It’s hard to imagine anyone with a career as illustrious asConan O’Brien’s has regrets.
But if the comedian and late night host could turn back time, he might redo one particular chapter.
“I regret being so intense about that job.
Conan O’Brien on ‘Saturday Night Live’.Mary Ellen Matthews/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
I did have a lot of fun, but I think I could have had more fun.
It was you and [Bob Odenkirk] and [Robert Smigel],” Hanks recalled.
When theHerestar asked why O’Brien eventually leftSNL, joking, “did you get fired, Conan?”
Conan O’Brien as Molecular Man on ‘Saturday Night Live’.Mary Ellen Matthews/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
O’Brien joked back, “[Jay Leno] came and took my writing job atSNL.
No, I burnt out.
And [Lorne Michaels] could not have been nicer.
This was a couple years before he contacted me about the late night show.
O’Brien became a writer and producer onThe Simpsonsin 1991.
He went on to host the series from 1993 to 2009.
What made the writing room atThe Simpsonsand hosting his own late night program easier gigs to manage thanSNL?
Hanks continued, “and that’s not standard stuff.
He’s tellingStinghow to do a comedy bit, you know.
But that’s I think that’s the great power of it.
You get to produce the thing that you wrote then and there.”
You get toSNL, you write a sketch, andSteve Martin’s gonna be in it.
And I thought, ‘I’m 26, I’ve never been to a restaurant!
I don’t know.'”
As much asSNLis an emotional endurance test, it’s also quite physically demanding.
But ‘No, no, no.
Take it easy, Tom.'"
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