Conan O'Brien regrets being 'way too intense' while working at 'SNL'

It's hard to imagine anyone with a career as illustrious as Conan O'Brien 's has regrets. But if the comedian and late night host could turn back time, he might redo one particular chapter.

"People always say no regrets," O'Brien said about his time writing for Saturday Night Live on a recent episode of the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast. "I regret being so intense about that job. Yeah. I was way too intense, and I think I robbed myself of some fun that I could have had. I did have a lot of fun, but I think I could have had more fun. And I think I could have maybe written there a little longer if I didn't make it such a grind for myself."

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O'Brien's celebrity guest, Tom Hanks , hosted the weekly sketch comedy program several times during O'Brien's stint from 1988-1991. "The first year I was on SNL and you were in the back, 1988, I called you the Boiler Room Boys. It was you and [ Bob Odenkirk ] and [Robert Smigel]," Hanks recalled.

When the Here star asked why O'Brien eventually left SNL, joking, "did you get fired, Conan?" O'Brien joked back, "[ Jay Leno ] came and took my writing job at SNL. No, I burnt out. 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. But I was burnt out and I was like, 'I've got to go,' and that's when I went to The Simpsons ."

O'Brien became a writer and producer on The Simpsons in 1991. It was a coveted comedy writing job in Hollywood at the time, and O'Brien may have held on to it for longer if Michaels didn't have another plan for him. After David Letterman stepped down as the host of Late Night in 1993, Michaels, who produces the show, tapped O'Brien to take over. He went on to host the series from 1993 to 2009.

What made the writing room at The Simpsons and hosting his own late night program easier gigs to manage than SNL? Hanks ventured that it's "the creative atmosphere" of the show, where "the writer is on the floor producing the piece." Hanks continued, "and that's not standard stuff. A guy who wrote it with great passion is over there in between [sketches], sweating bullets and vomiting out of anxiety. He's telling Sting how 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."

O'Brien agreed. "The thing that Lorne does that's brilliant that doesn't exist anywhere else, I'd only worked about three years in television before that, but no one had let me near anything. You get to SNL, you write a sketch, and Steve Martin 's gonna be in it. And Lorne says, 'Well go in and tell Steve how it should be done and what you're thinking, and then go and talk to the props people about how the restaurant should look.' And I thought, 'I'm 26, I've never been to a restaurant! I don't know.'"

As much as SNL is an emotional endurance test, it's also quite physically demanding. As Hanks explained, "you do have to learn how to survive physically when you do the show." The two-time Oscar-winner is a member of the elite SNL five-timers club , comprised of celebrities and public figures who've hosted the program five times or more. Hanks has taken on hosting duties ten times since 1985, making him as much an authority on the experience as any of its featured players.

"The last time I did it," he recounted, "I told everybody who was in charge of me, particularly our our wardrobe and stage manager people. I said, 'I want you to understand that my goal on this week's hosting duties is to take as few steps as possible... You know, it's a young man's game, and there was a time that it was just balls to the walls, and you just fill up every minute with activity. But 'No, no, no. Take it easy, Tom.'"