Name: How Conan O'Brien Controls a Conversation
Uploaded: 2026-02-18T21:39:10.000Z
Duration: 13 min 31 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

There were, yeah, some really, really dark moments.

And then I did Charlie Rose's show last April.

NBC rocked the entertainment world by picking an unknown comic and writer to replace David Letterman.

The top TV critic in the world just wrote this piece and here's what it says.

You know, it's not working for him as a critic.

Yeah, sometimes I'll read things and I'll say, I agree, it's, you know, and

it was a just absolutely brutal takedown of me, Andy, the comedy, everything.

How does someone go from being relentlessly criticized to being universally praised?

I mean, here's a guy who fell into a deep, dark period within his personal life because he was at the time, the laughingstock of late night.

I'm now acquainted with every bad picture of me ever taken.

They went into my past and literally got like awful pictures from the dmv, you know, and

put them in the newspapers and everywhere.

Which is everyone's nightmare, that they go to your house with a camera crew when you're not there and talk to your mom.

First of all, to say that it doesn't bother me would be, I think, like the rest of us, I'm human.

You know, it always rattles me somewhat when someone says, I think his hair looks ridiculous.

You know, there's a little part of you that says, gee, does my hair look ridiculous?

I gotta admit that this is a little unusual.

And seemed overly eager to get the ball rolling during each interview.

A man who had no idea whether or not his career would.

I just need to lie here under the desk for a while yet.

to a huge portion of late night fans, he's one of the greatest hosts of all time.

I am the beneficiary of literally hundreds and hundreds of really talented, amazing people.

So you wonder, how could a man so effectively turn the tides?

The thing is, Conan o' Brien is the kind of person who makes everyone around him completely comfortable.

let's compare the start of his inner interviews with, say, Jimmy Kimmel.

Jonah Hill was always known to be deeply insecure and after losing the weight, still struggled with self esteem.

So you think surely Kimmel would know how to open with a guy who has issues with his self confidence, and

First of all, you smell good, which is surprising.

I just wouldn't think of you a guy who would have a nice scent on.

Like, I'm gonna really work hard to not take that as a shot, you know what I mean?

And Jonah Hill, to his credit, handles it with pure class and even clarifies to Jimmy that he's put in the work and care to help himself cope with the feelings of inadequacy.

And I feel like I spent my whole 20s trying to, like, be what people wanted me to be, and

The past couple years have been amazing in the way of, like, I'm just gonna be myself.

So now Kimmel looks like an absolute fool.

Now let's look at how Conan handles the start of an interview with a much younger, assumingly, much more insecure Jonah Hill.

I'm sure Jonah, being relatively new in the industry, but

still on an upward trajectory, is going in with a sense of imposter syndrome.

You can tell just by his fidgety nature that he's still green regarding interviews and especially late night tv.

So Conan, having been there at one time or another, immediately reminds him of just how much time he really has and assures him that to an outsider's perspective, he's doing very, very well.

Even name dropping Morgan Freeman to help elevate his status to the crowd and the audience at home.

You live out in Los Angeles and you are starting to do well.

Working on a film with Morgan Freeman, one of the icons of film.

He's basically telling him, hey, man, you've made it.

See, Conan never jabs at the person being interviewed.

And if he does, he'll do it in the hypothetical sense or in third person and only as a riff.

Even when he's being absolutely eviscerated by someone like Martin Short, he doesn't strike back.

Don't I have the best hair in the business?

Well, I mean, first of all, you can barely see netting.

And secondly, people like Bill Maher get heat for their holier than thou attitude, and

they carry this sort of smug demeanor that makes them seem like the smartest one in the room, which at times can put them at odds with the guests.

You know, he wants to be seen as an intellectual.

I bet you fly private more than you're letting on.

I'm neither a comedian or a respected public figure.

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