Bob Odenkirkapparently managed to pushJeremy Irons' buttons — and he cherishes the memory to this day.
“Rob Schneider and I had written this monologue, and it wasn’t great,” Odenkirk, who wrote for the NBC show between the late 1980s into the 1990s, told Stern. “He was right. He was really mad. He was so mad.”
TheNobodystarwent on to do his best impression of Irons in that particular moment, saying, “I can sing. I can dance. I can juggle. I am a Shakespearean-trained actor. And you have me doing this?!”
Bob Odenkirk (left) and Jeremy Irons.Albert L. Ortega/Getty; Carlos Alvarez/Getty
Little did Irons know, Odenkirk secretly recorded the exchange. “I had a little recorder, and I taped it because I loved it so much,” he said. “And he was right, God bless him. It wasn’t a great monologue, but he’s a trooper.”
“I played it for many people,” Odenkirk added of the recording. “I don’t know where it is now. It’s at the bottom of a bin somewhere. It exists.”
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In 2019, O’Brien opened up about the time Steinbrenner went off on him and Odenkirk over anSNLmonologue he didn’t want to do.
“When you’re dealing with someone who is a civilian [who isn’t used to the show’s format], they don’t know that the monologue is important,“theConanhost, 57, told Sternat the time. “They also don’t know that no one’s thought about it and they’re going to get jerked around all week until the last second. [The non-comedic hosts] assume falsely that these are professionals, they’re going to take care of me.When I was atSaturday Night live, we didn’t take care of people.”
O’Brien said theSNLstaff was “terrified” of the former Yankees' owner, but he and Odenkirk were tasked with sharing a monologue idea that was previously pitched to Steinbrenner. After their initial attempt didn’t go well, the sketch series' creator,Lorne Michaels, made O’Brien and Odenkirk pitch the concept again, resulting in the businessman yelling at them once more.
“Odenkirk and I s— ourselves and disappeared from the room,” he recalled. “We literally went right through the wall like ghosts, and I don’t think we spoke for a week.”
source: people.com
