Saturday Night Live is set to take a two-week break, but gave fans something to remember from the get-go with Saturday’s show. Ryan Gosling got one step closer to the 5 Timers Club with his third time at the helm, and brought along a few of his closest friends.
After killing it at the Oscars with his performance of “I’m Just Ken,” Gosling made it clear that he wasn’t here to talk about Barbie. “I’m here because of my new movie The Fall Guy with Emily Blunt,” Gosling told the audience.
“Ken and I, we had to break up. We went too deep, and it’s over, so I’m not going to talk about it,” a saddened Gosling shared of his bleached blonde Barbie character, then had a sudden change of heart. “I actually am going to talk about it a little bit.”
Likening “letting go” of a character like Ken to a break-up, he said: “And for processing a break-up, there’s really only one thing that can help: The music of the great Taylor Swift.”
Gosling proceeded to sit down at the piano and play a tweaked version of Swift’s “All Too Well” when he was suddenly joined by Blunt, who chastised her co-star for droning on about Ken.
“We had a whole Fall Guy monologue planned,” Blunt reminded Gosling. “A bunch of stunts. It was going to be epic. I was going to hit you with things, and instead you’re singing about Ken. Again.”
When Gosling attempted to explain how his song, and the white fur Ken coat he was wearing, related to their new film, Blunt complained, “You’re Kenning right now, and I hate that it’s even a verb… Guys, I don’t mean to be harsh, but, Ryan, you have to move on.”
When Gosling reminded Blunt that she was a part of the Barbenheimer movement, she took a few minutes to let go of her Oppenheimer character via song, too—where they eventually agreed “it’s time to wish it all farewell.”
That opening monologue wasn’t Gosling’s first celebrity encounter of the evening. The three-time Oscar nominee also appeared in the cold open, which brought the return of Kate McKinnon’s Miss Rafferty in the latest “Close Encounter” sketch.
Gosling appeared in the first “Close Encounter” sketch back in 2015, during his first hosting gig. As with this latest sketch—in which McKinnon climbed under Gosling’s “troll nose”—the actor broke (which will be no surprise to anyone who has seen his other hosting gigs).
