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Flames. Yeah.
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Smoking flames on the side of my head. Burning.
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Hey, what's going on everybody?
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From First We Feast, I'm Sean Evans and you're watching Hot Ones.
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It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings.
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And today we close out another season with Neil Patrick Harris.
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He's an Emmy Award-winning actor who for decades has entertained audiences on everything from acclaimed sitcoms to Broadway stages.
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Subscribe to his Wonder Cade newsletter for weekly odds and ends from the mind of MPH and finally he also stars in a brand new comedy series on Netflix.
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It's called Uncoupled and it's streaming now.
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Neil Patrick Harris, welcome to the show. It's my great pleasure.
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I know that you're a product of New Mexico.
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How are you around spicy food?
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I know that you're partial to hatch chilies.
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Partial to hatch green chilies, love a good red sauce, enchiladas, jalapenos, nachos is my jam.
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Not not so much like go for the hot sauce on top of eggs kind of person.
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I like a good wing, so yeah, I'm excited. I'm nervous.
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You ready to get started?
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have a weak digestive system. Oh, right, right, right.
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So I'm not worried about this part.
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I'm worried about like 2 hours from now. Yeah, yeah. When I'm [ __ ] liquid. Mmm. That's good.
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Am I supposed to have it with just a single bite or go for the whole thing? What's your plan?
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So I kind of ride with wherever the guest takes it. I mirror the guest. improv game. Mhm.
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So where if I do things like this then you're going to match me. All the way through.
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You grab a milk, you grab a water, I'm on it. I'm on it just the same. a white suit for this.
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So in the new Netflix series Uncoupled, you play the role of a New York City real estate agent who's agonizing his way through a heartbreak after being dumped unceremoniously by his partner of 17 years.
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How do you think about blending comedy and tragedy?
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Because even though the show has very painful themes, I found it to be a comfort watching experience.
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The tonal element was the trickiest part for me.
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Like it was the thing I was worried about most.
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But it's a Darren Star show.
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So it's got a definite Sex in the City, Emily in Paris kind of vibe to it.
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But a breakup show seems fairly relatable and fairly universal.
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My character in it gets dumped, and he thinks everything's fine.
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It's not like they're in a bad relationship, and then it ends.
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So it's really rug pulled out from underneath you.
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And so I think the tonal shifts of draw of of comedy and then all of a sudden something dramatic happens is kind of how life works.
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And also makes the drama makes the emotion play hit harder in in many ways, right?
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Because you're not expecting it. Mhm. Mhm, that's good.
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That's got some pineapple vibe. Mhm, a tropical vibe.
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It's actually out of Hawaii. Nice. Yeah. Mahalo. Mahalo.
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So you perform magic for iconic late night hosts including Johnny Carson, Craig Ferguson, and David Letterman. Yeah.
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Who would you say is the most criminally underrated magician of all time?
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Cuz it's interesting to me that Harry Houdini is a household name, but then Howard Thurston isn't. Mhm.
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Yeah, that's a good call. Of all time.
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There's a guy named Baltiere De Kolta who created all kinds of illusions.
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And a lot of the David Copperfields and the big illusionists use these principles of table bases and black art and stuff and I just thought Takolta was super cool.
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He had one a trick called the Takolta chair. And they still do it.
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I think they still do it in The Phantom of the Opera.
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On the big Broadway where the person sits in a chair and covers themselves with a cloth and then you whip the cloth off, you can see the form of the person underneath and when you whip the cloth off the they're gone.
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And it's a whole like gimmicked situation obs.
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And um I always thought that that was super cool. That's clean, okay. From Oaxaca? I've been to Oaxaca.
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Oh, well maybe this will take you back. My gosh.
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Okay, that's good and spicy.
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Yeah, this one's a step up. Yeah, for sure. But it's okay. It's like a mole spice. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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It doesn't feel like a holy [ __ ] [ __ ] spice. You know, like a joke. Like Right.
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Well, we've got some dorm room pranks.
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You've got some dorm room pranks here in Donny Manor. that's on its way. Mhm, my tongue's good. There we go.
