‘Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain’ Director Talks Conan O’Brien’s First Major Acting Role (Exclusive)

Please Don’t Destroy have been quickly making a name for themselves with some brilliantly outrageous digital shorts on Saturday Night Live, but now the comedy trio is setting out on their first feature film adventure. On Friday Nov. 17, Peacock will exclusively debut Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, a comedy movie written and starring the troup — Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy — as a group of friends who set out on a journey to find a long-lost treasure. The movie also stars comedy icon — and SNL writing alum — Conan O’Brien in his first-ever major movie role, portraying Marshall’s grizzled father.

Recently, PopCulture.com had a chance to talk with the film’s director, Paul Briganti, who told us that O’Brien was very “grounded” and wanted to “do a really good job” since this was his first time in a lengthy acting role. “He’s kind of a folk hero. He’s this kind of mysterious, brilliant person. He was really excited,” Briganti said. “It was one of those ideas that we had immediately when we were thinking about it, and then we all got excited and then we all got kind of nervous because we were like… ‘Oh, s—, if he’s in it, then that’s a big deal.’ You don’t want to blow that opportunity. You want to take it really seriously.”

Sharing how O’Brien approached the opportunity, Briganti explained, “Unsurprisingly, he kind of had a similar take, where he was like, ‘This is my first time doing this. I want to make sure I do a really good job.’ And so it was really great. He’s such a grounded, humble person and he only wants to be better at everything he does, and he never has the, ‘I know what I’m doing,’ kind of persona that a lot of people who are as famous as him have earned the right to be.”

Notably, Briganti used to work at SNL, and he explained that he’s relationship with Please Don’t Destroy developed very quickly. “We crossed paths for three months there,” he said, “and I already was leaving the show. I was already quitting. I knew I was. So we had this really crazy fast, just whirlwind of making videos together, and it was really fun and they kind of took off and stuff.”

“Then, around the time around Christmas or something, after we did the thing with Taylor Swift and Pete Davidson,” he continued, “they were like, ‘Hey, we have this movie script, Judd [Apatow]. We’re thinking maybe we could try to go into the summer. Would you want to read it?’ I did, and even then it was so funny. It was such a funny script, and I was so excited to talk more to them about it.” Additional cast members of the film include Bowen Yang, Meg Stalter, X Mayo, Nichole Sakura, Cedric Yarbrough, and Sunita Mani. Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain premieres November 17, 2023 exclusively on Peacock.