To promote his upcoming Conan special from Cuba, Conan O’Brien stopped by The Howard Stern Show this morning, and the result is a lengthy and fantastic interview that covers O’Brien’s entire career, from his first days in college to writing for SNL and The Simpsons all the way to his choice to rebuild his new TBS show Conan rather than continue the bits he made famous during his NBC years. O’Brien also opened up about his struggles with depression – here’s a particularly great quote about his early days on NBC late night:
This is an absolute true story: It was the first couple weeks of the Late Night show and I was seeing a new therapist here in New York because I had moved back to New York to do the Late Night show, and I went in and I’m lying there and I said “You know, man…I really think no one likes me, I think people hate me, I think people think I’m not good at what I do, and I think people want me to go away.†And my therapist said “Listen, these are voices in your head, okay? We all have those negative feelings, but they’re just feelings – they’re not real.†And I said “Fuck you, it’s the cover of USA Today!†[laughs] And I held up the magazine. That’s the greatest thing you can do to a therapist. I said “Oh no no no no – it’s right here.â€
Listen to some excerpts from interview below: