of course our guest tonight is a grammy
award-winning
uh founding member of the legendary
wu-tang clan
now he's starring in two great shows two
the star series power book two ghost and
teenage
bounty hunter very busy uh those are on
netflix please welcome to the show
method man
i want to have you it's an honor to have
you here really is thank you for doing
it
thank you for having me conan i
appreciate it been a watching of your
show
for years man you're a genius very quick
i don't know about that but coming from
you that's uh i have a lot of respect so
thank you very much
i'm going to go right home to my kids
until the method man called me a genius
absolutely um first of all let's talk
you are in
where are you right now i'm at home i'm
at home in staten island new york
corn island okay you know i like the
idea of during a quarantine being on an
island staten island sounds pretty safe
well um yeah you know what when the
whole breakout happened i think we had
the lowest number of cases so
staten island did you know we did pretty
well during this year
that's great and you're not going are
you going stir crazy during quarantine
or are you able to stay kind of sane no
i like to think of myself as an
extroverted introvert
more more on the introverted side so
this was a like
this was vacationing for me i'm good in
the house you're good you're good just
you're just good hanging around what do
you do like
what does method man do when he's stuck
in the house and he has
nothing to do during quarantine what's
your go-to move
quad um crossword puzzles yes
um that's me too i do a lot of those
keep you
to keep you you know what i mean and i
also do actual puzzles
white mountain plug plug plug white
mountain puzzles
it's a a website you go on and it has
all these different puzzles you could
put together
uh retro 80s puzzles uh you know just
regular puzzles but they're they're fun
that's cool
that's great uh i just said that was
cool i'm not sure it's cool
i'm really not sure i have no idea the
fact that you're doing it makes it cool
so try it out try it out it's pretty i
think if i
if i think if i started telling people
yeah i'm doing a lot of puzzles during
quarantine
i'd take some for it but you're not
going to take any for it i doubt if
i do i i plus i can fight so
you know oh and i can't
okay all right uh all right now i wanna
have a question for you
which is i've got kids and i can never
convince them that anything i do is cool
that's gotta be different for you
right it's got to be different you know
what um in the beginning
when they were younger because my son's
first words were
my first son that's fantastic right but
as they got older and you know we're
living in this millennial era now and
they're more
uh they need to have it now instant
gratification
i don't think they think i'm as cool as
i used to be so now i have to remind
them like you know
i people love me all over the world i'm
pretty famous you know what i mean it's
like you guys have no idea like
y'all should respect me you should be
bowing at my
feet right now yeah that is a big deal
but you know what it doesn't work that
way it doesn't have nah
nah not at all to them you're just dead
you know dads are never cool
past a certain point but what about
let's say you're walking down the street
back when we could all walk down the
street and you see someone walk by
wearing a wu-tang clan t-shirt because
those are everywhere and
the the the logos everywhere
do they get do they get do they give you
the respect then
you know what that's funny that you
brought that up because
i recently passed somebody on the street
with a wu-tang t-shirt on
i mean like passed right by them and
they didn't speak to me
what they had no idea i was mean but i
get it
i get it because i could be wearing i
don't know a judas priest shirt
only person i know from judas priest is
the lead singer
if i saw him i could pick him out of the
lineup the drummer the bass guitarist
the guitarist
they could be standing right next to me
i wouldn't even know and i'd have that
t-shirt on
yeah that's happened to me i've passed
people
on the street that are wearing a conan
t-shirt and they stop me and they say
excuse me ma'am do you know where the
coffee shop is
so i've i've been there
most people think i'm an older french
woman they just have no idea
but you know what i gotta say you have
you have such great
first of all method man such a fantastic
name such a great name and you consider
that your stage name
yes but do people in real life
when you go to the bank and you say yeah
i want to get
i want to you know do this transaction
do they say yes
method man is that what they say i want
i want that to be true
i want that i go to a couple of
different branches the the
the really cool branch that i go to
that's in my close to my old
neighborhood they call me method man
very cool girls over there very cool but
the person that i've been going to since
i've opened my account this lady named
laurie at citibank
yeah she'd known me for over 18 years so
she has every right to call me cliff
okay all right she can do that that
she's on the right yes
you've got such great nicknames johnny
blaze
yeah that's one of them italian
that's fantastic you know uh
staten island's finest uh
nichols tell me about hotness okay that
was just a silly name that i came up
with
and uh it was supposed to represent like
hot loaded nickel nine millimeter
bullets
yeah but you see how i went crazy with
it and
it turned into hot nixon because i had
this big nixon thing going on and stuff
and
i just like the way nixon talked he was
crooked as well but i just like the way
he talked i am not a crook
you know what first of all uh you're
that's the first nixon impression
anyone's busted out on this show
in maybe forever that's fantastic and it
was very good
you know what i love there's a wu-tang
name generator
online and you can put your own name
in your real name and then it tells you
what your wu-tang name
would be have you tried it you know what
i did it
i did it and my nickname my wu-tang name
when i put in conan o'brien is
thunderous observer
now that's dope that's good right that's
that's dope
i i like that a lot i like that a lot
myself when i put my name in
it came up method man believe it or not
but then i did it a couple of more times
after that and it was some crazy
