Conan Featured in Parade Magazine
Rusty
http://www.parade.com/celebrity/2009/05/conan-o-brien.html
'I take things really seriously," Conan O'Brien tells me. "If I have to give
a wedding toast, I worry about it."
He looks serious.
The 46-year-old talk-show host and I are sitting in a restaurant high above
Central Park, talking about life, comedy, and his new job at the helm of NBC's
The Tonight Show, beginning June 1. And I can't help but wonder: If giving a
wedding toast makes him nervous, how does he feel about taking over the show
that turned Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno into icons?
"It's a huge responsibility," O'Brien admits. "But I can't let that be in my
head all the time. The biggest danger to me right now would be overthinking.
When I am comfortable and having a good time, it works. I think that, at my
best, I'm just a silly man having fun."
Silliness has brought him a long way. When O'Brien took over NBC's Late
Night upon David Letterman's defection to CBS in September 1993, he was
widely regarded as the most unexpected, least-qualified talk-show host ever.
His only professional experience had been as a comedy writer-for Saturday
Night Live and The Simpsons, among other shows-and as an occasional extra on
SNL. During his first few years on Late Night, critics delighted in taking
potshots at the new host's visible unease. But those critics failed to
notice a couple of important things: one, O'Brien had no interest in being
graceful on television; and two, he was very, very funny.
Young audiences liked the fact that he was new and different. They
identified with his awkwardness. And they loved his comedy, which was goofy
and self-mocking, with a slapped-together feeling about it. Late Night hung
on for a couple of years on ratings life support; then, suddenly, it was an
institution.
When O'Brien signed off in February after 2725 shows, he was visibly choked
up.
"I think I was feeling what a lot of people feel when they go to a place to
do work for a long period of time, and then they have to leave," he tells
me. "That show-which, by the way, was the scariest thing that I've ever
undertaken-changed my life and gave me so much. Most of the people that I'm
closest to in my life work on that show. I met my wife through that show,
and we have children now."
In 2000, O'Brien and his crew went to an advertising agency to shoot a skit,
and he struck up a conversation with Liza Powel, a pretty copywriter. The
conversation continued. They were married two years later and now have a
daughter, Neve, 5, and a son, Beckett, 3.
"Late Night has been the hub of my life," O'Brien says. "Everything has
radiated out from that show. It's also been what my wife calls the
organizing principle of my life. I'm there day and night. This work is an
extension of me. You get to a point where you feel like your DNA is here-it's
in the concrete in Studio 6A. And then it's time to go. It was very
difficult to do that last 10 minutes. It's inconceivable that I'm leaving
that place. I am sentimental that way. It's alive to me."
O'Brien shakes his head. "I'm very excited about this next thing," he adds.
"And I know that it's going to test me and change me, and it's going to do
everything that Late Night did. But this is a period of my life that's done
now. I will never be that young again. I will never be that naive again. I'll
never be that unknown again. And I'll never be tested quite that way again."
O'Brien insists he's been lucky. "I've had young people over the years say
to me, 'How can I do what you do?' I tell them, 'That's like asking someone
who was struck by a meteor, 'How can I be struck by a meteor?'"
But he's also realistic about what brought him to where he is. The third of
six children of a research physician father and an attorney mother in
Brookline, Mass., Conan was valedictorian of his high school class and went
on to Harvard, where he was twice president of the college's humor magazine,
the Lampoon. He was legendary for his ability to crack up a roomful of
fellow writers-the world's toughest audience.
"I do feel I've got certain qualities that have probably positioned me
well," O'Brien says. "I am an extraordinarily hard worker. It means a lot
to me to do something very well. And I think I have some natural ability-I
think I'm a funny person. I knew I had something to offer as a performer,
but I was very realistic about what I didn't have. I knew I wasn't
good-looking enough to be, you know, sort of a handsome lead actor. I'm not
someone who goes into 30 or 40 characters. I really admire stand-up
comedians, but I always knew that my skill was very reactive. I'm someone
who can say funny things in the moment as myself. I like to write and I like
to think of weird things. I also like to be in front of an audience. I like
to mostly try to make something funny happen in the moment. Then it turned
out that there's a job where you do exactly that."
If it all sounds uncharacteristically serious, it's not really out of
character at all: In person, O'Brien is thoughtful, genuine, and warm. His
humor, when it bubbles up (and it always does), seems deep and natural, not
just a tic.
"When I first was announced as taking over Late Night," O'Brien says,
"someone talked to my college roommate, and he said, 'The thing about Conan
is, he's not funny at your expense-he's funny with you. He makes you
participate in the act of being funny, and that's what's different about him
from other people.'"
Taking over The Tonight Show, though, is a serious business. Jay Leno, a
figure beloved by many, will be moving to a prime-time slot at 10 p.m.,
probably taking some of his audience with him. And Tonight is a national
institution. Does O'Brien find the prospect of standing in that big new
spotlight intimidating? I can't help thinking of Sept. 13, 1993-his first
Late Night and the first time he'd ever addressed a national television
audience. How anxiety-provoking was that?
"It's funny. A lot of people have said, 'Oh, it must have been
nerve-racking,'" Conan tells me. "But I swear, the overwhelming emotion I
had that night was relief. Because my hell is the period beforehand. I'm a
little bit like a horse-you know, when they load those horses into the gates
to run the race. I am being loaded in, and I am kicking and tossing the
jockey off and smashing into the sides, and they're saying, 'You can
run...June 1st.' I'd like to go. The doing of it is how you find it. I am
anxious to go find out. The Tonight Show is like a Maserati, and I've been
driving a pretty good Jeep Grand Cherokee for a while, but I want to go try
that Maserati."
He takes a drink of water. "I like being tested," he says. "I really do. I
get as scared as anyone when I'm tested. But the feeling of putting yourself
on the line and really putting your talent out there, and betting on
yourself and having it work, is the most exhilarating feeling in the world."
Then O'Brien grins wickedly. "I've decided that people seemed to like me
going off the air so much that that should be my regular shtick for The
Tonight Show," he says. "I really think that at the end of every week of The
Tonight Show, I should thank my parents, thank everyone who was good to me,
get a little choked up, and say, 'See you again Monday.' It would be great."