Conan O’Brien returns to his late night roots through Hacks, the HBO series that features a storyline centered around late night television—one that hits close to home for the former talk show host.
On the SiriusXM episode of Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, O’Brien spoke with Hacks co-creator Paul W. Downs about the show’s latest season.
The season includes a plotline where Jean Smart’s character, Deborah Vance, makes a comeback to the late night scene. Watching the storyline gave O’Brien a sense of PTSD, as it mirrored real-life experiences from his early career in late night television.
O’Brien said, “The show delves into late night this year, which was fascinating for me because there are things that you cite in the show that I’ve lived through.”
O’Brien added, “And so I’ll get a little bit of PTSD from watching it, but it’s also really funny and apt. Like getting notes or, ‘This is what we heard about,’ you know, in the early days of my late night show research, and what are people saying and what do we need to try and adjust?”
O’Brien said Hacks accurately portrays the emotional tension of late night TV, hitting “a bunch of the nerves.” He described the era as feeling “impossible” and admitted to reliving it while watching the show.
Downs says that writing a show about making a late night show is “so stressful and hard.” He added, “I didn’t do five shows a week and have to write monologue jokes. And yet, viscerally, I felt the pressure of that.”
O’Brien started his late night career in 1993 with Late Night with Conan O’Brien, taking over from David Letterman and hosting until 2009. He then briefly hosted The Tonight Show before leading the cult-favorite Conan on TBS, which ran for 11 seasons until 2021.
Source: EW
