Patton Oswalt’s wife, true crime writer Michelle McNamara, died this past April, making his Emmy win earlier this month especially poignant. In his speech, Oswalt said: “I want to share this with two people. One of them, my daughter Alice, is waiting at home. The other one is waiting somewhere else, I hope.” Appearing on Conan last night, Oswalt spoke about the experience of winning in the wake of his tragedy. “She was the reason that my comedy got better to get me to the point where someone would consider me for an Emmy,” Oswalt said, explaining that it was hard to “encapsulate that” into such a short time frame.
Oswalt also discussed what happiness means to him now. True happiness, he said, was the time spent with his wife doing things like “watching a bad movie” or “fussing over what we’re going to pack.” He added: “It feels like for a long time I’m just going to have the flavor of happiness.” At one point during the episode, O’Brien asked Oswalt to describe how his life has been following McNamara’s death: “I’m like every bad ’80s sitcom: where there’s a dad raising a kid by himself,” Oswalt said. “Except my ’80s sitcom sucks.”
On a lighter note, Oswalt also told a story about taking his Emmy to Arby’s after the ceremony.