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Rom-coms are fun because of their tried-and-true tropes, and in the latest Saturday Night Live promo, actress Sydney Sweeney and SNL cast member Michael Longfellow pay tribute to the old “bump into each other and fall madly in love” shtick.
In a clip uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday (Feb. 28), Longfellow sorts through potential jokes — “Not funny, not funny, too funny” — as he flicks through a stack of pages walking around set. Sweeney, also wandering around set, has her nose stuck between the pages of a book titled Kafka on the Shore, which happens to be a real 2002 novel written by Haruki Murakami. Naturally, the two performers collide, with Longfellow immediately apologizing and Sweeney insisting, “No, it’s my fault, I’m sorry.”
In true rom-com fashion, Longfellow picks up Kafka and claims to recognize the title as “one of my favorite books of all time” in a ploy to ask Sweeney out on a date. “This is crazy, uh, but would you ever maybe want to…” he begins, cutting himself off once he realizes that Sweeney has already walked away while his head was in the clouds. “Oh, she left a while ago. Cool!” he says. “Whatever, I didn’t like this book, anyways.”
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Right on cue, the lighting magically changes to a purple hue (again) and whimsical music resumes, with Longfellow lamenting, “No. It’s… she said no! Didn’t work. Thank you, though.”
The union of Longfellow and Sweeney in the latest promo is an easter egg for avid SNL viewers. Back in 2022, during his debut SNL episode, Longfellow poked fun at Sweeney for allegedly having Trump-supporting family members.
Sweeney is set to host the next episode of Saturday Night Live this weekend. The actress’ star has been on the rise in recent years thanks to standout performances in The Handmaid’s Tale, Reality, Euphoria and The White Lotus, the latter two of which earned her a pair of Primetime Emmy nominations. Most recently, Anyone But You — the blockbuster rom-com in which she starred alongside Glen Powell — just crossed $200 million at the worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing romantic comedy in years, per Variety. For Sweeney’s episode, Kacey Musgraves — who is promoting her latest album, Deeper Well — will serve as musical guest.
Check out the latest SNL promo above.
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Shane Gillis — a stand-up comic who was announced as a new Saturday Night Live castmember in 2019 before having his job revoked after podcast clips featuring ethnic slurs surfaced — is back to host the show this weekend (Feb. 24), and in a new promo, the comedian runs his monologue by current castmembers Sarah […]
Ariana Grande and Kacey Musgraves will both promote their upcoming March album releases by performing on Saturday Night Live next month, the NBC late-night comedy show announced Tuesday (Feb. 20). Musgraves will join Anyone But You actress Sydney Sweeney when she hosts the March 2 episode, while Grande will join host Josh Brolin on the […]
It was the performance heard ’round the world. Or rather, not heard, but played on tape. Almost 20 years after the second most-famous lip synch scandal in modern pop history — shout out to Milli Vanilli — Ashlee Simpson dropped by the Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen podcast this week to relive that moment in 2004 when her Saturday Night Live debut turned into a car-crash viral moment before such things even existed.
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“I’ve never talked about or said, but it’s like the other thing is, learning as a woman, when you say no, or as an artist or a human or whatever, that day I said ‘I will not go on, I don’t care. I can’t speak,’” Simpson, 39, told the hosts about the night in Oct. 2004 when she was the musical guest on SNL amid serious vocal issues that caused her to lose her voice before showtime.
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After rehearsing the day before, Simpson said she woke up and realized she “couldn’t speak,” because, her doctor told her, she had two nodules on her vocal cords that were “beating against each other.” She explained her dilemma to the SNL team in a handwritten note, but despite telling producers the show could not go on, Simpson said she was asked to perform to pre-recorded vocals. “My band has never practiced this, this is not going to go well,” she said she thought at the time. “I can’t do this.”
Simpson, of course, did perform that night, first coming out to sing the single “Pieces of Me,” which went well. But when she came back to play the title track from her Autobiography album, someone cued up the vocal track from “Pieces” by mistake. Simpson busted out some stilted dance moves and when she was caught with the mic by her side, she and the band looked around confused for several awkward seconds while the singer did a silly shuffle and then walked off stage as the group continued to play the instrumental track and the show cut to commercial. Simpson came back later for the closing credits and said, “My band started playing the wrong song, and I didn’t know what to do, so I thought I’d do a hoedown. I’m sorry. This is live TV. These things happen!”
The mortifying moment taught Simpson the “power of my no,” she told the podcast hosts, as well as “the power of me saying absolutely not… that’s what I would go back and say.” To be sure, Simpson said it was a “humbling” incident for her at a time when she had a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart and a top five single with “Pieces of Me.”
“It was like everything was about to go somewhere and then it was just like, whoa, the humility of not even understanding what grown-ass people would say about you… awful, awful things,” Simpson said of the first, and only, time a musical guest had walked off SNL during a performance. Through that trial-by-fire, though, Simpson said she learned to tune all the noise out and find her strength and move on, while, luckily, also avoiding throat surgery thanks to a vocal coach who “saved my life.”
