Sean Evans tells Illinois grads to be ready for the heat

Thank you for the kind introduction, Chancellor Isbell. I’m relieved to see that you’ve fully recovered from our showdown with the wings of death a few weeks ago.

Good morning, esteemed faculty, parents, alumni and the Class of 2026.

I’m honored to be here and it’s also very humbling. There’s a list of very distinguished people who have stood at this podium before me, including Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, a former Secretary of State and even an astronaut. This year, it’s me, a chicken wing talk show host on YouTube.

But, I might add, a chicken wing talk show host of the highest esteem and dignity.

I want to say thank you to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for extending an invitation that, I promise you, surprised me just as much as it’s confusing your parents.

So, unlike the distinguished speakers who have come before me, I think I should start by explaining myself.

I host a show called “Hot Ones,” where I interview some of the most famous people in the world while we eat chicken wings doused in progressively spicier hot sauce. Over the last decade plus, I’ve done hundreds of interviews, including icons of broadcasting, top-flight athletes, A-list actors and world-conquering pop stars.

With the truth serum of hot sauce, celebrities on the show have offered up some surprisingly profound life advice.

The legendary late-night host Conan O’Brien reminded us all to “read widely and read well,” somehow summoning the mental strength to reference Don Quixote and Chaucer — after taking a swig of “Da Bomb Beyond Insanity,” straight out of the bottle.

The streaming superstar Kai Cenat — another person who has a career that didn’t even exist when I graduated — taught me that “slow motion is better than no motion.” In other words, making small, incremental progress towards your goals is better than doing nothing. Step by step, wing by wing.

Fellow U. of I. alum Nick Offerman — who graced this very stage with his own commencement address back in 2017 — instilled the value of building and repairing things. He said “a person who can fix what’s broken — whether it’s a chair or a relationship — will always be needed in this world.”

And finally Dave Grohl, who said after eating The Last Dab, “It’s not about the mouth — it’s about your butthole,” a profound reminder that the test of any experience comes after it’s over.

As silly as “Hot Ones” is on paper, it’s given me a life beyond anything I ever could’ve dreamed. From entertaining millions of fans around the world to being parodied on “Saturday Night Live,” appearing in Super Bowl commercials and performing onstage alongside Stephen Colbert at The Kennedy Center.

If nothing else, I stand on this stage today as a living testament to how unpredictable life can be. Along the way, though, I’ve learned to take it one wing at a time.

I grew up in Crystal Lake, Illinois, about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago. Here’s what Illinois gave me that no coastal Master of Fine Arts ever could: the complete absence of anyone telling me I was special before I’d earned it. The Midwest doesn’t hand you confidence; it makes you build it.

Growing up in Illinois and studying in the Midwest makes you work for pats on the back — and that’s good preparation for the real world, where no one cares until you give them a good reason to. It can be uncomfortable and deeply unglamorous. But believe me, it is a gift.

U. of I. fostered my sense of self as a creative as well.

One of my lasting memories as a student here was the countless late-night hours I spent in Gregory Hall editing video packages until two o’clock in the morning. There was a specific silence on campus that gave me an outsized focus.

To this day, most of my best ideas and work occur in the middle of the night. I like the studio to be quiet before an interview, because it brings me back to the habits I formed as a student. These are not things I learned in a writer’s room in New York; I discovered that about myself right here in Champaign.

There was a professor here as well — John Paul — who told me, essentially, that I wasn’t terrible at this. That I had a career in broadcasting if I wanted it badly enough. At 20 years old, someone saying “you can do this” is everything, and I’ve carried that with me out of Champaign and to Manhattan and Hollywood.

John, I know you’re here. Let’s get tacos again while I’m back in town.

Here’s the thing about “Hot Ones” that I think is worth saying out loud, because it took me a long time to understand it myself: What you see on screen — the wings, the sweating, the celebrities cursing me out after eating Blair’s Mega Death Sauce with Liquid Rage — that’s maybe five percent of the job. The other 95 percent is preparation. Reading. Watching. Listening.

