Saturday Night Live tapping into the Heated Rivalry phenomenon by announcing co-lead Connor Storrie as host of its first post-Winter Olympics episode made all the sense in the world.
The Canadian hockey/gay romance drama on which Storrie stars has, after all, launched 1,000 rave reviews and think pieces. Fans of Heated Rivalry—an adaptation of author Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” series— are rabid, near-universally delighted by its fidelity to the source material and instantly smitten by Storrie’s chemistry with scene partner Hudson Williams.
Ratings-wise, the already-renewed Heated Rivalry emerged as Canadian streamer Crave’s No. 1 original series debut on record, increasing viewership by nearly 400% since its premiere. Stateside, episodes averaged 10.6 million viewers on HBO Max, making it the most-watched scripted title acquired from another platform in that streamer’s six-year history.
All of that said, it is a bit remarkable that Storrie landed his upcoming SNL gig based off just six (6) episodes of one (1) show. Without drilling down on the actual time he himself is seen on-screen, he co-starred in a season of TV that spanned just 289 total minutes.
Before being recruited to play one of the hottest fictional hockey pros around, Storrie had roles/bit parts in Riley, a 2023 coming-of-age indie; Joker: Folie à Deux, as an unnamed Arkham Asylum inmate; and one episode of Hulu’s Tiny Beautiful Things adaptation.
In other words, Heated Rivalry is 100 percent the reason he will be lording over Studio 8H come February 28. As such, is Storrie—coming off of fewer than five hours of Canadian, streaming TV—the lowest-profile individual ever tapped to host the iconic SNL?
It’s a fun question to ask, a hard one to answer. Much, of course, depends on how you define a new host’s preexisting “profile.”
Regé-Jean Page hosted SNL almost exactly five years ago, while bathed in much heat born of Bridgerton’s super-frothy freshman run. That period’s drama’s first season only totaled about eight hours, but the fact is Page also had 20 episodes of ABC’s For the People, plus BBC One’s Waterloo Road and roles in small films such as Sylvie’s Love under his belt. He was up-and-coming, yes, but not a “newcomer” by any measure.
Twenty-one years ago, George Clooney hosted SNL just six episodes into ER‘s hallowed run, but prior to that he’d banked episodes of Roseanne, Baby Talk, The Facts of Life.… Again, no babe in the woods. Similarly, Jason Lee was picked to host shortly after NBC’s My Name Is Earl took off, but he had previously appeared in a bevy of Kevin Smith joints, as well as Almost Famous and other films.
No, in discussing the freshest faces to ever get the nod from SNL, you have to take a long look at Drew Barrymore.
When she hosted in November 1982, at age seven—to this day, SNL‘s youngest host ever—all she had to her name (well, other than her last name) was a role in E.T., which that year lapped Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time (a title it’d hold for 11 years). With her role as Eliot’s kid sis Gertie in the 114-minute Steven Spielberg charmer, the latest acting Barrymore achieved SNL host status.
The next-youngest SNL hosts were Macaulay Culkin (at age 11, smack dab between his two Home Alone blockbusters), and Fred Savage (at age 13, with nearly 40 episodes of the Emmy-winning ABC sitcom The Wonder Years to his credit).
Instead, perhaps the only person to challenge Barrymore’s claim to lowest-profile SNL host ever is one of its oldest hosts ever. Miskel Spillman.
Who was Miskel Spillman?
LateNighter has detailed Miskel’s story before, but here’s the Reader’s Digest version.
Back in 1977, SNL held its first (and only) “Anyone Can Host” contest, with the five finalists joining host Buck Henry on-stage during a November episode. Spillman, an 80-year-old German immigrant and grandma from New Orleans, proceeded to net the most snail-mailed votes, and as such got to host that year’s Christmas episode alongside Henry. (The complete saga of SNL‘s “Anyone Can Host” contest can be viewed on Peacock across episodes 2 , 6, and 10 of the show’s third season.)
Whether your vote goes to Barrymore, Spillman (who passed in 1992), or Storrie, this much is certain: the latter has a tremendous chance to impress us with his comedic prowess. That’s because during his struggling, pre-Rivalry years, the American actor took improv classes with The Groundlings “before falling in with the experimental clown scene on the East Side of Los Angeles” (as revealed in a GQ profile).
There, in one instance, he played a male stripper who got hit by a car en route to a booking which he proceeded to keep. “I come in trying to be all sexy, but all of my limbs are broken,” he recalled for Cultured, laughing.
Sounds to us like Storrie, fresh-faced as he may be, is ready to take his bow at Studio 8H—mere days after he turns 26.