The clip went so viral at the time, though, that one of the friends who was with Simpson that night — and who joined her on the podcast — said when they visited a New York deli the next day in the midst of the Iraq war “everyone around us was talking about it… it was so surreal and such a ginormous moment.” Though she released two more albums, 2005’s I Am Me and 2008’s Bittersweet World, and starred as Roxie Hart in three different productions of the musical Chicago in 2006, 2009 and 2013, Simpson’s musical career never regained that initial peak following the SNL fiasco.
To this day, Simpson said people still ask her about it and she can’t forget the important lesson she learned that night. “I think having to find at a young age that strength to be like, ‘I am good at this and I will keep going, and I will keep fighting,’” she said, noting that she came back to SNL a second time a year later and she can’t find the video. “I’ve searched and searched for that performance. I was really nervous when I was on there and I can’t find it anywhere,” she said.
Though she’s been off the music radar for years, the singer recently told US that she’s starting to work on the re-release of her debut album and may fill it out with additional tracks. “I’m going to celebrate that album,” she said. “Maybe I’ll go in and redo some of the songs, but I’m definitely going to do a performance around the anniversary.”
Watch Simpson discuss her SNL incident below (beginning at 45:00 mark).
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Ayo Edebiri is poking fun at herself on Saturday Night Live.
The Emmy-winning The Bear actress, who hosted the Feb. 3 episode of the iconic NBC comedy show, appeared in the sketch “Why’d You Say It,” where game show contestants are asked to explain why they left unsavory comments on other people’s Instagram posts.
After being grilled by the game show’s host (played by SNL cast member Kenan Thompson) about why she left the comment “Die” under a video post where actress Drew Barrymore is enjoying a rainy day, Edebiri’s character Annie tries to give excuses for her negative reaction before finally admitting the truth.
“I meant die, like I’m dying! I love this vid so much,” she says while being interrupted by a wrong answer buzzer. “I meant slay, but I forgot the word. I saw someone being happy and wanted them to feel the exact opposite.”
Thompson quickly responds, “That’s close but it’s not the right answer,” to which Edebiri finally gives the correct reply. “I’m alone a lot, some days I don’t even interact with another human being. And I start wondering, am I dead? Is life even real? So I post comments that I think will get a response from someone because that’s the only way to be certain I am alive.”
Later in the skit, Edebiri’s Annie breaks down and seemingly addresses comments she made in real life about Jennifer Lopez — who also appeared as the SNL episode’s musical guest — during a 2020 appearance on the podcast Scam Goddess, where she told host Laci Mosley that J.Lo’s music career was “one long scam.”
“OK, OK! We get it. It’s wrong to leave mean comments or post comments just for clout — or run your mouth on a podcast and you don’t consider the impact because you’re 24 and stupid,” Edebiri’s Annie says in the sketch. “But I think I speak for everyone when I say, from now on, we’re going to be a lot more thoughtful about what we post online.”
Watch the “Why’d You Say It” SNL skit below. For those without cable, the broadcast streams on Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans access to previous SNL episodes.
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Jennifer Lopez delivered another pair of standout performances on Saturday Night Live. During her Feb. 3 appearance on the iconic NBC sketch comedy show, hosted by Emmy-winning The Bear star Ayo Edebiri, the 54-year-old superstar singer and actress performed two songs from her upcoming ninth studio album, This Is Me… Now. For her first dazzling […]
Jennifer Lopez is performing on Saturday Night Live this weekend — or will it be J.Lo?
In promos for Saturday’s new episode, this week’s host — first-timer Ayo Edebiri — introduces Lopez as the musical guest, much to SNL castmember Heidi Gardner’s disappointment.
“Nuts, I thought it was going to be J.Lo!” Gardner laments.
“I am J.Lo,” Lopez informs her, to which Gardner replies, “Lady, she just said your name was Jennifer Lopez.”
After explaining that J.Lo is short for Jennifer Lopez, Edebiri says that her name Ayo is actually short for “I owned the first combination Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin-Robbins.” “Really?” a stunned Gardner asks. “No,” Edebiri admits.
Elsewhere in the promos, Lopez tells Edebiri she’s really excited to share the episode because “I love your show” — referencing the actress’ Emmy-winning dramedy series The Bear. “I love your everything,” Edebiri shoots back. What does Gardner love? “A brisk fall morning where the light is just beginning to paint the landscape.”
Later, Gardner suggests the trio do “something really funny together this week,” to which Edebiri suggests locking SNL castmember Bowen Yang in a green room. “I already did that this morning,” Lopez says. “Oh, I meant like a sketch — is he OK?” Gardner worries.
While this marks Edebiri’s first time hosting, it will be Lopez’s fourth time on the show — once as the musical guest, once as the host, and twice pulling double-duty in 2001 and 2010.
Lopez is promoting her upcoming ninth studio album, This Is Me… Now, which serves as a sequel to 2002’s This Is Me… Then. Last month, she released the project’s first single, “Can’t Get Enough,” followed by a remix with Latto. In January, Edebiri took home the Emmy for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for her role as Sydney in The Bear as well as the Golden Globe for best actress – television series musical or comedy.
Watch the new promos below.
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Ayo Edebiri is taking over the Saturday Night Live stage for the first time this weekend (Feb. 10) and she had to give the less-than-energetic cast a little inspiration in a hilarious new promo released on Wednesday (Jan. 31). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In the […]