'Saturday Night Live' Has A Chalamet Double Duty Soirée For January
'SNL' decides to replatform a transphobic comedian for the January 18 episode too. Boo. But at least there is this for the 25th
Here comes the story of the Chalamet, returning for sketches on Saturdays. The thing he twice has ever done! NBC’s sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live has officially booked its January 18 and 25 episodes, which are not only its first of the year, but the only before its live 50th anniversary primetime special SNL50: The Anniversary Special on February 16. Timothee Chalamet will not only be hosting that January 25 episode, but pulling double duty as musical guest.
“Musical guest?” you might be asking. Well Chalamet is coming off of learning how to be and playing Bob Dylan for the James Mangold-directed biopic A Complete Unknown, including the guitar and the harmonica. The film covers Dylan’s early years, and features Chalamet singing around 40 songs from his discography, so there will be plenty to pull from for Chalamet’s two performances. His debut hosting gig was the December 12, 2020 episode where he was supposed to be promoting the first Dune but it was already delayed to its final release date. His musical guest there was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. He returned last season on November 11, 2023 with musical guest boygenius, which would have been in time for Dune: Part Two but it had been delayed to its final release date, but at least this time he still had Wonka upcoming. In both episodes, Chalamet sang in pretapes about a pet horse that was originally miniature before being grown to colossal size, and played rapper Smokecheddathaassgetta in rap discussion sketches. He also rapped “Babyface” in his second monologue
If they’re doing that for the second episode, who’s doing January 18? Cue disappointed aggravated sigh, they brought back Dave Chappelle. The comedian is back for his fourth time hosting, after having been the post-election host in 2016 and 2020, as well as for the midterms in 2022. On top of an unexpected appearance during the goodnights of the episode last January 27 hosted by Dakota Johnson with musical guest Justin Timberlake. It was thought that, when Bill Burr was given the post for this cycle, the higher-ups had finally gotten the message that his increasingly prominent transphobia was not acceptable. Apparently that only lasted two and a half months, and they found a new position: the pre-inauguration episode, which will feature first-time musical guest GloRilla, who received two Grammy nominations in November for her single Yeah Glo!. If you were curious, his previous musical guests were A Tribe Called Quest, Foo Fighters, and Black Star.
Cast member Chloe Fineman first broke out her Chalamet impression in 2020, and used it in both of his previous hosting gigs, more specifically a twink doppelganger in the latest Mulaney musical, and in an A Complete Unknown red carpet sketch in the December 7 episode hosted by Paul Mescal with musical guest Shaboozey. James Austin Johnson is the latest to play Dylan, doing so in a proper episode for the first time in that sketch after doing so in a promo for Mulaney’s episode.
This of course isn’t the only SNL50 programming this month, with SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night premiering on Peacock January 16, and Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music premiering January 27 at 8 PM on NBC.
Source: Deadline