Appearing once more to the delight and hilarious annoyance of pal Conan O’Brien on Monday’s Conan, actor Timothy Olyphant teased the Conan host throughout over the impending end of the host’s TBS tenure. “Why do I have to be here now?,” complained Olyphant upon O’Brien noting that the show plans to have its live audience back for the last-ever two weeks before the show’s June 24 final bow. (Olyphant struggled to pick Andy Richter out of the sea of cardboard audience surrogates swarming the seats of Conan’s pandemic home base of Largo.)
And while the former Justified and Deadwood badass likes to mischievously bully Conan into playing along with whatever bits seem more interesting than the pre-planned talk show chatter (a seemingly simply anecdote about going back to finish his USC degree online during the pandemic turns into an extended bout of Conan-baiting), he was especially delighted when certified badass Snoop Dogg gave him the ultimate compliment in front of his kids. (At the Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood premiere, Snoop—twice—called Olyphant “a bad motherfucker, prompting him to boast to his suitably impressed offspring, “See? I told you!”)
Of course, there’s being famous enough for Snoop, and then there’s being famous enough that your own mom can pick you out of a lineup. That’s where even a dashingly bad motherfucker can really take a blow in the old ego, as Olyphant explained concerning the time he and another famous actor decided to just lean into their long history of getting mistaken for each other. Conceding that, yes, he does bear a certain resemblance to other square-jawed, salt-and-pepper leading man Josh Duhamel, Olyphant told Conan about how, when the two finally met (at a Dodgers charity event last year), they thought it would be a hoot to have Duhamel pose with Olyphant’s family, and then send that out as the Olyphant Christmas card. Pretty good gag, if you have the famous sort-of lookalike out there to pull it off. Sadly for The Mandalorian guest star (spoiler: he played a badass), even his mom was taken in by the goof, offering up only one deflating observation when her other son pointed out that she’d been posting a picture of a complete stranger on her refrigerator all holiday season.
“I thought he looked taller,” Olyphant’s own mother is reported to have said, proving that nobody’s a badder motherfucker than mom when it comes to knocking your Hollywood-sized butt back down to size. For his part, Olyphant was a good sport about the whole thing, in that he big-timed Duhamel’s turn in the tights as the aged superhero of Netflix’s would-be MCU rival, Jupiter’s Legacy. “It’s like a superhero thing,” noted Olyphant with mock enthusiasm, “I think it’s great.” (As it turns out, Duhamel was promoting Jupiter’s Legacy on Late Night With Seth Meyers on the same night, and finished up with the same anecdote, but—unlike some mother’s we could mention—we chose Olyphant.)
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I spent too much time yesterday listing bland English and Australian actors I hate, so let’s follow it up with an American version by talking about Josh Duhamel, I guess. I’m the first to be like “All these boring white dudes look the same”, but come on! Timothy Olyphant at least has something interesting going on with his face, whereas Josh Duhamel looks like he was assembled from discarded parts in a generically handsome man factory. Sure, they could play brothers or whatever, but to actually confuse them? I think Mrs. Olyphant might have face blindness.Now I wanna rewatch A Perfect Getaway…
Confession: without a Stetson on at least one of them I probably can’t tell them apart either.
Josh Duhamel’s charisma largely stops at his appearance, and Timothy Olyphant’s got the charismatic equivalent of nuclear fission.
That’s why being fooled by a photograph is plausible, as opposed to video or in-person. Wear the right clothes, catch the right angle, and even a mom might gloss over the differences and make the mistake, once. Much more difficult to pull off beyond that.
Grandma’s are looking at how their Grandkids changed over the year, it probably could have been Conan in that pic and she wouldn’t have noticed.
She really loves them grandkids.
It’s the eyebrows. One of Olyphant’s eyebrows is crooked.I can’t tell which one.
Josh Duhamel looks like someone spilled a little Josh Holloway on their Timothy Olyphant.
Josh Duhamel looks like he was assembled from discarded parts in a generically handsome man factory.This is like the opposite of a backhanded compliment. It’s the sort of insult I wish people said about me instead of “he’s a cranky old asshole.”
Calm down, you cranky old asshole.
A Perfect Getaway is underrated, on the Ebert scale of trying to do what it has set out to do it’s a 10/10
It gave me exactly what I wanted, and then it went insane and gave me things I didn’t know I wanted.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen A Perfect Getaway described so perfectly.
A Perfect Getaway was such a good film. Even the title was extra levels of clever.
Timothy Olyphant can get it. And that’s speaking as a fully heterosexual man; guy is like, woof.Also, Justified as a dark horse for best show of the 2010s.
I’ve yet to have a chance to watch Justified but he was great in Fargo (and The Good Place).
That’s funny ‘cos IIRC, he’s playing his character from Justified during his cameo in The Good Place.
It’s so good, especially once they find their footing towards the end of the first season.
Came here to say that Olyphant is seriously funny in Santa Clarita Diet. The tenser and wilder he gets the funnier he is.
Now I definitely have to get back to finishing The Good Place.
He was on Fargo? I might actually get around to watching it.
It’s a really good show regardless, but if that gets you to tune in then by all means go for it.
In Season 4.
He was fun on that show where his wife was a zombie too
It was funny watching that after Deadwood and Justified because the character was so different and although Raylan was funny, it showed he’s good at a different type of comedy (not just witty banter).
