There are few show business lists more exclusive than Saturday Night Live’s Five-Timers Club. The long-running sketch comedy show typically only has about twenty hosts a year, and those invited are usually a mix of really buzzy rising stars and celeb royalty. So, who populates that list is a who’s who of mega-famous celebrities with long careers. Until last night, there were twenty-five people on that list. Now there are twenty-six, as Emma Stone joined the club, and to welcome her in, SNL, of course, brought out some of her fellow Five-Timers.
The welcome ceremony happened during Emma Stone’s monologue, and it featured legends Tina Fey and Candice Bergen giving her the famous Five-Timers jacket and talking about the ladies wing they added to the clubhouse. You can check out the banter below, which also includes some shots fired at other Five-Timers John Mulaney and Woody Harrelson…
Part of the reason The Five-Timers Club is so exclusive is because its members have to be uber-famous and also a special type of person. Most actors get famous and stay famous by being really thoughtful about putting themselves in positions to succeed, but Saturday Night Live is, by its very nature, a very chaotic and unpredictable environment. A lot of celebrities who might be famous enough to be invited to host five times don’t actually want any part of hosting five times because there’s no safety net.
Emma Stone, however, doesn’t really use a safety net for the rest of her career either. The three time Oscar nominee jumps back and forth between different genres, working with a wide variety of directors and making both broad projects intended to please everyone and really narrow projects intended to please just a small minority of artsy fans. Her latest film, Poor Things, is a great example of that latter group, as it’s utterly fantastic and also the type of thing my mom would hate.
The Five-Timers Club started as a tongue-in-cheek thing and just sorta developed into a real thing. There’s nothing inherently more special about hosting five times versus four times or even six times, but it has a nice ring to it and is a good arbitrary dividing line to honor people for being SNL legends. Tom Hanks allegedly thought up the idea himself, and it’s stuck with people to the point where it’s now expected there will be a ceremony everytime someone hits the milestone.
I love it, and I’m happy for Emma Stone. She clearly loves doing the show, and given she’s fantastic at it, I hope she hosts another five times. Until then, you can check out SNL without her, as the show has some other fantastic upcoming hosts including Adam Driver and Kate McKinnon.
