Conan O’Brien on What Can Go Wrong at the Oscars

Hosting the Academy Awards ceremony is a notoriously tricky gig, but Conan O’Brien nailed it in 2025, and he will return for this year’s event. Since leaving late-night television, in 2021, O’Brien has been busy: his hit podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” commands perhaps a larger audience than he had on late night; he launched the travel series “Conan O’Brien Must Go”; and he’s played a therapist in the 2025 film “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” O’Brien talks with David Remnick about the things that have gone wrong at the Oscars; why he won’t get too “sentimental” about the gradual collapse of late night; and his shock at the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner, who had been at O’Brien’s house on the night they were killed.

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.