Totally agree. Those are great roles, but it’s fun to see him in silly guest spots.
So pissed the cancelled that.
What are you waiting for?
Yeah, my brother has a big “no homo but” crush on Olyphant, too.
It’s probably too much to ask for, or at least until 20 or 30 years from now, but I wonder if I’ll ever see a time when a guy can comment on another guy’s handsomeness, (maybe even admit to a crush!) without preemptively stating that they do not in fact have sex with men.
“woof” usually means ugly.
Also, Justified as a dark horse for best show of the 2010s. This, a 1,000 times this!
Justified is in my top 2. It flips 1 and 2 with Deadwood depending on my mood for the day.
His kids all look so much like him though LMAO
OrHis kids all look suspiciously like Josh Duhamel
Nah. I don’t believe his genes are that strong. His own kids probably barely look like him.
Timothy Olyphant is a jackass is all the best ways –
Good lord, the shoulders on that man.
He was a collegiate swimmer at USC. He still looks like it.
It could be worse- he could be like June Diane Raphael and have his father mistake him for Cillian Murphy.
I think I speak for a lot of us when I say, who the fuck is Josh Duhamel?
I think and this is just a guess, he was the soldier dude in some of the earlier Transformers movies?
One of the most famous things Josh Duhamel ever did was blame Draymond Green for his ex-wife’s (Fergie) horrendous national anthem performance during an All-Star game.
Still not the hardest break up of Fergie’s life…unless Josh was made of meth.
He’s the ex-Mr. Fergalicious guy.
christ, i haven’t thought about Fergie for 10 years
He’s the guy that got big off of getting yelled at by James Caan in Las Vegas, then spent a career being a forgettable rom-com star and minor character in the Transformers film.
Fuck, I had forgotten about that show. Hopefully Caan got to buy some nice houses with the money he made.
I grew up with 5 channels in the rural parts of the Prairies, and Las Vegas might just be the quintessential “Nothing on tv, so I’ll watch this!” for my formative years. I don’t remember a single particular episode, just all the tracking shots of guys & ladies showing tons of skin at the pool scenes. It was a shit show, especially for a horned up teen wanting shit to get real.
I had a vaguely positive memory of Las Vegas from more than a decade ago, in the “dumb, but mostly entertaining” sense. But I watched a few episodes when some channel ran a marathon over New Year’s, and boy howdy, it doesn’t even clear that low bar. It’s just dumb. There was an episode where the character played by Vanessa Marcil met the character played by Lara Flynn Boyle and they literally played a cat’s yowl over the conversation.
I think he was on a James Caan tv show? He’s a leading man now, is he?
You mean, you didn’t see Battle Creek?Yeah, I figured. Neither did anyone else.
There’s an alternate universe – a dark one, since it probably involves RDJ relapsing, which is the only way Favreau doesn’t get to have him – where Olyphant is Tony Stark. He auditioned.
I suspect Olyphant would have been great at about 90-95 percent of the Tony Stark stuff. I don’t know that he would have been able to sell the genuinely emotional moments from Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame nearly as well.
Yeah, he’s probably a better MCU Villain at some point. He could do the “Well met! Let’s have battle” routine of Kraven, for instance. 10 years ago, he’d have been an amazing Gambit.His scenes with Raylan’s father in Justified and were fantastic, though.
that assumes the rest of the MCU would have played out exactly the same as they did here.
My new universe has:
* Olyphant as Iron Man
* Krasinksi as Cap
* Blunt as Black Widow
* Renner still as Hawkeye
* BJ Novak as Winter Soldier
* Yvonne Strahovski as Captain Marvel
* Zachary Levi as Star Lord
* Sairose Ronan as Wanda Maximoff
* A recovered RDJ taking over for Banner after Norton does Avengers and Age of Ultron but then bails
and…..he and Jeremy Renner went to the same high school.
At least they threw him in the Mandalorian as a sheriff and he thrived
I can’t picture that! He would have been an outstanding Hawkeye though.
Serious take: I don’t see the resemblance at all
The episode of Conan’s podcast with Timothy is hilarious. As are Timothy’s guest appearances on The Office and The Grinder. Can we say that about Josh? I do not think so.
Came here to say those exact two things. Now get out of my head.
But what if it wasn’t. I bought The Grinder on Amazon a couple years ago. Best $10 I’ve spent in a long time. I hope whoever it was at Fox that decided to cancel it after one season got fired.
Hey Elf! Head’s up!*tosses beer can at Elf*
Could this be a new Dylan McDermott/Dermot Mulroney? I’m going to go with no because Duhamel is just a daytime soap actor who got lucky. Olyphant has more of that Nicholson/Liotta spark.
I didn’t think I could love him more, but here we are.
Have you seen his episodes of The Grinder? You will love him more…
I haven’t! I will search it out! Thank you!
I have no problems distinguishing Josh Duhamel from Timothy Olyphant. I would have no problems giving Josh Duhamel a casual greeting. But I would be terrified that Timothy Olyphant would crush me like a grape.
Is anyone but me brave enough to talk about the Olyphant in the room?!?!?
I’m a guy, and I think I speak for all guys when I say WE ALLLLL WANT TO BE OLYPHANT.
Not even close. Olyphant is heads and shoulders above Duhamel in both looks and acting ability. Come on, mom!