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Wednesday and Scream VI star Jenna Ortega is one of the hottest young actresses in the game. Which might explain why Saturday Night Live oldster Bowen Yang just can’t understand all her youthful wordplay in the latest promo for this weekend’s show.
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After Ortega gives the basic rundown of the episode’s lineup — she’s hosting, The 1975 are the musical guest — a befuddled Yang is like, “what?,” clearly confused by all the millennial jargon she’s slanging at him. “I’m hosting SNL with musical guest The 1975,” the 20-year-old actress repeats as the band silently bracket her and Yang.
“I feel so old, I don’t understand any of your generation’s slang,” Yang, 33, complains. “Are you guys getting any of this?,” he asks the band, as shades-wearing singer Matty Healy mumbles, “none of it.”
In the second bit, Ortega flips her Wednesday character’s frown upside down and gives the camera some double espresso high school pep squad energy, which again totally confuses Yang. “What are you doing?” he wonders as Ortega shakes her shoulders and smiles brightly.
“I’m being upbeat, you know I don’t want people to think I’m like my character Wednesday,” she explains. “Well, cool it, you’re freaking people out!,” Yang admonishes the star, asking the band if they too are wondering what is going on. “We’re freaked,” they all murmur half-heartedly.
They all hang around for a few more bits, which come on top of this week’s first ad, during which Ortega reluctantly did her viral Wednesday “Bloody Mary” dance one more time to please the Please Don’t Destroy guys, who came dressed in their finest Wednesday Addams cosplay.
Saturday Night Live airs on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET and streams later on Peacock.
Check out Ortega’s SNL promo below.
Jenna Ortega got talked into doing the viral Wednesday dance to Lady Gaga‘s “Bloody Mary” on Wednesday (March 8) for her Saturday Night Live promo.
“Honestly, this is really well-written, I just don’t feel like I want to do the Wednesday dance for promo because we’ve seen so much of that already and I think it’s time to do something new,” the actress says in the clip before the camera pans to the Please Don’t Destroy guys decked out in their best Wednesday Addams cosplay.
“We didn’t want to do the dance either,” Ben Marshall insists before Ortega points out the trio’s lacy, gothic, all-black ensembles. (“Is this from your television program?” John Higgins hysterically deadpans. “Wednesday Addams? More like Thursday Jones, I don’t even know what that is.”
After Higgins swears doing the TikTok challenge with Ortega totally “wouldn’t be a dream come true” for the three comedians — don’t even worry, Martin Herlihy “barely knows it” — the You alum is finally guilted into relenting.
While the “Bloody Mary” trend has gone absolutely viral on TikTok in the months since Wednesday‘s debut on Netflix — with everyone from SEVENTEEN and Madonna to even Mother Monster herself taking part in the challenge — Ortega revealed after the hit series’ premiere that she actually had COVID while filming the original dance sequence to “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps.
Ortega is set to make her debut in Studio 8H by hosting the Saturday (March 11) episode of SNL with musical guest The 1975.
Watch Ortega make the Please Don’t Destroy guys’ dreams come true below.
It remains to be seen if Super Bowl champ Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has what the comedic chops to play ball as host of Saturday Night Live this weekend. But in the promos for tomorrow night’s (March 4) show, he’s definitely game, yukking it up with musical guest Kelsea Ballerini about a possible merger of their famous names.
“Kelsea you should change your name to Travis, so you can have Travis Kelce and Kelsea Travis,” cast member Heidi Gardner helpfully suggests. “Or, maybe he should change his first name to Ballerini, I don’t know,” the country star counters.
Kelce doesn’t hate the idea, putting his hands above his head in a delicate manner and admitting, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to be a ballerina,” he says with a spin as the women give him props for his good form.
In a second promo, Gardner asks the New Heights podcast host and smash-mouth player if he’s ready for prime time and he notes that, “football isn’t that different from SNL, we’re working under a lot of pressure.” Gardner kind of gets it, but when Kelce notes that football also features a musical guest and cue card reading she’s confused. “And it airs at 11:30 and I’m in a bunch of wigs and Chloe Fineman is always there,” he assures her.
“Travis, I don’t know if that’s right,” the SNL master of impressions shoots back. “Okay, I get hit the head for a living so I’ll take that as fair game,” Kelce explains in a bit that skirts the edge of funny given the serious brain injuries suffered by a number of NFL players.
