Mike O’Brien, host of the Web series “7 Minutes in Heaven,” arrived to shoot an episode of his show drenched in sweat. He dropped his backpack to the floor and rummaged around for a bottle of Bulliet Bourbon and a folded piece of paper. He handed me the latter. “Just to help you with the article, I wrote this,” he said.
In fact, he did not pace. He walked directly to the kitchen and poured himself two fingers of bourbon. The crowd, a production crew of young filmmakers and producers who run the shoot, is very affable. O’Brien pulled out some props. These included a small electric keyboard and a stack of drawings he made between the hours of 2 A.M. and 5 A.M. to prepare for the shoot with his favorite musician, the folk singer Joanna Newsom. In the kitchen, a rotisserie chicken and a can of chili awaited. “I thought it would be funny if we were eating the whole time,” he said.
Back in June, 2011, O’Brien thought it would be funny to conduct interviews in a closet and then, at the end, attempt to steal a kiss from his interviewees. Ergo, “7 Minutes in Heaven.” From his day job as a writer on “Saturday Night Live” he plumbed his contacts, and signed up an impressive list of celebrities—Patricia Clarkson, Paul Rudd, Jeff Goldblum, Christina Ricci, the Insane Clown Posse, Elijah Wood—to come into the closet. Once trapped inside, he’s asked his guests to perform sketches known as Closet Theater, or to reënact parts of “The Hobbit” that never happened, or to give his mom car advice over the phone. This time, for his twenty-eighth and final episode, he was hoping that Joanna Newsom might play some music and improvise a fairy tale based on the drawings he made. The closet, by the way, is borrowed from an S.N.L. receptionist and located in an apartment that overlooks Union Square.
“I thought maybe it’s like a horror story,” he said as he flipped through the stack of crayon sketches, which featured a red-haired heroine. “Someone wrote ‘R.I.P.’ in blood. She sees a knife. That’s the dude. She’s already dead. But he’s lying here. And meanwhile, downstairs, the coffin is empty. And then she’s back from the dead, with an axe. And then there’s a funeral pyre for him. I don’t think that’s going to be clear to Joanna.”
When Newsom arrived, O’Brien took her into the kitchen to show off the waiting feast. “Hearty chili on a summer day,” she said. “Yum.” Then he handed her the keyboard, and she started plucking a melody out on its tiny keys. “I’m acquainting myself with this instrument. Learning its ins and outs,” said Newsom, who plays piano and harp on her albums “The Milk Eyed Mender,” “Ys,” and “Have One on Me.”
“Maybe it could be a made-up song, or a goodbye song. I don’t think we’ll make a big to-do about this being the last episode,” O’Brien said.
“You want me to play a moving instrumental track while you say goodbye?” Newsom said.
“Yeah, I like that direction,” O’Brien said.
A few minutes later, O’Brien and Newsom got into the closet, while a crew monitored their progress from the bedroom. Over a first course of Macintosh apples, O’Brien asked Newsom about her experiences at Lark Camp, the Mendocino, California, folk-music festival where she first started playing serious music. “Was your first summer crush on a sixty-year-old banjo player?” and “What was it like growing up when your name is so close to You Wanna Get Some?” Each time Newsom lost her composure, a spray of apple juice accompanied her laughter.
Next, one of the production assistants brought two bowls of steaming-hot chili into the closet, and then O’Brien asked Newsom to sing a “D minor.”
“I can’t,” she said. “That’s not a note, you know that, right?” Undeterred, O’Brien followed up with, “How many cat buttholes have you seen in your life?” and then asked her to create car collisions with her hands, which she did, making an awesome soundtrack of screeches and crashes. And then it was time for Two-Second Impressions, in which Newsom imitated an evil prom queen, her fifth-grade school picture, and a saucy lady on a poster for a romantic-comedy film.
The soup bowls were replaced by the rotisserie chicken, and then O’Brien showed Newsom his drawings, and she played a plaintive dirge on the tiny piano as she narrated the action. “A young lady enters the vicinity of a dark castle. A young lady looks at a table of tantalizing food. No one is there, why not have a taste? She pays no mind to the ‘R.I.P.’ written on the wall. She feels a little weird about the eyeball in the door, but it’s not a big deal. But, then in a different place that doesn’t look like before, there is a guy who is so scary, and is that a coffin? An empty coffin, someone must have been there before, where did he go? Oh no, but the girl has eaten food, and then the guy eats her, and then they sail off into the night.” The melody remained steady and clear, but her voice registered notes of confusion as O’Brien showed her the sketches.
For Closet Theater, O’Brien explained their roles: “You’re a distinguished British matron, and I’m a Southern heating-and-cooling repair man, and I’ve just done some duct work for your manor, and so we’re settling up, when suddenly we realize that neither of us have pants on. But, we’re both very proud people, so, after realizing that, we regroup and go on.”
“Thank you so much, I really appreciate it, it’s wonderful,” Newsom said in her best British accent.
“I’m stuck in your vase,” O’Brien said.
Next they pretended to be “a couple who always finishes each other’s sentences incorrectly, but then they just run with it.”
“Tomorrow it would be great if we…” O’Brien started.
“…could go shopping together. I love that. The thing that I love about you is…”
“…my ears,” O’Brien wrapped up.
Then it was time for a public-service announcement. “Hey, kids! Joanna and I are now going to show you the evil clowns that will come haunt your house if you ever try drugs!” They popped into the frame contorting their faces. “Don’t do drugs!” O’Brien said. “Well, except marijuana is pretty fun.”
“Maybe just don’t do any drugs is maybe the best policy,” Newsom added.
Then, Newsom improvised on the piano, as O’Brien played with the percussion buttons. Then the piano slipped out of Newsom’s hands and into the plate of discarded chicken.
“The worst piano fell on the grossest chicken,” Newsom announced.
After thirty minutes, the interview, most of which would end up on the cutting-room floor, had reached its final destination: it was time for the kiss. Newsom stared straight ahead, as O’Brien folded his tall frame to match her dainty posture. Once their heads were even, he aimed his lips for her mouth. Not moving her head, Newsom twisted her lips all the way to the left, and kissed O’Brien, making a sort of right angle with their heads. He pulled away and produced a pack of Marlboros. They both took out cigarettes and tried to light them, to no avail. O’Brien waved at the camera. “Bye forever,” he said.