“Saturday Night Live”
NBC
Ryan Gosling just can’t let go of his character Ken Barbie during his Saturday Night Live monologue.
Although he initially said he wouldn’t talk about Ken because he “broke up” with the character after going “too deep,” he eventually decided to sing about his feelings with a rendition of Taylor Swift’s hit song “All Too Well . ”
“You know, when you play a character so hard, for so long, just letting go feels like a breakup, and to work through a breakup, there’s really only one thing that can help: The music of the great Taylor Swift.” La La Land said the actor.
Gosling then went on to sing, “I ripped Venice Beach it’s true / My clothes were tight / But something about that spandex just felt so right / I left my roller skates in that big pink house / But I still got this fur coat and I’ll wear it this right now (Direct him to put on the iconic Ken coat).”
“If I say I’m doing good, you know I’d be lying / Cause I was just Ken and now I’m just Ryan,” he continued.
Emily Blunt then interrupted Gosling’s song, (jokingly) annoyed that he was still singing about Ken, even though he was supposedly promoting their upcoming movie The Fall Guy. “What are you doing?” she asked, adding that they had a plan to do “a bunch of stunts.”
“I was going to hit you with stuff, and instead you’re singing about Ken again,” Blunt told the actor. “Look here, you’re Kenning right now, and I hate that it’s even a verb. I resent this. Take off the fur coat. Shame on you.”
After receiving a gasp from the audience, the Oppenheimer the actress added: “Guys, I don’t want to be rude, but Ryan, you need to move on. It is time.”
While Gosling seemed to agree, he quickly remarked that he “just couldn’t” go on and burst into another musical number. “Here we go again on the colorful beach / I didn’t win an Oscar, it was just out of reach / I was there / Bleach blonde / Now it’s time to say goodbye to Ken,” he sang, just before Blunt hit him over the head with a bottle.
“That’s how it’s going to be,” she said, as Gosling shouted back, “What the hell, Emily?”
“You were a stuntman [in The Fall Guy] and you can take a hit and see how great that was,” Blunt said. But just as Gosling was about to add that Ken would think the stunts were “really cool” too, she hit the actor with a chair.
“Ken is dead. Okay, Ken is dead. The Devil Wears Prada – exclaimed the actress.
However, The nice guys the actor went on to reminisce about their “Barbenheimer” phenomenon last summer, asking Blunt if she ever misses winning an Oscar Oppenheimer movie. And it’s safe to say he does, as the two went on to sing their version of “All Too Well” together.
“We were Kitty and Ken / I wish you could see us / You were loyal to the end / And your man didn’t have a penis,” sing Gosling and Blunt. “I must admit / We’re a mess to impress / Now it’s time to say goodbye to Ken and Kitty.”
Earlier, during SNL cold open, Kate McKinnon also returned for another iconic “Close Encounter” skit with Gosling. Sarah Sherman, Bowen Yang and Mikey Day also starred in the sketch.
McKinnon’s Colleen Rafferty, Todd and Gosling’s Sherman once again recount being abducted by aliens, but this time Colleen demonstrates how the aliens are interested in Todd’s private part, or as she called it, his “troll nose.”
“In case you’re wondering, I’m not fired up,” Todd pointedly remarked to Gosling. “Whenever I felt like I could, I just looked at Colleen here.”
McKinnon, Gosling and Cecily Strong debuted the first sketch “Close Encounter” in December 2015, in which Gosling and Strong’s characters recount positive interactions with aliens. However, McKinnon’s character amusingly describes a not-so-pleasant interaction with them.
The trio reprized their characters again in October 2017 for another memorable alien abduction skit.
Later in the show, basketball star Caitlin Clark made a surprise appearance on “Weekend Update” to grill Michael Che about a sexist joke.
“The University of Iowa has announced that basketball star Caitlin Clark will retire her jersey and replace it with an apron,” Che said before introducing Clark before Monday’s WNBA draft.
“I’m a fan, Kaitlyn, by the way,” the comedian added, but the former Iowa Hawkeyes player quickly responded, “Really, Michael? Because I heard that little apron joke you made.
Gosling hosted the sketch comedy show for the third time on Saturday with musical guest Chris Stapleton.