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I've heard you describe yourself as a technical actor in a recent New York Times profile, a craftsman, not a psychologist.
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Maybe this is morbid, but how would you break down the mechanics of dying on camera?
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Like for that death scene in Gone Girl.
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That was intentionally broken down by David for me for that very reason because it it was something that you can't really rehearse too much Mhm.
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because we would film everything right up until right up to the the wet work as he called it.
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And so we did all of that, but then once it happened he would really wanted to make sure it felt real and you don't really know you can't really pull from resources about what it what you'd look like when your throat was slit, right? Mhm.
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David imagined that with a sharp knife getting your throat slit would you wouldn't feel any pain.
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So, he want he would he would make me would make me show him what it would look like because it was also mid-orgasm. Complicated there.
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it was I'm about to I'm a uh uh uh uh and then it was this very gruesome intentionally gruesome feeling of calm of like confusion of what's why is everything warm? Mhm.
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And then oh, why is it red?
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And then what then you start blacking out cuz all of the blood that's going to your brain is now going out your neck.
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So, yeah, it was it was super technical.
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Fun fact, did you know that you're the second ever Oscars host to die in a film that was nominated at the ceremony that you're hosting? Who was the first? Robert Shaw, Jaws. Wow.
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I wouldn't think Robert Shaw would be thought of as like the the funniest choice for an Oscar host. That's interesting call. Yeah.
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But carrying on the legacy? he had a great death. He had a great death. You had a great death. Oh, thanks.
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And the Oscars talk, it's a lovely segue to the next wing.
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Are you ready to move on? Death segue? Okay, here we go.
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This is Los Calientes Verde here on the fourth spot. Okay.
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I learned you're supposed to take one of these out and suck on the other one, but now I'm worried I should take Yeah, speaking of mechanics, you got good wing eating mechanics. Yum.
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Okay, that I can see why now cuz that's like a lingering warm heat.
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Sometimes they build, sometimes they have a little bit of time delayed to them.
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And then a little bit of a cumulative effect here now that we're on four. Oh, that's true.
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It's all now sitting on Coming.
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The walls are closing in over here. them warm. Getting warm.
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So, between secret numbers with Hugh Jackman and raps written on the fly with Lin-Manuel Miranda, what would you say is the closest you've ever flown to the sun while hosting an award show? Oh, man.
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We had done the Tony Awards at a smaller theater, and then we got to go back to Radio City.
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And so, that was the perfect structural conceit for an opening number.
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Let's make the biggest number we can possibly come up with. We'll call it bigger.
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And we'll just have as many people from as many shows, we'll kitchen sink it.
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And so, we got Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt to write this number called Bigger.
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Start small, and it just expanded and expanded, and so many things could have gone really wrong.
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And did at the dress rehearsal that morning, did when we were doing the like the tech rehearsal the day before, did when we got all the casts together, and for some reason it all just went impeccably well.
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It's like fun to watch again.
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It still gives me like goosebumps.
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It was one of the great 6 minutes of my life.
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What's one thing that the fancy pants primetime Emmys could learn from the people who put together Spike TV's 2010 Video Game Awards?
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Well, the video game Well, they did a weird thing with this Video Game Awards that I did. Let me know.
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It was the first year they had tried to do like augmented reality, so that the audience at home was seeing something different than what the audience there was seeing.
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Meaning that there'd be this big wide-open stage, and it would look like the stage like collapsed or appeared or turned into boxes and stuff.
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So, at home it looked great.
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In the live audience that was sitting there, they had to act like, you know, things were happening when nothing was happening, which I thought I felt bad for all of the people who were nominated because there was a very boring show for them. The Seventh Reaper. The Seventh Reaper.
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That's more of a like a Texas smokehouse kind of Yeah, very smoky.
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Like baked like beans, like beans in a can.
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Beans over a fireplace, you know?
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Yeah, and I think like three it's kind of another noticeable step up from the other ones.
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It's making my hands shake a little bit. Yeah.
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It'll be It'll be a party over here by the end of this. Wow.
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Yeah, man, it gets warmer and warmer the longer you wait. That's the show.
