What to Know About Conan O’Brien’s Wife, Liza Powel O’Brien

Who Is Liza Powel O’Brien?

Liza Powel O’Brien is best known publicly as Conan O’Brien’s wife, but professionally she’s built her own lane as a
playwright and narrative writer. She has written numerous plays (often cited as at least a dozen) and has developed
work with respected theater organizations. In other words, her job isn’t “famous spouse.” Her job is “person who
makes audiences feel things… and occasionally laugh at the fact that they are feeling things.”

A quick way to understand her vibe: Liza’s writing tends to orbit the pressure points of everyday lifeidentity,
ambition, relationships, power, and the tiny social catastrophes that happen in ordinary rooms. If Conan’s comedy
persona is “chaos goblin with a Harvard vocabulary,” Liza’s creative reputation reads more like “observant storyteller
who knows exactly where the human nerve endings are.”

Her Education: From Vassar to Columbia’s Writing Program

Liza earned her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College, and later completed an MFA in fiction writing at Columbia
University’s School of the Arts. That combinationliberal arts foundation plus graduate-level craft trainingshows up
in the way she moves between forms: plays, short pieces, and audio storytelling.

One fun detail for literature-and-history nerds: her play The Great Experiment draws inspiration from Vassar’s
early years, using the “first female college” setting to explore friendship, culture clashes, and big ideas colliding
with messy real people. It’s the kind of premise that screams “this writer has read the brochure” and then immediately
asked, “Okay, but what did it actually feel like to live it?”

Before Playwriting: Her Advertising Copywriting Years

Long before theater bios started listing workshops and readings, Liza spent years in advertising as a copywriter.
Theater profiles note she spent about nine years working in advertising (including time in Seattle and New York),
which is relevant for a simple reason: copywriting trains you to write with precision under pressure.

In advertising, you learn to land a message fast, make it memorable, and keep trimming until it’s sharp enough to cut
glass. That skill set doesn’t disappear when you move into playsit turns into crisp dialogue, clear stakes, and
scenes that don’t wander around asking for snacks.

How Liza Powel O’Brien Met Conan O’Brien (Yes, It Was On Camera)

The headline version: Liza and Conan met during a remote segment for Late Night with Conan O’Brien at her
advertising agency, Foote, Cone & Belding. The segment’s premise involved the show interacting with an ad team
(and, famously, a furniture commercial concept). Liza was part of the group working on the projectand according to
Conan, he was immediately captivated and focused on getting to know her rather than “performing” for the room.

This is the rare meet-cute that comes with bonus footage. Conan has joked that somewhere there’s video of him
“literally falling” for his future wife during that shoot. And in a moment that feels deeply relatable, Liza has also
teased that Conan doesn’t like rewatching the cliphe’d rather keep his memory of it intact than risk reality being
slightly less cinematic.

They started dating soon after, proving that sometimes the best relationship origins aren’t candlelit dinnersthey’re
fluorescent office lighting, camera gear, and someone trying to pretend they’re being normal.

Marriage and Family: A Long-Running Partnership

Liza and Conan married in January 2002 in Seattle, at St. James Cathedral. Over time they built a family with two
children: a daughter, Neve, and a son, Beckett (born in the early-to-mid 2000s). If you’ve followed Conan for any
length of time, you’ve probably noticed the pattern: he’ll share parenthood jokes and sweet stories, while still
keeping his kids largely out of the spotlight.

That “public figure + private family” balance is a theme of their relationship in general. Liza appears with Conan at
major moments, but she’s not chasing celebrity as a full-time hobby. The vibe is more: “I’m here because I love you,
and then I’m going back to my writing.”

Her Career as a Playwright: What She’s Written and Where It’s Been Seen

Liza’s theater work has been developed and presented through venues and organizations that matter in the playwriting
world. Her writing is associated with places like Geffen Playhouse, Ojai Playwrights Conference, The Lark, and
othersspaces where scripts get shaped, challenged, and refined before they reach wider audiences.

Notable plays (and why they stand out)

• The Great Experiment Set in 1865 during Vassar’s early era, it uses a historical lens to
  examine friendship dynamics and cultural collisions (with plenty of room for humor and discomfort).
• Ruthie Goes Shopping A compact premise with big emotional consequences: one afternoon,
  one shopping trip, and a life that starts unraveling.
• John Wayne Times Developed through readings and workshops; the title alone hints at a
  writer who understands Americana as both myth and complication.
• Apostrophe Presented through play development contexts and later staged, reflecting her
  continued presence in serious theater spaces.
• The Distinguished Gentleman A smaller cast setup with political/satirical potential,
  the kind of piece that can feel intimate and pointed at the same time.

Beyond the scripts themselves, theater bios also note her involvement in the ecosystemserving on committees and
boards connected to play development. That’s the behind-the-scenes work that keeps new writing alive: reading,
recommending, and helping stories get their shot.

