Editor’s note: Mike Murray hosts Saturday Night Network’s weekly By the Numbers podcast. 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.
Harry Styles returned to Studio 8H to become just the 11th host to perform double-duty twice on SNL. See how he compared to his 2019 outing alongside a cast that has significantly changed since then.
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.
Harry Styles – 25:51 (40.9%)
Styles came just 48 seconds short of matching his previous double-duty outing in 2019. He ranks third among Season 51 hosts, and ninth if musical performance screen time is omitted. The most recent 15 double-duty hosts have averaged 26:05 (Sabrina Carpenter topping the list with 31:44 and Nick Jonas on the other end with 20:28). Styles’ longest appearance came in his monologue (04:25), after popping up in last week’s Ryan Gosling monologue for 01:42. Styles appeared in all six live sketches (12:56) and both pretapes (01:48), and performed “Dance No More” and “Coming Up Roses” from Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, his fourth album. He is a member of the seldom-mentioned “Musical Guest Five-Timers Club” (having performed with One Direction three times, and now three solo).
Marcello Hernández – 13:24 (21.2%)
Hernández shattered his previous text career best—10:20 last March in Mikey Madison’s episode—by over three minutes. He racked up just over five minutes frozen behind Trump and Hegseth in the Cold Open, before reprising his impression of Sebastian Maniscalco in the night’s first sketch and making his cast-leading sixth guest appearance on “Weekend Update.” Hernández also made smaller appearances in the night’s final two segments, “She’s an Irish Dancer” and “Harry for Him.” Up until this point, he had crossed the seven-minute mark only three times (Bad Bunny, Glen Powell and Connor Storrie). Of his 73 episodes, this is his fifth time leading the cast in screen time.
Mikey Day – 13:04 – (20.7%)
Similar to Hernández, Day had the same two big segments with substantial screen time, “Trump’s Gas Prices Cold Open” (04:57) and playing the least popular emoji Aerial Tramway (04:33) , opposite Hernández’s popular Red Heart, on “Update.” Day last had screen time north of 13 minutes last season during Timothée Chalamet’s double-duty episode (14:27) which featured a similar Trump Cold Open with frozen background actors. Day also had a sizable role as the manager in the night’s third live sketch, “Best Buy: Mr. Pooty.” Day has historically scored high screen time in the post-monologue sketch—he ranked third in Season 50, but this season he is 11th, behind five featured players. With his best episode of the season, Day has entered a three-way second place tie for most appearances in the cast (65).
Colin Jost – 08:53 (14.0%)
As Jost’s breakout 13th season continues, the staggering stat that separates Season 51 from the rest are his numbers outside of “Weekend Update.” Last season, 98% of his screen time occurred during “Update,” compared to 82% now. He is still sitting at second place on the Season 51 leaderboard (4-1/2 minutes behind Ashley Padilla). Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom he has played seven times, is now Jost’s most prolific character/impression, surpassing Pete Buttigieg (whom he played six times in Season 45).
Kenan Thompson – 07:38 (12.1%)
Thompson has been hitting his stride in this second half of Season 51, posting an average screen time 91 seconds higher than the first ten episodes His 04:10 appearance as the titular Mr. Pooty in the “Best Buy” sketch was his longest non-Cold Open role since “Towel Guys” with newly minted Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan over three years ago. He also reprised his character “Jean K. Jean” for the first time since 2013.
Ashley Padilla – 07:21 (11.6%)
Padilla quietly posted her eighth-highest career screen time, with 69% of it coming in the background of “Trump’s Gas Prices Cold Open.” She played supporting roles to host Harry Styles in the “MAHAspital” pretape and “White Castle Drive-Thru” sketch before appearing in “She’s an Irish Dancer” with all the women of the cast. Padilla leads the cast in all major statistical categories, and is now on-pace for 100 appearances and nearly 2.5 hours of screen time by season’s end.
Sarah Sherman – 06:01 (9.5%)
Sherman notched her 27th episode with six minutes or more of screen time. Other than her near five-minute background appearance in the Cold Open, she was easy to miss, with a five second pop-in during Harry Styles’ monologue and then under a minute across the show’s final two pieces. She’s averaging 08:27 since Alexander Skårsgard’s episode, following just under six minutes in the previous three.
Jane Wickline – 06:01 (9.5%)
Wickline earned her third highest career screen time this week. “White Castle Drive-Thru” paired her up once again with fellow featured player Veronika Slowikowska, and marked her sixth-longest non-“Update” appearance (02:25). Wickline has made four appearances in three of the last four episodes, after reaching that mark in just four of her first 31.