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I thought that when you swallowed it would be done.
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No, no, yeah, that would just shake clean like an Etch-A-Sketch. It doesn't. No, it doesn't. it's a lot.
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It gets a little bit worse, actually. Okay.
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Is it true that Paul Verhoeven would chase you guys around with brooms and scream, "I'm a [ __ ] bug" through a megaphone while shooting the battle scenes for Starship Troopers? 100% true.
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Paul was such a cool director, but he he knew what his strengths were.
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And he knew and and he if he didn't have a strength in it, he would absolve himself from it.
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So, he didn't know like the CG stuff.
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There was a guy named Phil Tippett who was really famous who did all of the bugs and the CG.
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It was one of the first big CG bug movies.
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Now there's a lot of them.
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And so, yeah, he would just say, "Look up there. Look in the corner.
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RIGHT IT'S THE BUGS, the bugs."
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I wasn't in most of those scenes cuz I just came marching in at the end of the battles Yeah. and said, "Carry on. Everything's fine here. Bum ba dum ba dum."
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Um Paul also didn't know comedy.
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He didn't care about comedy at all cuz I remember asking him like, Paul, is it funnier if I say it this way or if I say it this way?
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He said, "I don't know American comedy.
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Just say whatever you think is funniest." Thanks, director.
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Are you ready to move on here to the back half? If I had a nickel. Yes. Hot and saucy. Hot and saucy. Collards and ghost. Okay.
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This one is a different color Yeah. than the others.
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We're getting into like a darker, peppery situation.
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Sir, I heard you say something that I really relate to, which is respect for audience has been the North Star throughout your career.
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How did you see that philosophy playing out doing a long-running celebrated sitcom like How I Met Your Mother?
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Too often content plays down to the to the people who are observing it.
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The very people that you're having watch, you're you're sort of treating them as if you need to like keep focusing them.
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And maybe you do, but I just don't I don't like when I'm watching a show and they say, "Coming up."
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And then they start to show like RuPaul's Drag Race. Love the show.
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And then I'm I'm watching the show. "Coming up."
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And they start showing I'm like, "No, stop it.
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I'm about I'm watching the show."
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They're showing me that they're about to show me the best part. I'm not going anywhere. I'm watching the show.
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So, I think you have to respect the audience as much as possible.
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How I Met Your Mother did it.
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Carter and Craig are our creators valued the storytelling conceit of flashing forward, I think appreciating inside jokes, trusting that an audience that's watching season 5 will still pick up a bit that was a callback from season 2, those kind of things. My lips are stinging. Yeah.
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So, this next one is Tyrfing's Curse. That doesn't sound good.
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That doesn't sound promising. I agree with you 100%. Tyrfing.
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I like that it's spelled t y r and not t e a r, although we'll find out soon.
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This is yellowish in color. Has anyone vomited? Wow. That's spicy. It's really tasty.
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Yeah, I could I That's what I was just about to say.
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Like you're like it's hot, but you're you're enjoying it. kind of the jalapeno. Wow, that's really hot.
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But it's like the jalapeno hot, which I laugh at sometimes cuz I'll get eat real hot jalapeno and then I'll just want to have like another bite of jalapeno. Yeah.
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addictive thing with Wow, that's so hot though.
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Yeah, but you I like when I end up in that sort of culinary space where it's like really spicy, but so delicious. Yeah.
14:23
That becomes this labor of love, you know, this dance that I'm having with my meal. Wow.
14:27
Okay, so now do you have something like this in your refrigerator right now? That do this spicy?
14:34
When I'm off the clock when I'm off the clock, I'm a lot of a lot of juice, a lot of salads, a lot of cereal, you know.
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But you won't come You won't compliment your eggs with something super crazy hot, right?
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Not when I'm off the clock. Not when Yeah. Yeah.
14:50
No, they got to bring the cameras for that.
14:52
That is That is like hot.
14:55
So, I really enjoyed your appearance on the Woodworking Talk Show with Steve Ramsey.
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What so far has been the crowning achievement The crowning design achievement of your garage workshop?
