Colin Jost Names 'Saturday Night Live' Guest Host Who He Says Is 'Especially Good'
In his nearly two-decade tenure at Saturday Night Live, Colin Jost has seen plenty of celebrity guest hosts come and go; some of whom have obviously been more successful than others. And during a podcast appearance this week, the "Weekend Update" anchor named one repeat host who he's been particularly impressed with.
During the April 16 episode of Bruce Bozzi's Table for Two podcast, the 41-year-old was asked what it's like for the staff to work with a new host each week, as it could go "either way" depending how suited a particular celebrity is for live comedy.
"It can happen in different ways through the week, like you can have a host who's not that good at the read through table," Jost explained. "Like, maybe they're not a great cold reader, maybe their process is more—they're kind of reading it more straight and they're going through the character in their head because they know it's not the real time, they're more seeing the character instead of performing it."
He continued, noting that Melissa McCarty is particularly adept at conceptualizing the sketches she writes before the live show. But he also gave a nod to one repeat guest host who doesn't even have a background in comedy, and kills the table read nonetheless.
"You're reading 40 sketches at the table read, so to be able to make a choice in all of those. And that's something, actually that Adam Driver is especially good at," Jost recalled. "He makes a choice for all those pieces, and an interesting choice. And in the same way Will Ferrel does, but obviously he knows it in a whole other way, but Will will find a new move for all of them, and it's really kind of a miracle."
And he's had plenty of practice at this point. Driver has hosted SNL four times now, from his first appearance in January 2016 to his most recent in December 2023. And Jost is far from the only one to sing the Ferrari star's praises. Driver's latest hosting gig led Rolling Stone to declare him "one of the best SNL hosts ever."
