Conan O’Brien recently shared a funny story about how Tom Hanks managed to recharge during his time preparing for one of his many Saturday Night Live hosting gigs.
Hanks was a guest on O’Brien’s podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, where the comedian—who was also a former SNL writer—reminisced about Hanks’ multiple appearances on the iconic NBC sketch show. Since 1985, the Here star has hosted SNL a total of 10 times, and O’Brien had nothing but praise for his energy.
“He would show up, caffeinated, ready to go, like, ‘Hey! Hey, everybody. What have you got?'” O’Brien recalled with admiration.
O’Brien went on to describe the usual behavior of most hosts: “Most hosts, they hang around a little bit. They sense the sadness, the desperation, they smell the odors, and they leave. Then they come back refreshed at the read-through,” referencing the long, sometimes grueling week of writing leading up to the live show.
However, Hanks was different. Even after long hours of work, his energy didn’t wane. O’Brien shared a hilarious memory from a particularly late-night writing session in 1988. “I came out, and there’s this giant [table] in the conference room, and you were sitting there, and you had been working on your own idea,” O’Brien recalled. “They had shoved all the tables together, and you were lying on the tables like Christ, with some pages over your eyes, because you were trying to catch a couple of winks before you woke up and got back to writing at three in the morning.”
Hanks, amused by the memory, commented, “I’d always heard that that was the great power of the hang. You got there, and all night Monday, and all night Tuesday, you’re going. Now they kinda take the host around, but I wanted to get in there and mix it up.”
Hanks’ eagerness to dive in and work with the writers, along with his ability to sneak in power naps, paid off. Over the years, he’s become a recurring SNL favorite. In fact, his iconic David S. Pumpkin sketch has gone down as one of the show’s most memorable moments.
Still, Hanks revealed he’s learned a valuable lesson when it comes to suggesting his own ideas for sketches. “You say, ‘Hey, I have some ideas for some sketches,’ and every writer goes, ‘Well, that’s just great. You have ideas that will rob us of the opportunity to get our ideas read. How wonderful,’” he joked with O’Brien.
His conclusion? “You’re the host,” Hanks said. “Concentrate on the monologue and then walk away. But it’s a great hang.”