Stephen Colbert and Conan O’Brien have put forth—with a surprising amount of detail—their shared Christmas wish to form two-thirds of a Hallmark movie love triangle.
Midway through Montclair Film’s “An Evening With Conan O’Brien and Stephen Colbert,” which was held Sunday at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, N.J., the late-night vets got to comparing their acting bona fides. O’Brien, Colbert noted, currently can be seen playing a (serious) therapist in the acclaimed film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, while Colbert has done much voice work as well as played characters on TV shows such as The Mindy Project and a recent Elsbeth.
But what the gents most want to do, they professed on Sunday evening, is co-star in a Hallmark Christmas flick.
“Stephen and I agree to be in one, but we don’t touch the script,” O’Brien said.
To hear them detail it: Colbert’s character, the owner of a candy cane factory that is at risk of being closed down, would draw the eye of a woman who has returned to their shared hometown. O’Brien would play brother to Colbert, and the woman’s current love interest.
“I’m the guy who’s more careerist… who sees all the angles,” O’Brien explained, before Colbert nudged him to explore a dark, “Joker”-like underpinning to the character. Taking that cue, O’Brien suggested that his character had been involved in an accident at the candy cane factory (“A machine pulled me and stretched me” and left him with red hair and “bad skin”), and “that’s why I want to sell the factory.”
“And I want to save it,” Colbert jumped in, “because it’s our dad’s dream.”
As if they didn’t already have buy-in from their event’s sold-out audience, O’Brien shamelessly added that if the movie somehow comes to fruition, “We’ll shoot it here!” in New Jersey, triggering thunderous applause and cheers.
Reached for comment, a Hallmark spokesperson told LateNighter that no such pitch has come their way, and reminded that the cabler cannot accept unsolicited story ideas unless submitted through an agent.
Colbert very recently riffed on the holiday movie phenomenon by opening a December 4 Late Show segment quipping, “We’re getting enough Christmas movies to last till Purim,” then noting that more than 80 new holiday films are rolling out this season across Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, and other networks.
After listing a series of actual holiday movie titles like A Royal Christmas Manor, A Royal Christmas Hope, and A Royal Montana Christmas, Colbert argued that the movies give viewers false hope that they’ll “bump into some prince at their job.” The actual Prince Harry then walked on-stage, saying, “Excuse me. Stephen?”
“Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales-Sussex!” Colbert announced.
Harry leaned into the bit, claiming he thought he was at “the audition for The Gingerbread Prince Saves Christmas in Nebraska.”
