The “Sad Hot Guy” Host of SNL
4 min read
Paul Mescal isn’t known for being funny. In breakout dramatic turns such as 2020’s Normal People and 2022’s Aftersun, the Irish actor has consistently painted with more melancholic shades—qualities that he acknowledged last night when he hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time. During his monologue, Mescal said he couldn’t understand why his comedic prowess continued to go unnoticed. “I think I’ve given a lot of really funny performances,” he said, before sharing a video montage of the many times he’s broken down weeping onscreen.
Yet over the course of the episode, Mescal’s dramatic proclivities created the evening’s more imaginative comedy. While other “serious” actors have used their time on SNL to lean into outsize performances and colorful bits, Mescal instead opted for quieter choices. In a handful of sketches, he located darker emotions fueling the central tension and pushed them into the light.
In one sketch, a commercial shoot for an Italian restaurant, Mescal played a veteran actor filled with confidence because he’d worked with the ad’s director (Mikey Day) on several previous occasions. When the actor playing his date (Ashley Padilla) admitted being nervous because she was new to the business, he affably calmed her fears. What he didn’t expect, and what slowly drove him closer to the edge, was how the director became utterly tickled when his co-star had a slip of the tongue (“imagine the pasta-bilities”) and decided to turn a romantic scene into a funnier spot.
As Padilla’s and Day’s characters discussed trying another take with her improvised line, the action seemed to lie with them. But Mescal’s expression was the true momentum. His posturing defensiveness gave way to a complete collapse of self-worth, enriching the scene. (Will Forte excelled at this kind of comedy, eagerly digging into the moment when the thin veneer shielding a character from ego death falls away.)
In an effort to protect his self-importance, Mescal’s character tried ad-libbing, but he couldn’t achieve the natural humor his co-star unwittingly—and almost annoyingly—kept producing. Nearing his breaking point, he turned to her and said with strained laughter: “And you know what they say: ‘Spaghetti or not, we’re going to kill you.’” Strangely, the restaurant’s owner (Kenan Thompson) ended up loving the line because it was what his mother used to say to him. Mescal won. But not before he’d lost any artifice of professionalism.
Mescal again put his dramatic training to clever use in the episode’s Please Don’t Destroy video, which opened, as most do, in Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy’s 30 Rock office. The trio discusses with Mescal what a delight it’s been discovering how laid-back he is compared with other actors who have hosted. “They can be kind of a lot,” Marshall tells him. “We love ya,” Higgins says, out of admiration.
In that praise, Mescal hears something more—and after a loaded beat, he escalates the sentiment. “It’s just, like, yeah I love you guys,” he says, his eyes once again doing the heavy lifting. “Yeah, I think I’m in love with you,” he quickly adds, mistaking their affectionate admiration for a different kind of offer, which turns into an involved fantasy where they all move to a cabin in the woods and Mescal gets to be “Daddy.” By playing the straight man and infusing his lines with a leading man’s gravitas, Mescal elevates the eccentric premise into an absurdly sentimental, and at times perverse, romantic comedy.
The episode also gave Mescal opportunities to stretch in other ways. The night’s pre-taped sketch imagined Gladiator II as a musical, recut to compete with the success of Wicked and Moana 2, in which Mescal leads a dance battle that propels the conceit to its gruesome conclusion. In another musical sketch, he was part of a pirate-themed male revue that performed for bachelorette parties and other women. But the men were a little too historically accurate: When one pirate finally removed his shirt to raucous cheers, he revealed a scurvy-infected chest and was swiftly thrown overboard by his co-workers. In both instances, Mescal’s humor was reserved compared with the cast’s vamping. He was funny, but the moments when his dramatic efforts resulted in deeper comedy were the night’s true gold.