James Austin Johnson – 05:36 (8.9%)
Johnson returned as Trump in the Cold Open (his 51st overall). The next time he says, “Live From New York, it’s Saturday Night!” will be his 50th—making him only the fifth person (after Kate McKinnon, Darrell Hammond, Dana Carvey, and Kenan Thompson) to hit that milestone. Johnson appeared in both pretapes (as RFK Jr. in “MAHAspital,” and in “She’s an Irish Dancer” with Wickline). He’s never missed an episode since being cast for Season 47, and averages 04:43 and 3-1/2 appearances per episode so far in his 94-episode run.
Jeremy Culhane – 05:25 (8.6%)
Culhane made his second drop-in at the “Update” desk, debuting a new impression; Tucker Carlson discussing the Oscars (02:49) marked third longest career appearance. (Carlson was previously portrayed by Alex Moffat three times from 2019-2022.) Culhane made three other minor appearances in “Sebastian Maniscalco: New Lawyer” and his 50th appearance of the season in “Sparkle of the Sea” (singing with Wickline as European rockers).
Chloe Fineman – 05:21 (8.5%)
The longest-tenured of the women, Fineman was right at her season average (05:28). She is one of the few cast members remaining from Styles’ first hosting effort; back then she was shut out, but this time she led “Sparkle of the Sea” alongside the host (03:06), in her fourth-longest appearance of the season. Fineman has made at least three appearances in each episode this season, save for Melissa McCarthy’s and her complete absence during Connor Storrie’s week.
Veronika Slowikowska – 05:15 (8.3%)
Slowikowska continued her Rookie of the Year campaign, posting her fifth episode with more than five minutes of screen time. She’s leading all rookies in appearances (55) and became the first to reach one hour of screen time (currently at 01:04:27). Having paired with Wickline earlier in the year for the “Cousin Planet” pretape (and a cut-for-time “Car Doors” pretape), the duo reunited for “White Castle Drive-Thru,” Slowikowska’s seventh-longest appearance of the season.
Michael Che – 02:47 (4.4%)
Che finished with under three minutes of screen time for the fifth time this season. Jost hosted both “Update” guests (Culhane’s Tucker Carlson, and Day and Marcello Hernández’s emojis).
Ben Marshall – 02:17 (3.6%)
Marshall directly followed in the footsteps of Day with Ryan Gosling, kissing host Harry Styles during the monologue. Will this trend continue when Jack Black hosts in April? Marshall’s next episode will be his 50th (and his 16th as cast member).
Tommy Brennan – 01:50 (2.9%)
Outside of his four minute-plus role in “Ice Skating” during Connor Storrie’s episode, Brennan has made 16 appearances over the past eight episodes averaging just 00:27 each. This week, for the first time in his career, he made appearances in four consecutive segments: as the defendant in “Sebastian Maniscalco: New Lawyer,” a nurse in “MAHAspital,” singing with Slowikowska in “Sparkle of the Sea,” and as coworker to Styles and Thompson in “Best Buy: Mr. Pooty.”
Andrew Dismukes – 00:58 (1.5%)
Dismukes’ low screen time skid extended to a third week, averaging 01:14 through episodes hosted by Connor Storrie, Ryan Gosling, and Harry Styles. This episode was his 22nd with under a minute of screen time since he joined the cast in Season 46 (113 episodes ago). It was ten minutes to 1:00 a.m. ET when he made an appearance in “She’s an Irish Dancer” and in the following live sketch, “Harry for Him.” Dismukes had averaged 05:41 over the previous 25 episodes.
Kam Patterson – 00:24 (0.6%)
Patterson’s screen time average dropped for a fourth consecutive episode. He has finished last in the cast in eight of Season 51’s 15 episodes. He made a pair of 12-second appearances in “MAHAspital” and “Harry for Him.” Of his nearly 35 minutes of Season 51 screen time, 29% has occurred over his three “Weekend Update” appearances (in episodes hosted by Bad Bunny, Ariana Grande, Finn Wolfhard).
Paul Simon – 00:09 (0.2%)
Back onstage at Studio 8H for the first time since opening the show’s 50th Anniversary Special last year in a “Homeward Bound” duet with Sabrina Carpenter, Simon introduced Styles’ second performance, “Coming Roses.” Fun fact: Simon was SNL’s very first double-duty host in 1975, in the second episode ever. His last appearance in an episode of SNL came in 2018 when Seth Meyers hosted.
Ryan Gosling – 00:07 (0.2%)
Harry Styles last week was seated in the front row of the studio audience for Ryan Gosling’s monologue. Gosling returned the favor by introducing Styles’ first musical performance, “Dance No More.” Per the Saturday Night Network, Gosling is just the 12th host to appear in the following episode after hosting; previously, the most recent was Larry David in Season 43.
