Editor’s note: Mike Murray hosts Saturday Night Network’s weekly By the Numbers podcast, which this week will also cover SNL UK‘s latest episode. Click the embed at the top of this post to watch it live Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, or catch the replay afterward.
Hosting for the third time in 24 years, Matt Damon arrived at 8H to promote his new movie, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, nine weeks in advance.
Scroll down to see how Damon stacked up against each of the show’s named performers, including musical guest Noah Kahan and surprise guest Aziz Ansari.
Note: Our screen time calculation method prioritizes face time, meaning that any contiguous off-screen-but-in-scene moments and most partial-body appearances do not count. Screen time in the opening credits, bumpers, goodnights, and cut-for-time sketches is not included, nor do those portions factor into our assessment of an episode’s total running time.
Matt Damon – 26:21 (42.5%)
Damon made the most of his opportunities in an episode featuring a brief monologue (03:12) and the longest “Weekend Update” and musical performances of the season. Despite those elongated breaks for the third-timer, he still ranked third among Season 51’s hosts behind only double duty pop stars Sabrina Carpenter (31:44) and Olivia Rodrigo (31:02). He returned as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the first time since 2018 in a Cold Open that ended with him singing Chumbawumba’s “Tub Thumping” with Colin Jost and Aziz Ansari before belting out “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” Damon had sizable roles in all four live sketches, averaging nearly four minutes in each, the longest being “Substitute Teacher,” where he failed to kickstart a dance party with his students. He also paired with Ashley Padilla in both pretapes for over three-and-a-half minutes.
Colin Jost – 11:53 (19.2%)
Jost led the cast for the third time this season, reprising Pete Hegseth for a third consecutive week in the Cold Open. In an epic “Update” clocking in at 17:11, Jost interviewed all three desk guests: Jeremy Culhane’s Tucker Carlson, Mikey Day and Marcello Hernández’ kamikaze dolphins, and Jane Wickline with her keyboard. Jost in his thirteenth year has secured the numbers to make Season 51 his most prolific. He is three-and-a-half minutes behind first-place Padilla in this season’s totals, with one episode remaining. A final Hegseth return and a super-sized “Update” joke swap could tip the scales Jost’s way in a surprise finish.
Marcello Hernández – 09:22 (15.1%)
Since Harry Styles’ March hosting turn, Hernández has been leading all his castmates in screen time, racking up 49 minutes in those five episodes alone. He made his cast-leading eighth appearance on “Weekend Update,” teaming with Day as kamikaze dolphins. He led the season’s 100th live sketch, “Tough Guys,” with Kenan Thompson and host Matt Damon, making this episode his fifth-highest of his career.
Noah Kahan – 09:11 (14.8%)
Kahan performed “The Great Divide” and “Doors” from his recently released fourth album. The Vermont native’s musical performances added up to the fifth-longest dating back to 2018 for a traditional, two-song musical guest. He previously served as musical guest when Emma Stone hosted for a fifth time in Season 49.
Mikey Day – 07:35 (12.2%)
Day hit over seven minutes for the second week in a row (and fifth of the season), carried by just two appearances. He co-led the post-monologue sketch as a naval officer getting repeatedly doused by spit-takes, and joined Hernández on “Update” as a pair of kamikaze dolphins. (They previously teamed up as emojis in Harry Styles’ March episode.) This season, Day became the tenth-most tenured cast member in SNL history, surpassing Tim Meadows.
Sarah Sherman – 07:16 (11.7%)
With her 22nd career episode with seven-plus minutes, Sarah Sherman is one six-and-a -half minute finale away from completing her best statistical season. She battled words with Damon as married auctioneers in the night’s final sketch (03:08), and also appeared for 03:48 across the “Godzilla Movie” sketch and “Substitute Teacher,” leading the cast in live sketch time.
Jane Wickline – 05:43 (11.7%)
Wickline made her fourth “Update” appearance of the season (ninth career), bringing back her electric piano and singing about perpetual tardiness. She matched the screen time of her rookie breakout episode hosted by Nate Bargatze (October 2024), and thus tied her sixth-best total. Wickline played as a naval officer in “Godzilla Movie” (her 100th career appearance) and a student in “Substitute Teacher,” as well as appeared in the first pretape, “Mom: The Movie.”
Ben Marshall – 05:17 (8.5%)
Marshall hit the 90-minute mark of his SNL career during the “Godzilla Movie” sketch that followed the monologue; that also marked the longest appearance (04:06) of his career including his time as part of Please Don’t Destroy in Seasons 47-50. Marshall also appeared in “Substitute Teacher” as the first student to break the silence after Damon’s unceremonious exit from the classroom.