If I’m interviewing Ariana Grande, her music becomes the soundtrack of my life for weeks. If Matthew McConaughey is coming to the studio, I’m ending every night with a double feature of his films. If I’m interviewing an athlete like Shaquille O’Neal, I’m watching everything from the documentaries to the highlight compilations on YouTube.

If a job is defined by what you do most of the time, I’m not an interviewer. I’m a student. And the reason I’m standing here today — I genuinely believe this — is because I never stopped being one.

Through this cartoon existence I have interviewing famous people over spicy wings, I’ve come to appreciate more than ever that everyone has to start somewhere and, at the end of the day, we’re all just people figuring it out. I’ve sat across from world-class athletes and seen them get genuinely nervous. I’ve seen Oscar-winning actors sweat through their shirts and world-tour-headlining pop stars be reduced to tears.

One thing I love to research and ask guests on the show is their earliest jobs. Not because the anecdotes tend to be filled with meaning and great life lessons, but for the pure comedic value. Because, usually, they were absolutely terrible.

Kevin Hart was a shoe salesman before selling out arenas as a standup. Hugh Jackman worked as a birthday clown before he became Wolverine. And, for my part, I gave architectural boat tours of the Chicago River before I ever made a dime in front of a camera.

The point is, where you start is not where you’ll end up. Your next move after you leave this campus is just the first step. Like I said before, one wing at a time.

As wild and unpredictable as my journey has been, the one thing that’s remained consistent is the group of likeminded collaborators around me, who were willing to believe in a dumb idea just as much as I did.

My producers, Dom and Victoria, who showed up for me before the show was anything. My brother, Gavin, who reads more about celebrity childhoods than any human being on earth. An editor named Colin, who we discovered from the Hot Ones meme edits he’d do for fun and post on Reddit. Sarah Honda, who runs my entire life, and my partner Chris Schonberger, who gave me the best dumb idea ever, to interview celebrities while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings, which became a media company we now run with more than 60 full time employees, including my camera and sound team that’s remained with me since Day 1.

Some of them are still with me today. Literally. Hi Dom! Hi Vic! Hi Sarah! Hi Gavin!

Eleven years in, I don’t show up because of the wings. I show up because of who’s on the other side of the camera when I’m eating them. The spark of an idea ultimately means nothing if there’s not a team to nurture and sustain it. So if you find those people, don’t let go.

I’m going to wrap up here in a second, but before I go any further, I need to acknowledge someone who isn’t here today — but who, if I know her at all, is absolutely watching.

My mom was an Illini. This was her school. And when I was a teenager, before we lost her to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, one of the last real conversations we had was about where I was thinking of going to college.

I chose Illinois.

I’ve thought about that conversation a thousand times since. Whether she knew what she was doing, planting a seed, or if going here was her way of keeping me close.

So, Mom — I don’t know if you can see all of this. The orange and blue, the families in the stands, these extraordinary students in caps and gowns. But if you can: “Look at us. Who would’ve thought? Not me.” But, you did. You always did.

So on that note, let me rally, because here I stand on the proverbial Wing 10 of this commencement address. Let’s take it home.

Class of 2026, this is your moment. Whatever the last few years looked like for you, whether it went according to plan or not — from the 2 a.m. panic the night before a final, to the class you took three times, to the semester that almost broke you — you’re sitting in Gies Memorial Stadium with a degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. No one can take that away from you.

So for just a moment, right now, don’t worry about whatever comes next. Savor the flavor of this wing. Through hard work, you’ve discovered important things about yourself. You learned to be a student and to always stay curious.

The person to your left and your right, you battled through the trenches. You have built something inside yourself. You don’t need to know what happens next, you just need to be ready for the heat.

And as you celebrate your graduation today, remember what it really means: You are prepared.

And, now there’s nothing left to do but roll out the red carpet for you: this camera, this camera, this camera. Congratulations Class of 2026 and thank you very much!