Gardner blows the whistle repeatedly on Kelce in a third bit in which she tells him he can “do better” while introducing this week’s lineup, working him like a relentless comedic position coach.
First-time host Kelce definitely got his reps in this week, also appearing in an earlier promo in which he dresses as Indiana Jones and channels the legendary bit in the original film. In his version, Kelce-as-Indy tries to swipe a statue of the SNL logo by replacing it with the championship Lombardi trophy the Chiefs earned by beating the Philadelphia Eagles in last month’s Super Bowl LVII.
Check out the promos below and watch SNL on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET.
Woody Harrelson and Jack White will both join the five-timers club when they appear on Saturday Night Live this weekend. But before they hit the stage, the pair had to clear up a few things with cast member Chloe Fineman in this week’s promo for Saturday’s (Feb. 25) show.
In the first of two bits the trio shot, Harrelson does his job and hypes up White’s appearance, while a thirsty Fineman tries to get something going on the side with the Woodman. “Woody and Chloe back at it again,” she says with sass, snapping her fingers over her head, as White interjects, “Oh, I didn’t know you guys worked together before.”
“Oh, it’s a figure of speech, like ‘Woody and Chloe back at it,’ or ‘Woody and Chloe starring in a hit movie,’” Fineman adds nervously as Harrelson reminds the feature player to stop asking him to cast her in his next movie.
In the second promo Fineman tries to get her groove back and tells Harrelson he’s “the best” host. “Am I?,” he wonders, noting that considering that White is the musical guest, a better pairing might have balanced things out a bit. “Wouldn’t the best host be Jack Black?” he asks.
“You know, white-black, yin-yang, you know I think it could really help bring America together,” he suggests, as Fineman just double-checks to make sure the famously toke-loving actor understands that he does actually have to host this week.
“Stop tearing this country apart, Chloe!,” White implores her.
Harrelson — who appears in the upcoming basketball drama Champions and the HBO political series White House Plumbers — previously hosted Saturday Night Live in 1989, 1992, 2014 and 2019. White who dropped two albums in 2022, April’s Fear of the Dawn and July’s Entering Heaven Alive, has performed on the show five times as well, dating back to his White Stripes days.
The show airs every Saturday live on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT. For those without cable, the broadcast will also stream on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans on demand access to previous SNL episodes as well.
Check out this week’s SNL promo below.
Woody Harrelson will be enshrined in the Saturday Night Live five-timers club on Feb. 25 when he hosts the show during an episode that will feature musical guest Jack White. Harrelson — who will soon be seen in the upcoming movie Champions and the HBO political drama White House Plumbers — previously hosted in 1989, 1992, 2014 and 2019.
In a cosmic coincidence, it will also mark White’s fifth appearance on the show; he previously rocked the Studio 8H stage in 2002, 2012, 2018 and 2020. The news comes on the heels of the announcement that White’s previous band, The White Stripes, are among the nominees for the 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The last time White appeared he was a last-minute fill-in for country singer Morgan Wallen, who was booted from the line-up for violating the show’s COVID-19 protocols at the height of the pandemic.
White dropped two albums in 2022, April’s Fear of the Dawn and July’s Entering Heaven Alive.
This year has already brought memorable musical guests Sam Smith, Lil Baby and, this past weekend, Coldplay. For their seventh appearance on SNL, Coldplay opened with their 2022 single, “The Astronaut,” on which they collaborated with BTS’ Jin. Their second song was a medley of “Human Heart” from 2021’s Music of the Spheres and their 2005 fan favorite “Fix You,” from X&Y. The band was joined during the emotional performance by Jacob Collier and choral ensemble Jason Max Ferdinand Singers.
Check out the SNL announce from White.
Pedro Pascal is the star of two of TV’s biggest hits at the moment. But The Mandalorian and The Last of Us star will be a first-time Saturday Night Live host tomorrow (Feb. 4), and judging by this week’s promo things are not going great so far.
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“Little Pedro Pascal from Santiago, Chile hosting Saturday Night Live,” the actor says to himself proudly as he wanders around the silent stage of fame studio 8H in the minute-long clip. “Wild,” he muses as he hears a strange sound from somewhere off stage and sees the shadow of someone running in the distance.
