6 ‘SNL’ Hosts Who Played Their Most Iconic Characters on the Show
It’s standard operating procedure for returning Saturday Night Live cast members to reprise their most famous sketch characters when they return to host. But non-cast hosts like to play the hits as well. Here are six times celebs scored on SNL by playing their most iconic characters for laughs…
John Travolta
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Travolta did a mash-up of his most famous Vincents in “Quentin Tarantino’s Welcome Back Kotter” — Kotter’s Vinnie Barbarino and Pulp Fiction’s Vince Vega. “I remember having dinner with John Travolta and Lorne (Michaels). He talked to Lorne about Saturday Night Live and how it had influenced him and how he always felt that Welcome Back, Kotter was kind of the prime-time sister show to Saturday Night Live,” explains Chris Elliott in the oral history Live From New York. “That really bugged him, that Travolta brought that up. ‘I was surprised to hear that we were the sister show to Welcome Back, Kotter.’”
The Avengers
Practically every member of the MCU has shown up to reprise their Avengers characters, from Chris Hemsworth as a party-boy Thor…
To Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye only remembering to bring 11 arrows to fend off an alien attack…
To Scarlett Johansson starring in the first Marvel romcom, Black Widow: Age of Me.
Carrie Fisher
Star Wars was the biggest movie on the planet when Fisher reprised her Princess Leia character, fighting Gilda Radner’s Annette for a date with Frankie in this beach party parody. According to Fisher, she and Gilda actually fought over a dreamy guy in real life, too: Paul Simon.
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Adam Driver
Kylo Ren is back, posing as regular starship wonk Matt to find out the truth about his employees at this Starkiller Base. “Hearing that Zack lost his son really struck a nerve with me,” confesses the anti-hero. “Especially because I’m the one who killed him.”
Jon Hamm
Hamm reprised Mad Men’s Don Draper multiple times on the show, first in this pitch to the Two A-Holes…
And then in Don Draper’s Guide to Picking Up Women. Want to be successful with the gals? Try this pro tip: Take six-hour lunches and disappear for weeks at a time.
Zac Efron
High School Musical’s Troy Bolton is back, and he’s made a tragic discovery: In the real world, no one dances on campus. “And from what I can tell, no one sings at college.” As for Troy’s basketball skills? Turns out that East High played in some kind of musical theater league against a very low level of competition.
