Actor Paul Mescal, the star of the upcoming historical epic Gladiator II, will host Saturday Night Live. This is the first time the young Irish actor will serve as the guest host of the iconic NBC late-night live variety series.
Gladiator 2 star Paul Mescal to host new Saturday Night Live episode with Shaboozey
Mescal was announced as the guest host of the eighth episode of SNL Season 50 in an interstitial broadcast during the November 16 episode, in which Charli XCX served both as host and musical guest. Mescal’s episode will air on December 7, 2024, and feature producer Shaboozey as the musical guest. Before Mescal, his co-star Pedro Pascal hosted SNL in Season 48 and made a cameo appearance in one of the episodes of the following season.
SNL has been on air since October 1975, and serving as one of its guest hosts is widely regarded as an incredible accomplishment. Late comedian George Carlin was the first ever host of SNL, and actor Alec Baldwin currently holds the record for hosting the show the most times (a total of 17 episodes).
Surprisingly, Denzel Washington, the two-time-Oscar winner and Mescal’s co-star in the Gladiator sequel has never hosted SNL, making him part of a rare group among Hollywood A-listers that includes Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, and Tom Cruise.
Mescal, who is 28, has been active as an actor since the late 2010s and has already accumulated an impressive resume across the stage, films, and television. In 2022, he earned a Laurence Olivier Award for essaying the role of Stanley Kowalski in a 2022 revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Mescal garnered considerable attention for his performance as Connell Waldron in the BBC Three/Hulu/RTÉ One miniseries Normal People. He has since appeared in critically acclaimed movies like Aftersun (2022) and All of Us Strangers (2023). Gladiator II, which debuts in US theaters this Friday, is his first tentpole project.