Curious, Pascal goes in search of the disruption because by now he’s an expert at busting out his flashlight and looking for potentially lethal things that go click in the night thanks to his role as Last of Us apocalypse survivor Joel; the hit HBO drama is based on the video game of the same name is set in 2023, 20 years after a mass fungal infection wiped out most of the planet’s population and clicking zombies are in search of the remaining humans.
When Pascal’s light beam catches one of the show’s signature clickers — wearing a trench coat for some reason — lurking in the dark, the actor grabs a hammer and prepares to brain the undead mutant before cast members Sarah Sherman and Molly Kearney jump in to stop the carnage.
“What are you doing you psycho?,” Sherman shrieks as the lights flick on. “What do you mean? That’s…” says a surprised Pascal. “… our brand new cast member?” Sherman explains to the embarrassed host. “Not cool, Mr. Pascal,” Kearney scolds him. “Listen, I know it’s your first time hosting, but a little advice: don’t hit the cast members with a hammer you maniac!” Sherman offers.
As Sherman walks off arm-in-arm with “Matt,” Kearney warns Pascal that he is not making “the best first impression” and says they have their eye on him. “This place is nuts… I like it,” Pascal smiles. Though it is the actor’s first go-round on the show, musical guest, Coldplay will be taking the SNL stage for the seventh time.
Check out Pascal’s SNL promo below.
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State Farm’s “like a good neighbor” tagline got the SNL treatment last weekend when host Michael B. Jordan put on the signature red polo shirt and took over a family.
In the sketch, Michael B. Jordan shows up when a set of parents were looking to file a claim after their daughter clogged a toilet with her stuffed animals.
Mikey Day plays the confused dad who comes home to discover that Jake from State Farm really was “here for you 24/7” in fact, playing with his kids. Jake also takes the kids and their mom, played by Heidi Gardner, to church on Sunday morning — sparking a fight between the couple.
As Jake continues to take over the family, teaching the little girl piano and playing catch with the son, Day’s character becomes more and more perplexed. He even looks up rates of other insurance when Jake shows up in the shadows, whispering that it won’t help because State Farm matches rates. Jake then taunts Day with a sinister voice saying, “Save more when you bundle home and auto.”
Left with nothing, Day mourns losing his family to handsome insurance pitchman Jake, drunkenly singing “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” as he plans to jump off a bridge. “He took everything,” he roars.
The whole sketch takes another turn when it’s revealed that the entire scene is a commercial for Liberty Mutual insurance.
The hilarious sketch isn’t the first time Jake from State Farm has been the subject of satire. In a commercial during Super Bowl LV, the company hired Drake to don the red shirt as “Drake from State Farm.”
The actor who plays Jake is actually Kevin Miles from Chicago, in 2021 he told Forbes about his experience with the notoriety that comes with the role.
“They never say Kevin, which is okay (laughs). They’ll say ‘Jake.’ Even on-set, they just say ‘Hey Jake!’ and I just answer. It definitely started with the mask a little bit. I’d walk my dog and people would be like Hey, you’re ‘Jake from State Farm.’ They could still tell! One time I was at the store and I had my glasses on with a hat, deep incognito mode. Someone was just like Man, your voice is just so recognizable. That felt cool and weird.”
As for Michael B. Jordan, he will make his directorial debut with Creed III in theaters March 3, 2023.
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Photo: Rich Polk / Getty
Lil Baby made his Saturday Night Live musical guest debut on Jan. 28, performing a pair of tracks from his latest Billboard 200-topping album, It’s Only Me.
Following an introduction from host Michael B. Jordan, the Atlanta rapper stepped onto the stage of Studio 8H to deliver “California Breeze” and “Forever,” both of which reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2022.
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Baby previously made an appearance on SNL while assisting on DJ Khaled’s performance of “You Stay” in 2019.
Upon its release in October, Baby’s It’s Only Me album topped the Billboard 200 with all 23 tracks appearing on the Hot 100 songs chart, making it one of the year’s most dominant streaming releases.
SNL, which opened last week with musical guest Sam Smith, enters 2023 after an impressive 2022, in which the NBC sketch comedy series won an Emmy Award for outstanding variety sketch series. SNL is the most Emmy-nominated show in television history and currently holds 93 Emmy wins.
