Timothée Chalamet followed in Ryan Gosling’s footsteps by struggling not to laugh through sketches during his third time hosting Saturday Night Live. The writers of the NBC late-night program didn’t do him any favors with characters and situations that were pretty out there. There was no Beavis & Butt-Head-magnitude breakdown but there were a lot of smiles and chuckles.
In his first sketch, Chalamet played a bungee workout instructor. He stayed in character through most of the skit, in which he led a group of women in various exercises, including swimming, froggy walking as well as hanging on the bungee cords motionless doing a “Jimmy Carter” to groans from the audience.
But when the time came to celebrate the birthday of one of the women, played by Chloe Fineman, with a Cinnabon frosted cake, it was too much for Chalamet as the women were flying in to grab a piece of the cake, often with their mouths, followed by some cake throwing. Chalamet could be heard chuckling.
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Chalamet next played Benny, a barista in training who was asked to suggest coffee-themed puns for the coffee shop’s black board out front.
He kept coming up with standup-style jokes about guy’s girlfriend that got rejected because they A: didn’t mention coffee and B: made fun of the woman’s weight.
Benny’s act became more and more elaborate as he added a nickname, Big Benny, and a dance routine. In his third attempt, he even made a coffee pun.
“Just the other day my lady said, Big Benny, how much weight you think I gained? Girl, a latte.”
Benny then introduced another wannabe comic, played by Keenan Thompson, and it was the duo’s dance number and SNL veteran’s delivery that cracked Chalamet up.
In the next sketch, Chalamet and Bowen Yang played AI-generated characters in an educational podcast designed to help students learn different school subjects. The two held awkward discussions about history and science, with Chalamet getting an opportunity to show off his fluent French, while also going on pff-topic tangents about a woman named Trish.
It was when Chalamet’s character announced that Trish had proposed and he and his co-host raised their hands with six fingers each that the A Complete Unknown star lost it and started laughing.
Chalamet’s toughest test was a sketch where he played a top cardiologist who saved his girlfriend’s grandmother after she had a heart attack with a CPR that involved him farting in her face. Yes, it was as silly as it sounds. Chalamet barely held it together through that part. He was then seen laughing when Thompson’s character shared his reaction having been the closest to the life-saving operation.
Somewhat surprisingly, the most outlandish sketch, in which Chalamet and a half a dozen SNL cast members played dogs (and one cat) in a dog park, did not get derailed by laughter.
Thompson had the hardest job with a bit as a dog with a goldfish memory who kept eating grass and spitting it out. He did crack up a bit but the rest of the gang were mostly on their best behavior.
In addition to hosting Chalamet was the episode’s musical guest, performing his favorite Bob Dylan songs.