Oprah Winfrey on Launching OWN: Lorne Michaels Told Me I'd Use 'Motherf---er' a Lot (Q&A)
Parts of this Q&A first appeared in the Jan. 10, 2013 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Dressed casual cool in a white button-up shirt, black pants and boots, and hair in loose natural curls, Oprah Winfrey is the picture of relaxation on a recent December afternoon on her lush estate near Santa Barbara.
Maybe its her now full-time California residency that has her so laid back (or the long-overdue vacation to Maui she has planned for tomorrow) but Winfrey appears the most mellow shes been in over year. And why not? Her almost 2-year-old cable network, OWN, is capping off a second and actually successful year of growth due to the juggernaut appeal of Winfreys exclusive-heavy Next Chapter interviews and widening breadth of clever female-skewing programming aimed at the very viewers who made her an afternoon staple for 25 years.
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In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Winfrey reflects on the challenges she never expected in launching OWN, the colorful advice given her by a late-night programming icon and the one-time Oprah book club author whose recently-shared mantra of thinking harder and feeling deeper she says most mirrors her contemporary ethos as a cable TV pioneer.
The Hollywood Reporter: After a rocky first year launching OWN, youre finally seeing ratings improve and programming risks pay off. How rewarding is it to see your vision for the network coming to fruition?
THR: And apparently, it doesnt matter who you are.
Winfrey: (Laughs) Exactly. Every single person told me it would take five years. Even when I was sitting at literally the feet of Lorne at David Geffens house he was sitting in a chair and I curled up at the bottom of his feet and he said, Its going to take you five years. And I told him, Oh I think well be able to do it sooner than that. And he goes, Five. He said it was about finding the right people; that there was an art to finding the right people. There are only nine people who know how to do anything, he said. Its been a process of finding the right fit on that front. The first major right decision I made was putting myself there and bringing in [OWN presidents] Sheri Salata and Erik Logan. They understood my DNA. I had a shorthand with them. Its funny, doing! the ! Oprah show was like breathing to me. The last two shows were the only ones I did not critique. But up until then, every single day for every single show thats what I was doing.
THR: Well, you and Lorne definitely have that in common an engrained need to constantly want to improve. And youre hard on yourselves when you arent.
Winfrey: Thats right. Youre always raising your own bar. Youre your own greatest competition. That has been my standard for myself. In the beginning of my career, I thought it was Geraldo Rivera, then "Oh God Ricki Lake, whos that?" Then I realized, "You are it. You are the person you are raising the bar for."
THR: No one can launch a new cable network and make it successful in less than two years, but thats exactly people expected of OWN. Do you think the criticism heaped on you during the first year of OWN was unfair?
Winfrey: I think the expectation and part of my own expectation was I had 25 years of success, and I thought people would just leverage that into the network. Well, we didnt account for people not having the channel, not knowing how to find the channel, cable audience being different than broadcast audience! And more competition. We didnt account for all that. In spite of all that, Id say weve been able to make the turn, make the pivot and start to gather our tribe in such a way that people are responding to the programming. Thats whats really exciting. My favorite show is Super Soul Sunday. I love that its opening up the heart chakra for viewers in a way. Theyre choosing to live more fully and have! a more o! pen mind about the choices they make. This is a new Sunday morning expression allowing people to probe their own paths of spirituality, and how are they are defining it. I will tweet myself hula-hooping when thats the number one show on OWN. (Laughs)
THR: What else are you proud of this year?
Winfrey: Gathering the tribe for Life Class and Iyanla Fix My Life. Also running around the country doing these Next Chapter interviews. Every interview I do, whether its Rihanna, Usher, Daniel Day-Lewis all of them are life classes. I get to have a thoughtful conversation with someone, not interrupted by having to go to commercial breaks. Its so different interviewing people when theyre not in front of an audience; so intimate and so personal. People really bring 100 percent of themselves. Im most excited about Master Class. Last year Jane Fonda did one.
THR: I can see you and Jane having a pretty open conversation about the meaning of life.
Winfrey: Yes, we have a good vibe! Shes in a league of using her life to lift the consciousness wherever she can, and so am I. Thats what my whole life is all about. Thats where I am now. Ive compared it to feeling like climbing Kilimanjaro at the beginning of the year. Sheri Salata, God bless her, said to me, "When we finish the Oprah show, now we actually can go climb Kilimanjaro. Were going to train in Telluride, and then climb Kilimanjaro."
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THR: That takes a road trip with Gayle to the next level!
Winfrey: (Laughs) Yes. I said to Sheri, "We dont have to actually climb Kili! manjaro. ! Were already doing it! Its inside [OWN headquarters] at 5700 Wilshire Blvd."
THR: Who was your toughest Next Chapter interview this year? Or, someone who surprised you?
Winfrey: Interestingly enough, the person who most surprised me the most was Rihanna. She brought one thousand percent of her. You could tell that she came ready. She was open to anything. But I dont do an interview if someone tells me I cant ask a certain question. My policy is, I can ask any question, you can tell me you wont answer it, but you have to tell me that on camera. I really didnt know that much about her. I just thought she was so thoughtful and so smart. I didnt know that she was or wasnt, I only knew her from her music.
THR: Well, it was a brilliant PR moment for her as well.
Winfrey: Whats really happening is that people see that when they give me an opportunity to sit down with them, I really just want them to be fully themselves. The way I approach every interview is to use my own sort of Super Soul training: You allow the presence in you to speak to the presence in the other person. You drop the facade and you really see soul to soul with somebody.
THR: Well, its clearly working! Is there something you want the business insiders of Hollywood to know about what youre still hoping to achieve with OWN?
Winfrey: I want to try to, as I heard recently, "Lift people to thinking higher and feeling deeper." Thats a quote I got from [author] Elie Wiesel just yesterday. When he said it, it just penetrated inside me. Im going to remember that.
THR: How do you keep track of all these words of wisdom swirling around your brain?
Winfrey: (Laughs) I love words. I thought "Gee, well thats exactly what Im trying to do with my own life and this channel!" Thinking higher and feeling deeper. In every single circumst! ance ther! es a way to look at it with deeper feeling and thinking higher. But that doesnt mean I dont want to have fun. I definitely want a couple of LOLs and laughing-my-ass-offs moments along the way, too.
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