Conan O’Brien, 62, says he was able to have a long Hollywood career because he learned how to bounce back from failure.
On Wednesday’s appearance on the “IMO” podcast, the comedian spoke about the importance of staying positive and learning to roll with it when facing setbacks.
“I always say I’m like a 51, 52% optimist. I do say the world has always been filled with horribleness; there’s always been trouble. When young people preach to me, ‘It’s all over,’ or say ‘It’s the end of the world,’ I say, you have to understand this is the way it always has been, and this is how it feels,” O’Brien told podcast hosts Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.
O’Brien said he is often reminded of a scene from “The African Queen,” a 1951 film starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, which he calls “a great metaphor for life.”
In the movie, Hepburn and Bogart’s characters are lost in thick weeds and are exhausted from trying to drag their boat forward. Convinced they’ll never get out, they give up, unaware they’re just feet from the river, O’Brien said.
“I always think about that. I think there’ve been probably 35 times in my life when I thought I was on the boat and I’m dead on the boat,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said nearly every stage of his career has come with a moment when he thought it was over, from doubting he’d make it to his dream college to believing critics were right about him not lasting on the “Late Night” show.
“Then I make it past that. But then later on I get ‘The Tonight Show,’ and I think now I’m in good shape. Nope, that blows up. And I thought, now it’s really over,” he said.
“No, it’s not. It keeps happening over and over and over again, and then it’s just learning to roll with it and say, OK, what’s my next opportunity? Reset, recommit, and look for the next opportunity. And that is something I try to impart to my kids,” O’Brien said.
At the same time, O’Brien acknowledged that luck played a role in his success, especially early in his career.
“First of all, just the time in which I was born, I am a poster child for incredible luck. I’ve been very, very lucky and I give it up for that. I also know that I work really hard, and I prepare, and I try to treat people the right way. But I get very angry when people don’t give it up for luck,” he said.
He added that he’s also mindful of the advantages he had by entering the industry when he did.
“I’m also really aware that, you know, what was my path like as a white male coming up in the 1980s, 90s — a lot easier than a lot of other people in comedy and probably in any profession,” he said.
This isn’t the first time that O’Brien has talked about how he’s sustained a decades-long career in Hollywood.
In a February interview with The New Yorker, he reflected on leaving late night TV and stepping into new roles with his podcast and travel series.
“I have all this freedom to be me in different ways, in different formats,” he said.
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