Kelvin Redvers is still walking on cloud nine after meeting one of his TV heroes.
He grew up in Hay River watching Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show and recently had a chance to meet him, although virtually by appearing on O’Brien’s podcast called Conan Needs A Friend – the comedian’s new project since retiring from TV several years ago.
Redvers says he reached out to O’Brien and received an invitation shortly after. Although Revers now lives in Vancouver as an accomplished filmmaker, he says he did the interview with O’Brien from Hay River and admits he was a little star-struck.
“I was just trying to hold it together because I was super nervous.”
Redvers says O’Brien and his co-hosts were genuinely curious about the NWT.
“We talked about my people, about being Dene, how we follow the caribou. We also talked about my great-grandpa. I was pretty proud,” he says.
Redvers says O’Brien mostly kept the interview on the light side.
“We talked about how few people there are in the NWT and the land space. It’s twice the size of Texas. They made jokes about how it would take forever to high-five somebody because it would take so long to walk through the woods to find another person.”
Redvers says the interview lasted about 25 minutes and that it wrapped up with an invite to O’Brien to come visit the NWT.
“You never know. Maybe he or others have learned about the north.”
O’Brien’s interview with Redvers can be heard on Spotify called Zero Degrees Kelvin. Or listen to CKLB Radio morning host Roy Dahl’s interview with Dedvers.
With files from Roy Dahl.