Jeremy Culhane – 04:54 (7.9%)
Culhane needs just 25 seconds next episode to hit the one-hour mark of his rookie season. His Tucker Carlson impression returned to “Update” after being cut last week. He commented on the Met Gala with Colin Jost, as Carlson became his second recurring character, following two appearances as JD Vance in January (an impression previously handled by Bowen Yang). Culhane made three other small appearances in “Mom: The Movie,” “Tough Guys,” and “Auctioneers.”
Ashley Padilla – 04:35 (7.4%)
On pace to break a modern SNL screen time record, Padilla’s road became much tougher after falling below five minutes for only the fifth time this season. She still managed to steal scenes with leads in both “Mom: The Movie” and “Tidy Care Crystals.” Barring a major upset in the finale, Padilla has all but locked up the statistical MVP of Season 51, projected to lead the cast in both screen time and number of appearances. This week was her first episode without making a live appearance since Dave Chappelle’s episode in January 2025.
Kenan Thompson – 04:19 (7.0%)
Thompson scored identical screen time as he did in the premiere hosted by Bad Bunny, and is on pace to finish eighth among the cast in total Season 51 screen time. This week Will Ferrell hosts for the sixth time (all occurring during Thompson’s unbreakable record of 23 seasons and counting). The two never overlapped as castmates as Ferrell left two seasons prior to Thompson’s 2003 rookie run. He made two appearances in this week’s show, as bartender to Hegseth, Kavanaugh, and Patel in the Cold Open, and one third of the tough guy trio with Damon and Marcello Hernández in the night’s second live sketch.
Chloe Fineman – 03:29 (5.6%)
Fineman tied for second in the cast with four appearances this week. Her two longest appearances came as the voice-over and theatre-goer in “Mom: The Movie,” and as a student in “Substitute Teacher.” Fineman will need at least 04:55 total time in the finale to make Season 51 her statistical best. (Currently its Season 48, at 05:03 per episode.)
Michael Che – 03:27 (5.6%)
In a “Weekend Update” that ties for fifth longest in the last 200 episodes of SNL, Che hosted none of the three guest correspondents on his side of the desk. With a potential impending “Joke Swap” with Colin Jost in the season finale, he should see an improvement, but will ultimately fall short of his Season 50 average (04:22). Che currently sits at 03:54 per episode with 19 appearances (all on “Update”).
Veronika Slowikowska – 02:51 (4.6%)
Slowikowska this season has a near-even split of over and under three-minute episodes. She is set to finish as the highest scoring rookie of the Season 51 class of five, and potentially Top Ten for the whole cast. She made four appearances on the night, the longest coming as the daughter of Padilla in “Mom: The Movie.” When Will Ferrell hosts the finale, Slowikowska looks to maintain an impressive rookie feat, a four minute-per-episode average.
Aziz Ansari – 02:18 (3.7%)
Ansari reprised his impression of FBI Director Kash Patel that he debuted in last week’s Olivia Rodrigo episode. This time he joined Jost’s Hegseth and Damon’s Kavanaugh in the Cold Open, brandishing his very own (and very real) bourbon.
Andrew Dismukes – 01:59 (3.2%)
Dismukes made a comeback the previous week with a late sketch lead, as “Rasta Driver,” contributing to a total of 04:13. This time around, he fell below two minutes of screen time for the fourth time this season. (He had only two such episodes in both Season 50 and Season 49.) His longest appearance came as Rick, the embarrassed son of Damon’s “Substitute Teacher” (01:26). Dismukes’ average at the end of January (05:20) now has dropped over a minute, to 04:19.
Tommy Brennan – 01:26 (2.3%)
Brennan had a supporting role in the pretaped trailer for “Mom: The Movie,” playing one of Padilla’s three adult children, and a smaller role among a group of kids belonging to Sarah Sherman and Matt Damon’s auctioneer couple in the final sketch. He is on pace to finish his rookie season with 53 total minutes of screen time.
Kam Patterson – 01:15 (2.0%)
Patterson’s “Update” streak was snapped after three consecutive episodes, and his screen time fell below his pre-streak average (01:44). He made one appearance in the episode, as one of the bewildered students watching Damon’s “Substitute Teacher” dance. Patterson is almost certainly finishing at the bottom of the cast for the season, below even Bowen Yang who exited ten episodes ago.
James Austin Johnson – 01:09 (1.9%)
JAJ this week found himself in an atypical last place, after the second Trump-less Cold Open in a row. He did not make a physical appearance until nearly 1 a.m., where he played a neighbor of the “Auctioneers.” He also provided the voice-over in the “Tidy Care Crystals” commercial. This week was Johnson’s lowest screen time since Martin Short’s Five-Timer Christmas episode in 2024.
