Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: May 11, 2019

Published by Ernie Tripper at May 11, 2019

Tonight, it’s the next-to-the-last Saturday Night Live of the season hosted by Academy Award winner Emma Thompson!

If you’re SNL and you’re facing the penultimate episode of Season 44 and you’re looking for a first-timer to take the helm, to play silly characters, wear crazy costumes and makeup and put on funny voices while they break their Saturday Night Live cherry, why not go with a distinguished British actor (who identifies as Scottish) with two Academy Award wins as part of her pedigree!? That’s exactly what SNL EP Lorne Michaels is doing tonight at 11:30pm on NBC. Tonight, Emma Thompson becomes the 14th and final first-time host of SNL – Season 44. Cagey veteran Paul Rudd is hosting the finale next week. That makes exactly two-thirds of this year’s Saturday Night Live episodes hosted by rookies. And they’ve pulled off some great shows, so hopefully that beginner’s luck will continue for Emma Thompson.

When Emma Thompson is introduced as “your host” by SNL announcer Darrell Hammond this evening and you’re one of the few people wondering where you’ve seen her from, here’s some background. This acting powerhouse is a two time Oscar winner. Her first Academy Award came for being named Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role for “Howard’s End “(1993). She received her second Oscar statue at the 1996 Academy Awards for Best Screenplay for “Sense and Sensibility ” (1995), a film that also earned her another Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

She was also a double Oscar nominee at the 66th Annual Academy Awards, receiving nods for Best Lead Actress and Best Supporting Actress for “The Remains of the Day ” (1993) and “In the Name of the Father” (1993) respectively. Also, Emma Thompson is a multiple time Golden Globe nominee with two wins and she has a Primetime Emmy along with four other nominations for her television work. The woman is a Grammy away from EGOT status. Someone book her to read an audiobook immediately so she can wrap that up.

Other memorable film career highlights for Emma Thompson includes Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Junior“, the “Nanny McPhee” movies which she also wrote, the Christmas rom-com “Love Actually“, also playing Professor Sybil Trelawney in the “Harry Potter” movies, plus this year’s animated comedy “Missing Link” with Hugh Jackman & Zach Galifianakis, and portraying the obvious Hillary Clinton role, Susan Stanton in 1998’s “Primary Colors.” That last IMDB credit might could find it’s way into an SNL – Digital Short as a parody spot for the sequel “Primary Colors 2: Orange” where this time instead of the Clinton campaign, the film is based on Donald Trump’s.

As you can see from her previous credits, Emma Thompson has done her share of comedy as well as drama which should serve her well tonight hosting Saturday Night Live for the first time. This summer, Emma has two comedies coming to theaters.

First, she stars in “Late Night” which is written by and co-stars Mindy Kaling. In the new comedy movie, Emma Thompson plays veteran late night talk show host Katherine Newbury who finds some new creativity and a chance to save her failing show with a freshman comedy writer played by Kaling. “Late Night” also stars John Lithgow (“3rd Rock from the Sun“, “Pet Sematary” 2019), Max Casella (“Boardwalk Empire“, “Doogie Howser“), Hugh Dancy (“Hannibal” TV series), and Reid Scott (“Veep“) and it’s in theaters everywhere on Friday, June 7th.

A week later, Emma Thompson reprises her character Agent O which she originated in 2012’s “Men in Black 3” in the relaunch of the comedy sci-fi franchise with “Men in Black: International” in theaters everywhere June 14th and which stars Chris Hemsworth (everyone’s favorite Asgardian superhero Thor) and Tessa Thompson (“Creed“, “Westworld“) along with Liam Neeson and the voice of Kumail Nanjiani.

Since Emma Thompson is promoting “Men in Black: International” on her inaugural Saturday Night Live outing, it’s the perfect opportunity for SNL to tie in “MIB” with the current political situation in the country. Not to tell the Saturday Night Live writers’ room how to do their job, but it seems they could do an SNL – Digital Short parodying “Men in Black” where the agents are rounding up illegal extraterrestrial aliens and they get the same abhorrent treatment that actual aliens receive when coming to this country seeking relief from murder and gang violence in their own countries. In the short, we could see E.T. and his little pre-school E.T. child being separated at the Earth border and the baby alien being detained away from its parent and kept in a cage. Sure, it’s intense, but Saturday Night Live has never shied away from letting the Trump administration have it over their policies.