throat wizard or some some something
weird like that you know everything is
wizard
i i've read it to a lot of people and
you know they they get wizard at the end
of the name or whatever i guess it's the
smith thing
i don't know i don't know i don't know
all i know is you're talking to
thunderous observer i love that i love
that
it goes with the o'brien thing so you
know yeah i think i could slide right
into wooten
no one would know conan the thunderous
observer
o'brien i mean we might as well put a
microphone in your hand and put you
right on stage
right now yeah yeah and people would
throw
batteries at me
hard they would really whip batteries at
me hard
you know i want to compliment you i saw
this picture of you
uh and it's uh from teenage uh bounty
hunters and
you're in sick shape you must work out
constantly
five times a week uh each day is a
different body part and um
you know i'm learning a lot about myself
i'm learning my limitations if anything
can humble you in this world it's the
gym
please believe that yes what i do
because clearly you and i work out about
the same
hold for laughter
but my question is my question is this
what i do it helps me a lot to listen to
music it motivates me
do you ever listen to your music while
you're working out
yes i do sometimes not too much but i
like to listen to
more of my current stuff i listen to
spotify so
i just let the playlist play so i get a
feel of
what's today what's yesterday and from
the far past
a lot of the music today though i have
to admit i didn't like it at first
because i was more into my 90s stuff
yeah but the more i listened the more i
understood
these kids got something going on man i
i applaud them and i have to applaud
excellence they're doing it
it is i think sometimes it's just
natural
as you go on you're always it's very
easy to get stuck
it's very easy to get stuck in no this
is the way it's the same thing with
comedy
i can think no this is what comedy is
and you've got to keep
watching the new people coming up and
you've got to be paying attention to
what they're doing and still sometimes
i'll think
sometimes no i don't like that but
then there are other so many times when
i think that person's fantastic
you know i mean and we kind of nominate
ourselves
as uh the gatekeepers of the art form
whereas there are no gatekeepers this
thing always changes it always
develops and it always has something new
someone's going to breathe
fresh air into it you just wish it was
you let's talk about power book
2 okay uh ghost you're a lawyer
there's a lawyer in this and and you
were
reluctant at first when you found out
the role was a lawyer
you weren't sure is that right well not
exactly reluctant not exactly
apprehensive
i was taken aback for a second yeah it
was more because you know i'm here in
power and you know i'm a fan of the show
and most of the show
in my eyes is like you know where i
would fit in
dust the guns off go out there smack
somebody around extort money
but the agent told me no no this is the
spin-off and they want you to be a
lawyer
so i thought about it it's like oh yeah
yeah i could do that
i prepared all my life for this i could
be a lawyer
not a problem whatsoever but um i
auditioned and i
um i got the part the funny thing is uh
prior to this years before this during
my acting classes uh
i had to reenact the scene from
philadelphia
and i played the denzel park my scene
partner played the tom hanks part so it
kind of prepared me
for this that's true yeah i mean i would
think to be no better teacher than to
watch denzel
you know playing a lawyer and and okay
this is going to help you
you can you can maybe access some of
that for this role
94 of hollywood has learned or taken
from denzel washington fight me that's a
fact
fight me if you disagree i will fight
you you know what i wasn't gonna fight
you
if you weren't on staten island right
now i would fight you that's the only
thing saving your ass at this point oh
okay
all right well i'm just thank god you're
not in staten island
you look legitimately scared and uh and
you should be
because you don't wanna mess look at
this i see it i see it god look at those
two inch pythons
[Laughter]
you are really fun to talk to i i you
know we got to talk more often you know
i think you need more conan in your life
i really don't think you need more
method no let's not say meth in your
life let's say method man
you need one method man in your life you
know me and dion are cool too i love
that i know yeah that's right
that's right you and deon cole are tight
is that right yeah yes sir yes sir i
don't just post anybody on my instagram
i posted him yeah he is hilarious he's
one of my favorite points
he's absolutely hilarious in a great
spirit and this is why i know that you
guys are comedic
geniuses i mean just to think off the
top of the head sometimes that you do on
your interviews because i watch
you know i i look for a train wreck to
happen brother
and you have yet yet to be on that track
i got some i got some footage i could
send you from the early 90s
you'd see some train wrecks in there
yeah we all start somewhere
that's right brother let me make sure i
get the word out here uh
power book two ghost premieres this
sunday
september 6th at nine on stars
that's right and teenage bounty hunters
is streaming now
on netflix you are killing it as an
actor
music you're conquering it all what's
next um
i don't know emperor of the world maybe
you know what yes
i say yes i say yes and i can be your
you be the emperor of the world i'll be
like your court jester
you know where the bells on the hat and
i'll jump around at your feet
you know what i mean you know and then
you can you can lose your patience with
me and go get
get that head out of here and
they'll just oh my gosh you could be my
kamala harris let's just let's say that
you can be my
camera that's much cooler than what i
that's much cooler than what i put out
there so yeah i'll take it there we go
hey listen method man uh an honor and a
privilege thank you for making time for
me i really appreciate it
anytime i've always got time to pass
some conan in my life
all right let's uh let's do this again
next time in person because we're gonna
get through this virus
and uh and then we'll we'll fight it out
you know and i'll dress up for the
[Laughter]
occasion