Actor Nathan Lane feels it’s about f***king time he was asked to be Conan O’Brien’s friend. Nathan sits down with Conan to discuss his storied career from Broadway to iconic film roles in The Birdcage and The Lion King, honoring actress Linda Lavin in his new series Mid-Century Modern, and being tested for vertigo at the Dizzy Institute. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan.
Chapter 1: Who is Nathan Lane and what is this episode about?
Hi, my name is Nathan Lane, and I feel... It's about fucking time I was asked to be Conan O'Brien's friend.
Fall is here, hear the yell Back to school, ring the bell Brand new shoes, walkin' loose Climb the fence, books and pens I can tell that we are gonna be friends
Chapter 2: How do the hosts and crew interact behind the scenes?
Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Joined here by Sona Movsesian and Matt Gourley. And man, things are getting heated in here because Matt Gourley just made a suggestion. And you said, because we were trying to think of what do we talk about here up front.
Well, let's go back a little further and preface it with that. You always want to have something nailed down that we're going to talk about. And Sona and I are a little bit more, you know, frankly chill. Yeah, exactly.
I guess the difference would be you two are always saying, let's just talk about anything. Because in the podcast world, you can literally just talk about anything. And hey, man, that's what happened, man. We laid out what was happening in the moment, which is nothing. And isn't that great? And everyone gets a podcasty award.
Podcasty.
I come from a different world of thinking about things and planning them and writing them beforehand on such shows as The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live. Boring.
Seven different.
Never heard of them.
Yeah. Anyhoots, my point is I was taking a second to try and think of something and you said. After a long pause.
After a long pause.
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Chapter 3: What was Nathan Lane's memorable moment with Conan's mother?
It's out.
You did say the word. No, it's out.
He's going to take it out.
You are? You're going to take it out. Don't worry, boss. I'll definitely take it out. Just drive and drop it.
All I want to say here is, all I want to say here is, if it's a, I, first of all, I disagree. It's about presentation. I do think there is. Do you think your presentation could be better?
Yes. Let's try it. Can I just say it? Pitch windy the way you think we would. Well, now I'm self-conscious about it. It's okay. You got it. You got this.
Hey, guys, what should we talk about? Do it. You guys just sit over here. The lights are, you know, I feel like I have to lean in to be hurt. You don't. You don't. To be hurt or heard. You don't. Because you do get hurt. You don't. It's a microphone. Psychologically being back here, don't you think, Eduardo? I've been back there. It's true. Eduardo, back me up.
Don't you think we have to lean in to be part of the conversation? Is that not true?
Eduardo never yelled.
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Chapter 4: How does Nathan Lane describe his childhood and family background?
I think we should make you two medals of valor for those that you get to wear.
It didn't affect you at all. Anyone else would be in the hospital for the rest of their lives if both of those stars had told them to shut the fuck up. That's right.
This is a really... Can we please put on the rap light, for God's sakes?
We put the rap light on like... Are we going to talk about the wind? Shut the fuck up, Sona! Shut the fuck up, Sona!
Thank you.
I'm going to start by saying there's a moment that I had with you that is very important to me. And you're not going to be aware of this, but it meant the world to me. And you've done very many nice things for me over the years, including doing this amazing thing on our final late night show, which was fantastic. You are what the Irish call a mensch. But you...
Just before we started the podcast, you very sweetly came over and you offered your condolences about my parents passing away last month. And it reminded me of this very special moment in my life when my mother came to town. She didn't come to New York often. She was, you know, pretty much stayed in Boston, but she came to town.
And the biggest thing to do at that time in New York, it was the biggest thing in the world was go and see the producers. And I told my mother, I'm gonna take you to the producers. And my mother couldn't believe it because even in Boston, they knew that this was a huge deal. So we went and we saw the producers.
And one of my favorite memories of that night is we saw the producers and my mother was not a, you know, she was from central Massachusetts. She mostly stayed in Boston. She didn't go see Broadway shows. She's now seeing the biggest thing in the history of Broadway. It's you, it's the whole full original cast, Matthew Broderick.
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Chapter 5: What inspired Nathan Lane to pursue a career in theater?