For anyone not familiar, Emma Thompson is a British-born actor which also lends itself nicely to the news coming out of England this week when a new member of the Royal Family was born. Prince Harry and his wife the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle recently gave birth to baby boy, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Yep, Archie. With tonight’s host’s natural accent, she could play any number of roles including Royal Stepmother Camilla Parker-Bowles if Saturday Night Live wants to do a sketch about the new royal baby. Cast members Mikey Day and Alex Moffat are always bloody brilliant as Prince Harry and Prince William on SNL, plus cast member Kate McKinnon makes a perfect Queen Elisabeth II and personally, we’re always hoping for an excuse to see Aidy Bryant return as Sir Elton John. How she didn’t get the lead in this year’s possible Oscar contender, “Rocketman” is beyond us!

Tonight will also be the annual Saturday Night Live – Mother’s Day Show. It’s been a long tradition that each year on SNL on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, the cast parades out their own mothers for bit of maternal pride and comedy during the SNL – Cold Open. With all the annoyingly negative politics going on in the country, let’s hope that Saturday Night Live forgoes the usual Trump political cold open and keeps this sweet custom going this year as well.

Other things happening in the nation and world that will probably make it onto tonight’s new Saturday Night Live in sketches, shorts, Weekend Update or the SNL – Cold Open (if SNL does goes political for the opening sketch) include President Trump’s horrific tax history from 1985 to 1994 being finally revealed to America and the fact that he’s the American that has most likely shown these largest losses of all time on his tax returns with well over a billion dollars lost over a 10 year period. Not exactly “Businessman of that Decade.”

Also there’s the Trump Administration flat out refusing to cooperate with Congress with the Mueller Report investigation and the President playing the Executive Privilege card leading to the upcoming Constitutional Crisis. And now, Donald Trump Jr. has been subpoenaed by the Senate Intel Committee regarding the Russian Probe. Mikey Day and Alex Moffat may have a busy week if they’re also called upon to play the Trump Brothers, DTJ and Eric the Brain Dead.

Plus, SNL might take on the botched Kentucky Derby, the fabulous looks from New York’s Met Gala, the other big birth news this week; the arrival of Amy Schumer’s baby boy Gene Attell Fischer, there’s also just a couple of episodes left for HBO’s “Game of Thrones“, NBC’s “Late Night” host Seth Meyers and Meghan McCain having a heated exchange about Rep. Ilhan Omar and Marvel announcing that one of its well-known movie characters will be revealed as gay.

The promos for this week’s new episode of SNL are provided below for you to watch at your leisure. The first one was released by Saturday Night Live viaTwitter. Emma Thompson tweets out that she’s thrilled to be hosting a new Saturday Night Live this week. “Hold it together girl!”

The second promo released for this episode may be the funniest promo SNL has done all season. In it, Kate McKinnon has insists on giving host Emma Thompson a tour of the SNL studio and backstage area including Emma’s dressing room. It’s completely decked out like an English manor for Kate’s hero. She’s taking care of each and everyone of Emma’s needs whether she needs it or not. Think of it like Rex Manning Day, and Kate has demanded to take Rex (Emma) his lunch. She’s even got any of Emma Thompson’s musical wants covered in the scariest way possible. It’s either the start of a beautiful friendship or it’s the end of Rockefeller Center in this promo.

Our third set of promos from SNL features Emma Thompson with musical guest, Jonas Brothers and cast member Pete Davidson. We’re still checking the gossip pages to see if Pete is dating Emma yet. In the promos, Emma appears to be distracted heading into tonight’s SNL – Mother’s Day Show. And it looks like it’s Nick, Joe and Kevin doing the distracting. Much like last week’s new episode of Saturday Night Live where musical guest Shawn Mendes was worked into a sketch seemingly just for one pun and to hear the audience scream, don’t be surprised to see the Brothers Jonas appear in the comedy portion of the show this evening as well as their musical performances.

Emma Thompson hosts a brand new Saturday Night Live tonight, the next-to-the-last episode of the season, with musical guests, Jonas Brothers at 11:30pm et and live across all American time zones on NBC!

Next Saturday, May 18th, it’s the SNL – Season 44 Finale hosted by Paul Rudd with musical guest DJ Khaled!