In an earlier age of show business, showing up on a talk show and then physically assaulting the host was a quick way to get yourself branded a Crispin-Glover-style eccentric.
Fortunately for Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner—and unfortunately for Conan O’Brien—those days are over. Turner stopped by Conan with a bottle of tequila and talked him into playing a “drinking game” with the following rules:
1. Play begins as Conan O’Brien takes a shot of tequila.
2. Sophie Turner then absolutely wallops O’Brien with an open-handed slap to the left cheek, spattering tequila across his chin and sending shock waves through his pompadour.
3. A visibly shaken Conan O’Brien drinks bunch of tequila from the bottle.
Watch and wince:
As nice as it would be to believe that Sophie Turner just dreamed “Tequila Slaps” up as a “Hertz Donut”-type ploy to slap the shit out of Conan O’Brien, the game is at least slightly better-documented than “The Devil’s Triangle”; it appears in a promotional clip for the 2015 Vince Vaughn comedy Unfinished Business. But there’s no sense getting bogged down in the details of who invented what when to slap whom: The important thing is that Sophie Turner found a way to pummel a talk show host on his own show, and still managed to get him to play the clip from Dark Phoenix she was there to promote. In Turner’s honor, and in honor of the barrier she slapped her way through tonight, Slate is proud to present the trailer for River’s Edge, the movie that sent Crispin Glover on his disastrous promotional visit to The Late Show With David Letterman so many years ago:
He was truly a man ahead of his time.