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?"

Right, right.

"I didn't see you on CW's "The Arrow.""

That's the same reason

that they recommend that you don't tell people

that you're going to have a baby

until the end of the first trimester.

Yes.

Because you might not be having a baby.

It's just because odds are-

Equally sad things, losing a human being and a pilot.

(laughing)

It's right up there together.

In my mind, it's the same.

There is a table read pressure on you now

because essentially every night on "The Conan Show,"

you are the only audience member.

Yeah.

Besides the crew, you're really the only one in the seats.

What is that like?

I mean, does it feel like you're Mark Ruffalo's character

in "Shutter Island,"

where you're just helping this man process that

you have a TV show,

(laughing)

Whatever trauma you can process.

I mean, no, honestly, this has just been so

from starting in quarantine

for months and months and months,

and then doing the show from home,

and it being completely strange,

and getting an email, and then shooting a bit myself,

getting my own props.

And I always did it immediately when I got the email

because I had nothing else to do.

Yeah.

And I'd do the bit and send it off,

and then I'd sit there and wait for the next email

where somebody thought of a bit for me to do.

So coming here was like, "Oh, God, I get out of the house."

Honestly, one of the best things about doing this

is that you're around funny people

and that you get to spend lots of time with funny people.

And in fact, in your personal life

you can spend all so much of your day with funny people

and then you go home and you're used up all your funny

and the people in your house are like,

"Hey, where's the funny guy?"

And you're like, "Oh, man, I'm tired of being funny.

(laughing) "Leave me alone."

Yeah, it is hard to talk to...

People that are not in comedy are the same way.

Yeah.

'Cause I think people in comedy

say the meanest things to each other.

Absolutely.

The way that we get to be funny around here is mostly mean.

And I mean, it's the kind of mean

that comes from a group of people that are safe,

that feel safe with each other.

So you can really (laughing) you can be a jerk.

And it can be so much fun, and there's such funny stuff,

and it's all stuff

that could never be on television just because-

It is all cancelable material.

Yes, it's all either awful, awful, dark things

or it's about somebody that could sue.

I mean, it's just-

Yeah.

It's truly one of my favorite things

about doing this for a living.

And it's people that are paid to be funny.

They're funny. (laughing)

Yeah, which makes the roasting hurt extra hard.

Yeah.

They've trained at this, they've been rewarded for it.

Even from when you're a baby, comedy baby,

you are making fun of each other.

Yeah.

You are teasing each other.

I mean, at times it can be a bit much,

and it can be more of a young person's game

because you just get older and you're like,