Henry Winkler Talks Barry Final Season, Roles He Didn't Land & Memoir

Henry Winkler is looking backmost astatine immoderate of his unhappier days.

The Barry histrion got candid astir the challenges helium faced following his Happy Days exit successful 1984. After spending implicit a decennary arsenic the comb-toting, leather jacket-clad Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli—affectionately known arsenic "Fonzie"—on the deed sit-com, reinvention didn't travel easy.

"There were 8 oregon 9 years astatine a clip erstwhile I couldn't get hired due to the fact that I was 'The Fonz,'" helium shared successful a May 8 interrogation with Today, "because I was typecast."

The conflict for acting jobs besides took a toil connected Winkler's intelligence health.

"I had psychic symptom that was debilitating due to the fact that I didn't cognize what to do," helium shared. "I didn't cognize wherever to find it, immoderate it was, I didn't cognize what I was going to do. I had a family. I had a dog. I had a roof. Oh. My. God."

However, Winkler has nary regrets. "I loved playing ‘The Fonz,'" the 77-year-old said. "I emotion those people. I loved learning however to play softball. I loved traveling each implicit the satellite unneurotic with the cast. I would not person traded it."

Looking astatine his beingness now, Winkler remarked that "it is not casual to find your authenticity."

"I've opened truthful galore doors," helium said. "I've recovered canoe paddles. I recovered scuba gear. I recovered unread books. I ne'er found, for the longest time, authenticity, which I present know."

Calling authenticity the "key to living," Winkler added that it besides helps to instrumentality a leafage from the Fonz himself and enactment chill adjacent erstwhile the going gets tough.

"Life is much amusive than you deliberation it is, than you let it to be," helium noted. "Don't worry so much."

(E! and Today are some portion of the NBCUniversal family.)