Although eagle-eyed viewers took note of her occasional sniffle on-air, Jean Smart was apparently quite ill leading into last week’s Saturday Night Live.
In fact, just hours before the show went live, she was on vocal rest, with the show’s writers reading her lines.
That’s according to SNL‘s Chloe Fineman, who discussed her admiration for Smart while guesting on a new episode of “The Run-Through with Vogue,” released today.
“She did a very unusual thing that I totally respected,” Fineman began. “She was feeling sick, and so we have a run-through before dress rehearsal, and she had that mask on,” And the writers would say all her lines, and she was miming, I swear to God, for, like, six hours.”
“Everyone was freaking out,” Fineman added. But she went on to explain that the theater-trained Smart was just preserving her energy for the show. “Not a word was spoken, then at dress rehearsal, she has to sing, and it was just like there she is. And it was a flawless. It was perfect. It was perfect. It was perfect.”
Though a handful of hosts have been forced to cancel their appearances on the show due sickness (Truman Capote), injury (Jennifer Garner) or hangover (Nick Nolte), the show has thus far managed to avoid a late-in-the-week cancellation… unless you count the week in December 2021 when Covid’s Omicron variant sent all but two cast members home and forced host Paul Rudd to host what was mostly a clip show, save for a few pre-tapes that had been shot earlier in the week,
A hopefully healthy Nate Bargatze will be up at SNL‘s home base this weekend for his second hosting stint, alongside musical guest Coldplay.