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So, I literally just did the first Steve Ramsey Weekend Woodworker project called the BMW. Oh, hell yeah.
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The Basic Mobile Workstation.
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Made out of one sheet of plywood, two 2 by 4s, and one 1 by 4.
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And I I was so emasculated by the experience.
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It was so traumatizing and challenging, and I appreciate woodworkers on a whole different level.
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Cuz I you know, you have to work through it. Mhm.
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Everything was like a little off and wobbly. It was so frustrating. But I did it. I finished it.
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And I'm actually quite proud of it.
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I talked so long there just to kind of calm my my core strength.
15:49
Well, not long enough because you gave me just that little lull to jump in.
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So this is the bomb beyond insanity.
15:58
Is there a a particular corner I should grab?
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There's no place to hide. Oh, but okay. Well, I don't want to. All right. Wow.
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Like it tastes like poison. Oof. Yeah.
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I don't want to swallow it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.
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I keep chewing hoping that it'll go away. There's nowhere to hide. Wow. Wow.
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Yeah, that's that's freaky. Freakishly hot. Freakishly hot. Flames. Yeah.
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Smoking flames on the side of my head. Burning.
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It's from Clue, the movie.
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But you are very composed. I have to say that. I have to say that. Very composed though. Thanks. Under the circumstances.
16:49
I'm also this way when I'm drunk.
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You know, you can get People will tell me that I'm a I'm a decent drunk.
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Like I'll say, "Wow, I drank too much last night."
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People will say, "Really?
16:57
You didn't seem like you were that messed up." Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.
17:04
So your weekly newsletter Wondercade is a mix of Negroni hacks and culinary musings and pearls of wisdom.
17:12
What made you want to filter your hobbies through a newsletter rather than say a Tik Tok account like every other celebrity.
17:18
That's a perfect uh question, and I have a actual legit answer for it.
17:20
I I like old I like tactile old-timey things.
17:26
I like finding a recipe in an actual drawer of a of a shop that, you know, like an antique store.
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Like that's the recipe I want to try. You like typewriters. I love typewriters. I really do. I know you do.
17:41
Um and so the notion that if you sign up, every Wednesday, you'll get a newsletter.
17:46
Read it at your leisure, but it's not something that you have to watch on like an Instagram feed.
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You don't have to watch quickly.
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I am almost crying while I'm giving that answer. I am tearing up.
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Like I actually have tears coming out of my eyes right now.
18:04
And then Wonder Kate is a riddle workout of the mind as much as it is a midweek diversion.
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What remains hot while it's frozen and tastes like doom?
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And then when you cut the wrong wire, the place goes boom. The bomb?
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I I see what you did there.
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I was thinking that's a riddle, and I'm about to die inside.
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And I put those two things together. The bomb is no joke. try it again? If you want to go there. Let's see.
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Let's see what cuz now I'm wondering if my mouth is kind of ready for it. Yeah, I love this.
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Now that you know what to expect. Right. Now that it was awful. Mhm.
18:51
Is it going to be Better the next time?
18:53
Well, is it am I already predisposed to it?
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No, it's [ __ ] really hot.
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No, it sucks just as bad as it did the first time, Joe. Almost worse.
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The same receptors that were making me cry are now mad at me that I made that dumb choice to eat it again. Wow. Why did I do that? I don't know.
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And why did I listen to you?
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You should have stopped me.
19:19
You're the host of this show. Wow.
19:24
Are you ready to big bite that time, too.
19:26
Yeah, you like basically cleaned this wing. Season 18 finale.
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We're going out with a bang.
19:36
This next one is the Dingo Psycho sauce.
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That was my nickname in prison. Dingo Psycho sauce. This is a 15 out of 10. Yep. And sucks just the same.
20:04
Just But at least it feels like a meal.
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Like I feel we I can feel It's kind of like a spicy curry.
20:11
It has kind of like a spicy curry vibe to it.
20:13
So Right, some redeeming culinary qualities with this one. None in the other one.
20:19
That actually is making me sweat, though. There we go.
20:22
Maybe we got seconds of bomb bites. Woo. Wow.
