I'm curious about something.
You've done a lot of movie work,
but are you mostly recognized as Newman?
Do most people see you that way?
Yes, I'm afraid...
But that's good. You know, there's nothing wrong with it.
It's just that
I am now kind of cornering the market
on schleps and weasels.
(Conan chuckles)
I either play a dumb schlep or a nasty weasel,
or sometimes a nasty schlep or a dumb weasel.
(giggling) It's your specialty.
But there's a perk with this though, I would think.
You're becoming quite hot.
These films you've been in are successful.
Seinfeld, of course, successful.
People have a lot of fun with your character.
You must get invited to really cool celebrity events now.
Oh, hell yeah.
Just the other... (Conan laughing)
Just the other night I was,
you know, they were opening that big Warner Brothers store,
you know, and I'm in space jam,
so they invited me over to observe the merchandise,
which, you know, there's a lot of.
And so, you know, they have the red carpet,
and the paparazzi,
and they've got like bleachers on the other side
with people going (yells excitedly) to Michael.
Nobody did that to me, but.
Just cricket noises
when you came past. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I go in there, you know,
and we go down the carpet and people want the autographs,
and we're all kind of hobnobbing together
and sipping little beverages
and having a little hotdogs or whatever.
And there's Patrick Stewart and he's uh...
[Conan] From Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Yes. And of course other work.
And many other things from long ago and far beyond.
So I'm standing there with two of the animators
and he comes over and we're chatting,
and I'm feeling very (laughs confidently),
and he looks at me and says,
"Are you one of the animators?"
I said, "No, I- I'm an actor."
"Oh, really?"
And looked at me somewhat doubtfully.
I said, "No, I'm on, you know,
I'm on Seinfeld a lot."
He says, "That's odd. That's my favorite show."
(audience laughs) [Conan] What?
"And yet I don't recognize you."
(Conan laughing)
God.
But still you got invited.
You got to see the merchandise, which was fun.
Yeah, it was really nice stuff.
Yeah.
Which you're not allowed to touch.
Yeah. No.
Space Jam. Tell us about that.
This thing is a huge success.
Was it fun being in this movie?
Well, you know, it's kind of like being in your room.
I mean you're alone,
and there's a bunch of people wearing green stuff,
and it's a big green stage.
Oh technically, you mean.
They have to kind of...
Of course the animated stuff is done later.
So you're acting to almost-
you're acting to no one.
Acting to no one. Yeah.
And uh, that's kinda nice. (laughs)
I've been in some, you know...
Did you like actually...
You're working with all these great athletes
in the movie too.
Did you like doing that?
Well it was...
You know, I did this one scene
where I look up and there's Michael
and Patrick Ewing,
and you know,
Shawn Bradley, and Larry Johnson,
and Charles Barkley, and Muggsy Bogues,
and I'm thinking,
"What is wrong with this picture?"
(Conan laughing)
Where's Waldo? You know what I mean?
Oh. No way.
I looked like one of those little yogurt raisins.
You know I'm just kind of standing there.
Did you...
I know that, you know, things are going well for you now,
but when you were first getting started in your career,
you did some Broadway work,
which actually, you were working on a show where it was,
it was a little tough to get people into the seats,
wasn't it? Well I mean,
I did the show Gemini for three years.
So, you know, in the beginning
it was a small house.
You're filling the house and you're feeling great.
And then as time goes on, it begins to thin out, you know?
So they were using...
You see the bus and tunnel crowd come in.
You know, when people talk back to the stage,
and people getting up to get a drink
in the middle of the act, you know.
And one night we're doing the scene
where we're having dinner,
we have this big scene
where everybody has this spaghetti dinner,
and they serve out of this big spaghetti bowl, and...
There's a woman in the front row and she yells out,
"Do you want a piece of cheese?"
That's the oddest heckle I've ever heard.
Yeah it was kind of strange.
And so we were, we kind of...
The first time you just kind of get a little flinch
and you kind of take a light peek and you go on.
And she came down to the edge of the stage
with a bag and said,
"Do you want a piece of cheese?"
And the guy playing the father looked at her,
and he's giving her one of those,
"Get the hell outta here lady," looks, you know?
and she didn't kind of take to it,
and said, "Here! Here have a piece of cheese."
And she reaches in her bag,
grabs a piece of cheese,
and hurls it on the stage.
It lands in the spaghetti bowl,
and the audience just goes (mocks cheers), you know?
[Conan] They loved it! They loved it.
They thought it was like part of the festival, you know?
The critic wrote,
"This show has been reworked beautifully!"
"We love the cheese!"
"Live interaction with real cheese!"
"Four stars out of four." (audio technical difficulty)
Whoa. Hey! What the hell was that?
What the ding dong heck?
Big piece of cheese! Is everybody okay?
(Wayne laughing)
Okay. All right. The cheese lady!
Yeah someone threw cheese.
Cheese! Cheese!
But the stage manager went out to her, you know,
after the show, or at the intermission,
and said, "Please, you know, leave the actors alone.
Don't interfere with them."
She said, "Was I interfering?"
He said, "Yeah. You know, I think throwing
a piece of cheese on stage
outta count that as minor interference."
That qualifies. Yeah.
She says, "Ah, I'm sorry."
It turned out that the first eight rows of the house
were supplied from a mental hospital.
Oh my god.
Well it was, you know, it was either that or...
One night you looked out
and there's just all sailor's uniforms.
So you get a kind of idea that something's going on,
you know. (Conan laughing)
A ship just pulled in to town.
"What do we go see?"
"Let's go see that Broadway show.
I hear they throw cheese around."
That's right.
It's great. Free cheese.
Let me make sure I mention this.
Space Jam is, of course,
out there in theaters now everywhere.
Seinfeld, like I need to plug this,
but Thursdays at 9:00 on NBC.
All right, Wayne thanks so much for coming on Thanksgiving.
(audience cheers) My pleasure.
Above and beyond the call of duty.
Thank you very much.
Wayne Knight everybody.
We'll take a break.
We'll be right back.