Every year, we watch our favorite celebrities take on a big gig by hosting Saturday Night Live, and whether you end up loving the episode and how stars like Scarlett Johansson, Keke Palmer and sad boy Timothée Chalamet perform on the long-running hit, one thing that seems to be absolutely true is that agreeing to be one of the upcoming SNL hosts is a big challenge for most of them. Now, Glenn Close has opened up about the amazing advice she got from Robin Williams before she hosted for the first time.
What Did Glenn Close Say About The Advice Robin Williams Gave Her Before Her First SNL Hosting Gig?
Most of us would never want to perform in front of hundreds of people, much less do that with the knowledge of millions of others watching us from home, but that is the job one takes on when deciding to host SNL. On top of any nerves over that, this is a sketch comedy series (which is out of the wheelhouse of many stars) where you literally cram all week for the appearance and then still have to use cue cards because dialogue and whole sketches change so frequently (among other reasons, which Bowen Yang helpfully explained).
Obviously, these are some of the reasons for anxiety from the hosts, but Back in Action star Glenn Close recently told People about the great advice she got from Robin Williams before hosting the first time in 1989, and said:
[I went to] Robin Williams, who was my friend. I said, 'Do you have any advice about Saturday Night Live? And he said, 'Just don't do anything you don't think is funny, because you get all these different fabulous ideas.' I found that helpful.
Awwww. Right? Close was quite lucky, I’d say, for having an all-star comedian like the late Robin Williams as a friend to help her out with advice so she could relax into what sounds like an intense process a little bit. For five decades now we’ve heard a lot of famous people say a lot of things about hosting SNL, but something I certainly hadn’t thought about was the basics of figuring out which of possibly dozens of sketch ideas you wanted to be a part of. Honestly? Just thinking about that is giving me choice paralysis and making me a little bit nauseous.
The star of the upcoming series, All’s Fair (which will hit the 2025 TV schedule later this year) also got lucky because things ended up going quite smoothly for her, and she added that it was “great fun” to host and then did it again for the SNL Christmas episode in 1992. Hopefully, everyone who will host the iconic show for the first time will have a friend as great and smart as Robin Williams to ask for advice.
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