In a first promo for his latest turn lording over Studio 8H, Ryan Gosling is ready to join Saturday Night Live‘s Five-Timers Club in style.
There’s just one not-so-tiny problem, as cast member Mikey Day will point out….
In the promo above—which is set to musical guest Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood”—Gosling rummages through the SNL wardrobe closet until he finds what he came looking for, the esteemed Five-Timers Club jacket.
He slips it on and proceeds to glide through the halls with swagger. He sets a Mikey Day headshot on fire and lights a cigarette with it, blows a “5”-shaped smoke ring at Tommy Brennan, and then douses said cig in Brennan’s coffee (before smacking the cup away).
It’s not until Gosling mounts a stuffed horse and shakes/sprays Champagne all over home base that Day, shielding himself with an umbrella, informs the actor that this will in fact only be his fourth time hosting the iconic sketch comedy series.
Gosling checks the math, recounting memorable sketches: “Close Encounters” (with Kate McKinnon in December 2015), “Papyrus” (when he hosted in September 2017), and “Beavis and Butt-Head” (opposite Day and beneath mounds of prosthetics in April 2024).
Huh.
Well, Gosling suggests, surely other returning hosts have made such a miscalculation before…? Nope, affirms Day.
Gosling is returning to Studio 8H ahead of the release of the film adaptation of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary sci-fi novel. Gorillaz meanwhile is making their debut as musical guest that night, on the heels of the February 27 release of their new album, The Mountain.
Gosling’s previous, April 2024 turn as host generated impressive viewership numbers. Per Nielsen, it delivered 7,510,000 linear viewers, which at the time marked the sketch comedy series’ largest linear audience since Steve Martin and Martin Short co-hosted in December 2022. Factoring in digital plays, it also delivered SNL’s largest cross-platform audience (8.9 million) in more than two years.
