Known for breaking character and cracking up Saturday Night Live cast members in his previous two hosting stints on the NBC sketch program, Ryan Gosling stayed true to himself tonight, laughing in every skit he was in, much to the delight of the studio audience, and challenging his co-stars to keep a straight face — even seasoned veterans like Kenan Thompson.
The tone was set in the cold open, reuniting Gosling and Kate McKinnon for a third Close Encounters sketch, in which host Gosling could not stop laughing as McKinnon was demonstrating how aliens observed Gosling character’s private parts close and personal during their alleged abduction.
The streak continued in The Engagement skit, in which Gosling played a newly engaged man having serious second thoughts about his decision to propose.
Then came Can’t Tonight, in which Gosling and Marcello Hernández were trying to convince their friend (Thompson) to go out with them to a party attended by Gosling’s longtime partner Eva Mendes, his Barbie co-star Margot Robbie as well the original dog from Beethoven who is the only of the three to cameo in the skit.
All hell broke loose in the skit Beavis and Butt-Head where Heidi Gardner completely lost it as a NewsNation host doing a town hall on AI with MIT Professor (Thompson) who kept getting distracted by audience members who bore a striking resemblance to Beavis and Butt-Head.
In Gosling’s defense, while he did break character as a Beavis lookalike and cracked Gardner up, it was Mikey Day’s uncanny portrayal of Butt-head that pushed the experienced SNL player over the edge.
Just like he hid under the visor of his baseball hat while giggling in the cold open, Gosling used the unusually long bangs of his character to do so in the Doctor skit where he played an associate of Dr. Please, portrayed by Bowen Yang, who tried hard to stay in character and managed to do so until eventually cracking up too.
For his final skit of the night, Gosling and Fineman re-created a deleted scene from the 2000 movie Erin Brockovich. Fineman and Gosling portrayed the title character, played in the film Julia Roberts, and her biker boyfriend George, originally played by Aaron Eckhart, respectively.
Gosling broke character two different ways in the sketch. In addition to cracking up, with Fineman following, he also had to reattach his mustache, half of which fell off.