“Significant Others”: Her Podcast Work (And Why It’s Clever)

Liza’s storytelling also lives in audio. She wrote and narrated the nonfiction podcast series Significant Others
on Team Coco. The concept is simple and instantly addictive: tell the stories of people just outside the spotlight of
historyfigures who shaped outcomes while living in the gravitational field of someone more famous.

The show’s structure leans into narrative clarity: each episode focuses on an overlooked person who influenced a
better-known partner, friend, sibling, or child. And because it’s Team Coco, the production brings in recognizable
voice talent for certain episodesproof that “history podcast” doesn’t have to mean “dry lecture voice reading dates
at you.”

If you like stories that reframe what you thought you knew, this project makes perfect sense for Liza. It’s basically
playwriting logic applied to real lives: whose story is missing, what did they want, and how did they change the
plot?

Why She Stays Somewhat Private (And Why That Works)

There’s a particular kind of public curiosity that shows up around celebrity spouses: people want the “secret sauce”
of a long marriage, and they want it in a shareable listicle. Liza and Conan, however, have never presented their
relationship as content-first.

Liza’s public presence tends to be purposefulsupporting Conan at major events, talking about her own creative
projects, and occasionally popping into Team Coco content when there’s an actual reason. It’s a useful reminder that
you can be adjacent to fame without letting fame become your job description.

Quick Facts People Ask About Liza Powel O’Brien

Is she a writer?

Yes. Liza is a playwright with multiple produced/developed works and formal writing training (including an MFA).

How did she and Conan meet?

During a Late Night remote segment at her advertising agency. The moment has been referenced in interviews
and podcast conversationsbecause it’s too strange and delightful not to mention.

Do they have kids?

Yestwo. Conan jokes about parenting, but the family overall maintains privacy, especially around their children.

Does she work with Team Coco?

She created the podcast series Significant Others under Team Coco, and she’s appeared in related audio/video
conversations about it.

Conclusion: More Than a “Celebrity Wife” Headline

Liza Powel O’Brien is one of those people whose public identity gets flattened into a single label“Conan O’Brien’s
wife”even though her actual life includes a whole career in writing. She’s worked in advertising, developed plays
with respected theater organizations, and created a podcast that spotlights the overlooked architects of history.

And yes, she also happens to be part of one of late-night comedy’s most enduring partnershipsproof that sometimes a
remote segment isn’t just a bit. Occasionally, it’s the first act.

Experiences Related to Liza Powel O’Brien and This Story (An Extra )

The funny thing about learning more about Liza Powel O’Brien is how quickly the “celebrity spouse” framing falls apart
once you pay attention to the experiences around her work. If you’ve ever watched (or heard about) the original remote
where she met Conan, the experience is almost universally the same: you start out looking for the joke, and you end up
noticing the humanity. There’s a shift from “haha, this is a sketch” to “oh… that’s a real person with real timing
and real confidence.” Even when the setup is comedic chaos, the subtext is two adults having an unexpectedly genuine
conversation in a very ungenuine environment. That contrastperformance versus authenticityis basically the central
tension of modern fame, and it’s sitting right there in an office lobby.

Another experience people recognize in this story is what it’s like to be partnered with someone whose job is public.
Major events (award nights, big career milestones, red carpets) have a way of turning relationships into a public
“supporting role.” The experience can be flattering, but it can also be reductivebecause you’re not just a plus-one,
you’re a person who had an entire life before the camera found you. Liza’s career choices reflect a pattern many
creative partners relate to: stay grounded in your own work. There’s something quietly powerful about showing up for a
spouse’s big moment and still returning to your own craftyour own deadlines, your own drafts, your own rehearsals.
That’s not hiding; it’s having a center of gravity that isn’t defined by someone else’s spotlight.

Then there’s the experience of recognizing your own life in her writing themes. Even without reading every script,
the summaries and premises point to familiar emotional terrain: friendships that turn complicated, social systems that
claim to be “progressive” while still being messy, and relationships that reveal uncomfortable truths when the stakes
rise. If you’ve ever had a day where a simple errand spiraled into an existential crisis (hello, one innocent trip to a
store that somehow ends with you rethinking every decision since middle school), you immediately understand why a play
like Ruthie Goes Shopping connects. That’s a shared experience of being human: the smallest moments can be the
trapdoor.

Finally, there’s the experience of being reintroduced to history through her podcast concept. Significant Others
taps into a very specific feeling: realizing you’ve been taught history as a parade of “main characters,” when in fact
real outcomes are often shaped by the people nearbythe partner who challenges the idea, the friend who finances the
risk, the sibling who steadies the collapse. Listening to stories like that tends to spark a personal ripple effect.
You start thinking about your own life: who influenced you behind the scenes? Who quietly shifted your direction?
Whose work goes uncredited because they weren’t the one holding the microphone? That’s a surprisingly emotional
experience for a podcast, and it’s exactly why it works.

Put all these experiences together and the takeaway becomes clear: Liza Powel O’Brien is interesting not because she’s
adjacent to fame, but because she’s consistently doing what writers dowatching, interpreting, and turning the
overlooked parts of life into something that feels seen.

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