The ‘SNL’ Host Who Surprised the Hell Out of Cecily Strong

Don’t ask Cecily Strong who she thinks is the nicest Saturday Night Live host. Pfft. Guest hosts are all nice. “I think that’s because people come in, and they’re nervous,” Strong told Busy Phillips on a 2019 episode of Busy Tonight. “They want to do well so you’re seeing people at their most vulnerable.” 

That puts guests on their best behavior, or as Strong likes to call it, “scared and weak.” And that’s the way she prefers it. 

So let’s forget nicest. Which host surprised Strong the most? “I was the most shocked by Chris Hemsworth,” she said, admitting she was less than thrilled when she heard Thor was coming to 30 Rock. “When he first hosted, I was like, ‘Ugh, not my world.’”

Hemsworth came from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an action hero with biceps for miles. “Action, I don’t know anything about this, like what that even means, action movies,” Strong scoffed. But then came the surprising part. “He came in and charmed us all and was so like, ‘the cool jock that just wants to hang out with the gay theater kids.’”

Hemsworth has gotten a lot of mileage out of being surprisingly funny. Finding a hidden comedic gear was important for his MCU career as well. After the first two Thor movies, Hemsworth was Marvel’s least charismatic hero — a buff blond in a cape spouting faux-Shakespearian lines while Tom Hiddleston’s Loki got to chew the scenery.

But with the help of Taika Waititi, Thor became something else — a goofy god capable of a Lebowski turn. “If I was going to do (Thor) again, it would have to be tonally different,” Hemsworth told GQ U.K. about the comedy shift in his Marvel movies. “We’d have to do something very drastic to keep people on their toes. Otherwise it’s just the fatigue of those characters and those films, where people are like, ‘I’ve seen it.’”

The result was Thor: Ragnarok, a strong contender for Marvel’s most hilarious movie. “He’s one of the funnier actors we’ve worked with,” explained Joe Russo, co-director of the last two Avengers movies. That’s saying something, considering Russo got his start on beloved sitcom Community.

Revealing his hidden comedy chops got Hemsworth invited back for multiple SNL hosting jobs. Strong, for one, was smitten. “We’re all like, ‘Oh my god.’ I feel like he left, and we’re all like, ‘Are we all dating Chris Hemsworth now?’ Like all the boys and all the girls were like, ‘Are we all in love? What happened — what just happened?!’”