As you might imagine, my social calendar has taken a real hit since this pandemic started, which is why it's nice to have the occasional thing to look forward to. One of those things, believe it or not, is Saturday Night Live, and in particular, its long-running "Weekend Update" segment, which mixes funny headlines with outlandish guests.
Co-hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che have done a great job over the past seven years, and that's due, in large part, to the chemistry they share together at the desk. One of my favorite recurring bits is when Jost and Che swap jokes, which usually play on the racial differences between the two of them.
In a new interview with Collider for his upcoming movie Tom & Jerry, Jost confirmed that he and Che do not see each others' jokes until they are reading them live on the air, so their reactions are "100 percent" genuine.
"I'm seeing all of them for the first time on air. It's really a pretty terrifying moment. It's thrilling, in a way, but also terrifying," said Jost, who has been writing for SNL since 2005.
"I don't know any other moment like that, really, where you're going to be on record on live television, and not know what you're going to say -- and you feel compelled to say whatever you see," explained the genial co-anchor.
"The worst moments are always the lead-up to that moment, where you're in a hallway and you hear one of the writers say, 'you can't make him say that! Oh my God! His life will be over. They'll kill him!'And you hear that, but you don't know what it is, and you're like, 'oh my God, can someone please talk Che out of whatever that was gonna be?' So that's the scarier part."
Of course, Jost and Che are friends off the air, so one isn't trying to make the other say something that's going to ruin their career or reputation... at least, not necessarily. Then again, it's inherently dangerous when you're trying to get laughs on live TV at a time when comedy has become something of a minefield.
"I'll check in with [Che] and I'll be like, 'everything's gonna be okay, right?' And he''ll be like, 'this was your idea!' or like, 'you volunteered!' And I'm like, 'oh, God.' So it's a real experience," concluded Jost, who doesn't mind being the butt of a good joke when he isn't delivering killer punch lines of his own.
After working on SNL for the past 15 years, and having recently married Scarlett Johansson, it seems Jost is extremely self-aware of his good fortune. His new book is called A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir, which sounds like a good who's in on the joke to me. Stay tuned for our full interview with Jost, and in the meantime, read up on Worst Man, his new comedy with SNL cohort Pete Davidson.
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