Let's talk about The Crew.
A very funny show and a great idea,
because it's set in the world of NASCAR, and,
Yeah,
it really, which is a hugely popular part
of America, you know, and Americana.
And um, so it seemed to me like it was a good decision
to set it there and your character,
it feels like this gives you an impression
to kind of, try different things.
You know what I mean?
Like you've been working a couple of impressions
in there every now and then.
Oh yeah,
this is, I'm not great at impressions,
but one of my coworkers did a, so I had to pull out
a De Niro impression right away,
because just the face.
(Conan laughs)
It was just one of those, it's not good.
No.
Yeah, I'm not good at impressions.
I don't have, do you have impressions?
I don't do, I mean, I do cartoony impressions
over the years of certain people,
like for years I would do Schwarzenegger
years and years ago,
and then I realized it's basically a dictator ranting
and it sounds like he has sausage in his mouth.
But do you do any of your friends?
Cause I know you and Ray Romano were tight
and everybody...
I used to do Ray, Raaaay!
(Conan laughs)
I used to do Ray when he was nose breathing. Hey, hey!
You know, come on!
You know that was always that one.
Then everybody started doing Ray so I went away from that.
I had a little bit of a Rocky for awhile,
Rocky Balboa?
Rocky Balboa which everybody had just at my own,
you know, (mumbling) it was all that stuff.
Right.
But what I like is I have a Mickey. Hey you!
Yeah, Mickey.
No everyone does Rocky, no one does Mickey.
Yeah, Let me try to do a Mickey okay?
(does Burgess Meredith impersonation)
I don't know what he's saying,
but that's basically my Mickey.
And that's it.
You have to yeah, between him and Stallone,
you need subtitles to know what's going on.
That's very good.
(does Burgess Meredith impersonation)
That's very good, the thing I don't,
do a Ray Romano impression
but the thing I've noticed about him is
that for a guy who's had so much success in his life
it hasn't changed him at all.
And he's just, and he's always just kind of ahh.
Yeah.
And I don't know and every time I see him,
I'm like, Ray it's good to see you.
(whiny) It's so, ah, it's a sunny day.
(whiny) Ah it could rain soon.
That's like, I don't know.
Pessimistic, yeah, personified.
Yeah. He's, he's amazing.
You can't, you won't get to talk very much
into a conversation, you won't get deep into it without him
bringing up a skin tag or just something bad in his life
that's gone awry.
Yeah.
You know, alright, things are good right?
I mean you're doing alright?
(whiny) Yeah, but c'mon, you know, it's like you know.
How many years could I have left, ah?
So you play in The Crew.
You're the crew chief of this NASCAR racing team.
So, and what's, again
what's nice is it's a good ensemble piece
because it's it works into the show very nicely
that there's a bunch of people you have
to work with.
And so you get these great characters involved.
And I would imagine also you get, you get to
have some real NASCAR personalities come in.
Without a doubt, yeah we've had Ryan Blaney
and Cole Custer and these guys are great.
They're great actors to which, which annoyed me.
Honestly, they were very funny when they came
on the set, that's the one of the benefits of being,
having NASCAR behind you.
You know, so you're not doing Shmashkar,
you know where you're kind of making up this world.
They give you everything.
They give you cars and we've had the drivers and all that.
But the key to it is man is the cast of this one for me,
because I mean, I've done domestic comedies before
and this is a workplace comedy,
which is different from me but the ball man,
you can dish the ball to them.
And they're just fantastic.
They're just so great, they're young, good, funny.
They really piss me off in a way
because they are so good at like I thought
I'd be the old guy kind of giving them
the tips of a sitcom, how a sitcom works
and all that stuff.
And they're, they're really they're much better
than I ever was.
So it's a pleasure to share.
I can relate to that.
I get really irritated when a really
good looking athletes are also very funny.
Yes.
And I'm like, Blake Griffin, you don't need this.
Yes, yes, you're so good in one area of your life.
And then you do this and I'm like,
Oh, Oh you're really quick and funny.
This is all I ever had a little bit of.
And you know what I mean?
I can't dabble in what you're doing.
It's irritating. That's right.
Well, we have a clip here.
We have a clip here from The Crew
and anything we need to do to set this up?
I'm, I don't, I'm not sure we need anything for it.
No, I don't think I, no.
Not during COVID, we don't do setups during COVID
No, no they were taken away.
(laughs)
That's the thing I want when COVID is over
and we all get vaccinated, I want my setups,
I want set ups to come back.
(both laughing)
All right, let's take a look at this clip
from The Crew.
All right here you go.
And our waitress apologizes,
Ryan Blaney grabbed your wings off the Bar
before she picked them up.
What? Son of a bitch Ryan Blaney.
Wha? Did he just flip me off?
I think so, that's a weird way to lick your fingers.
(audience laughs)
Hey, What are you doing?
We figured you had enough wings.
(audience laughs)
We just sat down.
No, we mean like in life.
(audience laughs)
Oh hey Austin, I didn't see you there.
Why don't you hop up on Blaney's shoulders
and come in as one person?
I'm five-eight, that's average height.
If you're standing on your helmet, you are.
That helmet won the Daytona 500.
I just want to have one meal
without you bringing that up, man.
So they, They're funny!
Yeah, and they have sense of humor about themselves too.
They do, they're really good.
And, one quick question, you had, I heard
an audience laughing, so that was probably shot,
just pre-COVID.
Prior.
Are you able to shoot now?
And how do you, how do you work it out?
We shot seven episodes with a live audience,
which was fire, it was great.
And then we had three, we were able to come back
and finish the three without an audience.
So that was brutal,
because of the energy you don't, you know,
you got to keep it up
and you don't realize how much you fall off
without that, live audience, so.
Look, Kevin, you're talking to a guy
who built his career on pity laughs.
And so..
Yes! I need them, I need them bad.
I need them very badly.