VARIOUS: American television host Conan O'Brien makes a comedic trip to Finland to visit his look-alike, Finnish President Tarja Halonen

Record ID: 803009

  • Title: VARIOUS: American television host Conan O'Brien makes a comedic trip to Finland to visit his look-alike, Finnish President Tarja Halonen
  • Date: 16th March 2006
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (MARCH 10, 2006) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST OF TELEVISION SHOW 'LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN' SAYING: "She won by three percent, so I'm going to just go with yeah, I think I pretty much got her elected President of Finland, or not. It's possible. We had a lot of young people who said no, you got a lot of young people to go and vote, but it's also possible that they went to the polling places and smoked pot. I don't know."
  • Embargoed: 31st March 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA3J0UI06M4ZWXKAESL8J21ORLZ
  • Story Text: Conan O'Brien, an American TV host and comedian, has a large following in the United States, but some of O'Brien's biggest fans are an entire ocean away. Host of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," O'Brien recently travelled to Finland to meet President Tarja Halonen, a woman he claims is his exact double.
    O'Brien's popularity in Finland has been growing steadily since last year, when he began making comedic references about his resemblance to Halonen, who was running for re-election.
    Halonen won the Presidential race by a small margin, and some credit that margin to O'Brien's influences.
    "She won by three percent, so I'm going to just go with yeah, I think I pretty much got her elected President of Finland, or not. It's possible," he said. "We had a lot of young people who said no, you got a lot of young people to go and vote, but it's also possible that they went to the polling places and smoked pot. I don't know."
    When O'Brien and his team decided to travel to Finland and meet the Presidential look-alike, they expected it to be a quiet trip, with little or no fanfare. However, O'Brien, unaware of his growing Finnish popularity, was mobbed by fans and paparazzi throughout his trip.
    "They treated it as if oh, it's Nelson Mandela coming to visit Mother Teresa and have this meeting. It had that kind of feeling to it. But it was this idiot from American television meeting with the President of Finland, really about nothing, so it was an odd, odd day of my life," said O'Brien.
    Despite the excited crowds, adoring fans, and the possibility of sweeping elections, O'Brien said he's not quite ready for a career in politics himself. However, he joked that he may take advantage of his new found stardom.
    "I'm going to be one of those people that just has a whole other career in Europe. I have my career here, but if you go to Europe, you'll see me doing all kinds of body lotion product ads on television. I'll be like an athlete over there; I can play soccer, soccer star. I'm going to have a whole other career in Europe that Americans know nothing about," joked O'Brien.
    Footage of O'Brien's trip to Finland will air in the U.S. on March 10 on the NBC network. As for O'Brien, the self-deprecating comedian is just living life large as the new body double for a Finnish president. ENDS.
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