Tom Hanks starred as the host in the first-ever SNL episode from home, which featured Coldplay's Chris Martin as the musical guest.
This was Hanks' first time back on screen since his COVID-19 diagnosis a couple weeks ago, and he opened his monologue with a Tiger King reference while standing in his Los Angeles living room. "Hey all you cool cats and kittens," he said, "It’s me, your old pal. Don’t be afraid, this shaved head was just for a movie. My hair is growing back very slowly." He was talking about Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic that he was filming before he self-quarantined.
“Hey, it’s good to be here, though it is also very weird to be here. Hosting Saturday Night Live from home. It is a strange time to try and be funny, but trying to be funny is SNL‘s whole thing. So we thought, what the heck? Let’s give it a shot,” Hanks said.
“Now I was diagnosed back in March with the coronavirus. I was first diagnosed down in Australia. Now the folks in Australia are fantastic in every way but they use Celsius instead of Fahrenheit when they take your temperature,” he said. “So, when they come in and they say, ‘You’re 36,’ which seemed very bad to me. But turns out 36 is fine, turns out 38 is bad. So basically it’s how Hollywood treats female actors.”
He went on to discuss his quarantine habits with wife Rita Wilson. “But now my wife and I are doing fine, doing great. We’re hunkered down, like all of us should be. In fact, this suit, this is the first time I’ve worn anything other than sweatpants since March 11. My wife had to help me put it on,” he said.
“Now this Saturday Night Live is going to be a little different. For one thing, it has been filmed entirely by the SNL cast who are currently quarantined in their homes,” Hanks said in his monologue, adding, “Also there’s no such things as Saturdays anymore.”