Conan O'Brien has been hosting late-night talk shows for 25 years. And in that time, he's had some challenging guests — but no one as difficult as this star.
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In a new interview, Conan reveals his worst guest ever: director Abel Ferrara.
Conan recounted the drama in a late-November chat with Dax Shepard on the actor's "Armchair Expert" podcast, as reported by TooFab. Conan explained that though the 1996 onscreen interview with the famed director of "Bad Lieutenant," "The Funeral," "Dangerous Games" and "King of New York" was a mess, the shenanigans behind the scenes were even worse!
"He's a wild eccentric," Conan said of Abel. "And he fled, during the show, before his segment. He ran away, got into the elevator, and was out on the street when [my producer] gave chase."
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The director was literally forced back into the studio to finish, which is why Conan described the segment as "compellevision" in his chat with Dax. "He came on camera against his will," Conan said of Abel. "And then he came out and I think started yelling at me."
Video of the segment, which is on YouTube, is also pretty painful yet Conan still manages to make it funny. It shows Abel come out smoking a cigarette. Restless and disinterested, he appears uncomfortable in his chair and mumbles in his Bronx accent as Conan starts the interview. Realizing early on that things aren't going well, Conan jokes to the camera, "We're gonna get those Stallone subtitles in here."
When Conan asks Abel about rumors that Madonna was "difficult" when he directed her in "Dangerous Game," he said, "Nah, she was a cup of tea," adding that "she kept wanting me to beat up [Harvey] Keitel, that was her thing." He then continued to rub his face and squint and it only went downhill from there as they discussed Harvey's nudity in "Bad Lieutenant" and more.
Conan also joked, TooFab writes, that he thought Abel "was drunk, and that if he wasn't, he should have been."