Watch Lil Baby’s SNL performances below. For those without cable, the broadcast will also stream on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans on demand access to previous SNL episodes as well.
It takes a very intimate, deep level of trust to pull off what Sharon Stone and Sam Smith did on last weekend’s Saturday Night Live. In Smith’s second performance of the night, the legendary Casino star channeled a Hollywood siren from the early silver screen era as she posed elegantly on a couch in a gilded custom gown while Smith and a choir performed the spiritual title track from the singer’s upcoming Gloria album.
Without a word, and hardly even a gesture, Stone’s surprise cameo managed to both upstage Smith and low-key compliment the dramatic performance without making it all about her, a delicate balance the actress told Variety was a result of the very special relationship the two have developed.
Stone told the magazine that she’d met Smith before through her good pal singer Rufus Wainwright — they all sat together at the premiere of the 2019 Judy Garland biopic Judy — which led to Smith DMing Stone a month ago asking if she would be willing to join him on SNL. “And I said, ‘Well, it’s funny, I am listening to Sam Smith radio [on a streaming service] at the moment, so I think the universe has already decided this. I’d be so thrilled to do it, Sam. I just think you’re the most astounding performer and I’d be absolutely ecstatic to do it,’” she said she told Smith.
Because she’s that kind of pro, Stone reached out to her head costumer to have a custom dress made by Indian designer Gaurav Gupta. Describing the “sound bath” she was in on the SNL stage surrounded by Smith and a gospel choir, Stone said the singer’s directions were minimal. “[They] just asked me if I would do it and trusted me. We just innately understand each other, at an almost intimate level. We have no judgment of each other; we have only affirmative feelings about each other as an artist,” she said. “It’s not a competitive sport, but we want each other to bring our best game, and in order to do that, it’s like, ‘Just go for it, girl.’”
As a veteran who has endured too many co-stars stepping on her close-up moments, Stone said her job during Smith’s performance was simple: just listen. “I’m listening. I’m listening and allowing it to be alive in my heart,” she said before seemingly revealing a bit of news. “I think that what we really wanted was that idea of an apparition — almost like [Russian-French painter] Erte. Sam has asked me to do the music video, so I’m sure that’s going to be quite interesting to see how they would like to process that.”
In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe this week, Smith expounded on the collab as well, explaining that on their upcoming tour the stage is shaped like Aphrodite, which, of course, called for a golden goddess body to inhabit the SNL stage.
“Sharon Stone is going to be in the middle of the stage at SNL in gold as like a piece of life art. The whole performance is just the choir around her singing ‘Gloria’ to her in this golden light. Isn’t it so sick?,” Smith said, noting that the golden goddess had to be Stone because “she’s a powerful woman, and she exudes vulnerability and beauty in a way that to me is real and authentic.”
Watch the SNL performance below.
Sam Smith helped usher Saturday Night Live into 2023 with a pair of dramatic performances from their upcoming album.
For their third appearance as musical guest on the iconic NBC sketch comedy show, the U.K. singer-songwriter unleashed unforgettable live performances of chart-topper “Unholy” and the title track from their soon-to-be-released fourth album, Gloria, which is scheduled to arrive on Jan. 27 through Capitol.
Following an introduction from SNL host Aubrey Plaza, Smith opened with their smash hit “Unholy,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2022. Donning an extravagant fluffy pink dress, Smith belted out the opening lines of the song before sneaking in Kim Petras, who is featured on the track, to assist with her verse.
Petras wasn’t the only unexpected guest during Smith’s SNL appearance. For their second performance, the singer surprised with a guest appearance from Oscar-nominated actress Sharon Stone, who lounged on a gold-covered couch while Smith delivered their recently dropped single “Gloria.” Surrounded by a group of darkly robed singers, Smith — who was draped in a gold sequin blazer — beautifully crooned the track while Stone slowly rose from her reclined position and gazed off into the distance.
Gloria, the followup to 2020’s Love Goes, features the previously-released singles “Love Me More,” “Gimme” and the Petras-assisted hit “Unholy,” which is nominated for best song at the 2023 Brit Awards.
Smith’s three studio albums all crashed the top five on the Billboard 200, with 2017’s The Thrill of It All hitting No. 1.
Watch Smith’s SNL performances below. For those without cable, the broadcast will also stream on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans on demand access to previous SNL episodes as well.