20:27
What to you distinguishes a great escape room from a mediocre one?
20:32
Puzzles that aren't just um placed into the room for no reason.
20:41
So, if puzzles that are there's there's supported by the narrative.
20:44
Everything in the room should make sense.
20:46
Like you don't want to be doing a Sherlock Holmes escape room and then you have to suddenly do a Sudoku puzzle.
20:54
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense, you know?
20:55
So, as long as they they all like And I like a good uh secret like a trapdoor.
21:01
So, a lot of times escape rooms will seem like it's one room.
21:02
And then when you finally put the fourth gem into the thing. Like something open.
21:08
There's a second room and you have to like crawl through a little tunnel. Tunnels are fun, too. Oh, man.
21:17
Now it burns so consistently. Yeah.
21:21
doesn't feel to me now that we've done this as it's ever going to stop.
21:25
So my body's just kind of getting used to talking to you while changed forever this way, yeah. crossed over. All right, Neil. Okay. Oh, you're shaking it.
21:42
You don't have to if you don't want to.
21:43
Oh, well when you put it like that. No, I'm going to pass. Okay. The last dab.
21:54
Oh, hey this is as hot ones. Yeah, yeah. This is your own. Yeah, we make this one. But you know what?
21:59
If you don't like it, just like you didn't like this one, Yeah. let us know. Let us know.
22:06
I'm having like When you're inhaling and exhaling through your mouth right now, does it feel weird?
22:11
So that yeah, you know, I'm from Chicago so sometimes during the winter I feel like the cold weather has a taste to it and then this is like the antithesis of that. Okay. Interesting. Okay.
22:21
So this already has this on there. Yeah. And now I'm adding more.
22:25
Did you add like a whole bunch?
22:28
you know, I probably overdid it a little bit.
22:29
That's where I'm at, you know. Okay. Season 18 finale. Let's do this, baby. Cheers. Cheers. It's really hot. No, I know. I know.
22:45
But the good news is Neil Patrick Harris, this marks the end of our bizarro world launch and puts a cherry on the top of season 18.
22:52
And to close things out, I'm going to say you know, you're the product of such wonderment, such imagination and to really put a bow on season 18, I present to you a magic kit.
23:05
And we would be so humbled if you would put a bow on season 18 with an impromptu Neil Patrick Harris magic trick.
23:14
We got a standard deck of cards in there and then a whole bunch of fun stuff. Yeah, watch this. Watch this. I use my heat breath. WOW. OH! WOW. YOU'RE WELCOME.
23:41
HERE IT Neil Patrick Harris standing ovation in the studio.
23:44
And look at you taking on the wings of death and living to tell the tale.
23:51
And now there's nothing left to do but walk out the red carpet for you.
23:53
This camera, this camera, this camera.
23:55
Let the people know what you have going on in your life.
23:58
And if this I just talk about things I'm doing?
24:01
Yeah, like if you have a show coming out or anything like that.
24:03
Watch uh Uncoupled on Netflix. You can binge them all. Half-hour episodes.
24:08
And you get to see my naked butt. That's all I got. Oh, wow.
24:19
That's a Hot Ones experience. Nice. That was fun. Wow. Yeah. And now what do you do? Milk? Yeah, you just survived.
24:28
But 15, 20 minutes, you'll be good to go.
24:34
And they'll never be able to take this one away from you, Neil. You did it. Well played, man. That was fun. Woo! Oh.
24:45
Hey, what's going on, Hot Ones fans?
24:45
We brought the heat to the freezer aisle with our Hot Ones boneless chicken bites, and you smashed sales records and all of our wildest expectations. So, what did we do? We made more. That's right.
24:57
We are in with five new flavors of Hot Ones boneless chicken bites and five new ways for you to bring Hot Ones home.
25:04
From the classic to the classic garlic Fresno edition to the Los Calientes trio of flavor, verde, rojo, barbacoa. Visit hotoneschallenge.
25:13
com for more information and to find a store near you.
25:18
Hot Ones boneless chicken bites, you're in the hot seat now.