And I always kind of sense that when I would hang with you, like, oh, I think Nathan and I have, there's a kinship here. Sure. I know you had a, there was alcoholism in your family. I know this is a dark thing to bring up. It's funny because there was, there was in my family, because we had, there had been alcoholism throughout the family tree. My parents, I grew up in a dry house. Oh.
which is the thing you see in some Irish culture, which is they're so afraid of it that you can't even have a rum cake in the house. Like there was nothing, there was no, you couldn't. So I grew up kind of being told that it will kill you if you get near it. And it was the way people talk about like fentanyl now, That was how wine was treated when I was growing up. It just wasn't in the house.
And then if company came over, my dad had a little like rusty key and we would open up a little cabinet and take out what must have been the shittiest bottle of wine in the world that he had just capped the last time someone had had a glass, didn't know how to store it, blew dust off of it and gave someone, you know, basically vinegar. There was a lot of ways where I feel maybe we would relate.
Yes, as Irishmen, sure. The dark humor and self-deprecating. And also something that I, Samuel Beckett vibe, we bring to every party.
You said, I love this quote, I was reading an interview with you and you said that you felt like you grew up in a bad Eugene O'Neill play. And then later you revised that, but why don't you elaborate on that?
Oh, well, it was, you know, my father was an alcoholic, became an alcoholic. Really, I was born, my mother had me when she was 40. And not long after, he started drinking really heavily and essentially drank himself to death. And my mother then sort of had a kind of breakdown after his death and her own mother's death. And she... eventually was diagnosed as bipolar.
Then it was called manic depression. It was a difficult childhood in that I had to grow up fast. I sort of became the adult. My two older brothers were going to college. They were sort of on the way out, although they were very much involved. And
But when I was going to high school, it was just my mother and myself, and she was going through these phases of depression and manic behavior and in and out of mental hospitals. And I never really had much of a relationship with my father. He died when I was 11. I can remember saying to my brother, my oldest brother, Dan, You know, we were going to the funeral, and I said, I was upset.
And I said to him, I said, I can't cry. I'm supposed to be crying now. My father died, and I can't cry. He said, that's all right. He said, you feel how you feel, and that's not important. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: How does Nathan Lane continue to experience the thrill of live performance?
Chapter 7: What challenges has Nathan Lane faced with balancing career and personal life?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is... And he was not the healthiest guy in the world himself. Yeah, you know, yeah, he was, well, you know, he was a teacher. And he certainly, and he was my oldest brother who got me interested in the theater and reading. And, you know, he became sort of a father figure.
There's this thing that happens, I think it's true of a lot of performers, where they take whatever they've been given, and then they realize, my experience was I just went down a checklist when I was a kid. And mostly it was things I wasn't good at, you know? I mean, literally. I mean, I remember doing like a mental rundown of, well, it's not going to be anything in the athletic field.
I think that's quite clear. It's not going to be, I'm not really a ladies' man. Me too. Yeah. So I just keep clicking things off. And you figure out what weapon you have in your toolbox. And you must have figured out at a... And you find your group.
Yes, you find your... You know, you have to find the person who laughs at your jokes and gets it. And gets what you're talking about.
I'm still looking. It's a quest. An epic quest. Yeah. But when... So you figure out... Probably, what is it, high school? You realize, like, I like to get up there. I like to be in front of people.
I think, you know, honestly, I can remember as a child, like, doing, they would say, I would get up and do impressions. I would try to entertain the family. And I had, like, a bad club act. And then I was in a, you know, a grammar school play. I remember getting a laugh in that and thinking, oh, this was like blood to a vampire. Yes, yeah.
And then...
And then in high school, I started to do plays and it was social. It was finding your people. But it was just I didn't I didn't think it could be a profession. Right. Nor did I. And and then nearing the end of high school, I realized maybe I could. My brother would also not only encouraged me, but he took me to see theater in New York to see theater. plays on Broadway and off Broadway.
And sometimes with classes that he was teaching, he would take a class and I would go with him. And I would, you know, that first experience of watching the curtain go up and the lights on the stage and thinking, I'd like to be a part of that. I think maybe I could do that. Yeah. And the excitement of just the ritual of it all.
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