that's just okay.

  • And I would have other writers say things to me like,

  • "You're not a big laugher, are you?"

  • (laughing) And I say, "Well, yeah, actually,

  • "when things are funny."

  • When things are funny,

  • when you're not looking at a math equation.

  • Yeah, and I'm not trying to be a dick

  • I'm not trying to be a dick.

  • But I just think I'm trying to be honest

  • about that one part of it.

  • And because I always have felt that this kind of job,

  • doing a late night talk show like this,

  • you have to be yourself.

  • You can't, you're yourself when company's over,

  • but you gotta be yourself.

  • If you're going to be fake laughing, fake re-reacting,

  • it's going to suck.

  • You know?

  • And I just also just don't want to do that.

  • I think that's what I was nervous about

  • the second time I did the show.

  • 'Cause you guys are more front face-ting on stools there

  • is you can see,

  • and you know that you know all the mechanics,

  • you know the punchline before it's coming,

  • you know that you were not

  • on a bus in Australia this morning.

  • And also (laughing) to be fair to the stand-ups,

  • a lot of times, that's the end of our day pretty much.

  • And it's easy to zone out.

  • Yeah.

  • It sounds really shitty,

  • and it probably is kind of shitty, but I guess I'm shitty.

  • No, I think it takes some of the mystery out of it,

  • and I think it makes people less nervous to do the show,

  • to know that everyone's there doing a job.

  • Just do your thing.

  • Table reads that you brought up are something else,

  • where it is way too hot of an audience,

  • where it feels like they got bullied into laughing.

  • Yes.

  • Because it's like network people there,

  • so everyone's like, "Haha, that's the joke that I wrote.

  • "Everyone likes that."

  • Have you ever bombed a table read?

  • I have not, but I have been involved in table reads

  • where someone gets cocky and thinks,

  • "Oh, this is just a table read,

  • "so I don't need to perform at my top abilities here.

  • "I can save it," or something, I don't know.

  • Yeah.

  • And they get fired.

  • You can get fired at any time.

  • And so it's like every time

  • they want to hear you say a line,

  • you better say it the money way to say it.

  • Yes.

  • You better have all the coffee

  • or whatever drugs making you funny.

  • Do that because yeah,

  • because it's the second to last audition.

  • Yes.

  • And I always cringe

  • when actors will post the deadline article

  • in "The Hollywood Reporter" of like, "Booked it!"

  • And it's like, you are so close to getting...

  • You could be gone.

  • (laughing) Yes.

  • You could be gone tomorrow,

  • and everyone's going to be asking, "What happened to that?"