Watching Colin Jost and Michael Che hosting the Primetime Emmy Awards felt very much like an extended segment on Saturday Night Live, especially given the recurring bits from sketch vets Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph. SNL Season 44 won't actually get here until the end of the month, but the NBC staple has thankfully announced its first guest host and musical act: Star Wars and BlacKkKlansman star Adam Driver, and the headline-making rap icon Kanye West. This should make for quite the interesting installment in more than one way.
When Saturday Night Live returns to NBC for Season 44, the premiere will be fronted by one of Hollywood's most promising younger stars, with Adam Driver currently serving as the head antagonist in the latest trilogy of Star Wars movies. (Not to mention starring turns in Terry Gilliam's long-awaited The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Scott Z. Burns' political drama The Torture Report and Jim Jarmusch's comedy The Dead Don't Die, to name but a few.) He was most recently seen in Spike Lee's highly acclaimed BlacKkKlansman, which likely ties into his Saturday Night Live hosting duties. Assuming it won't all be focused on Star Wars: Episode IX.
Check out the announcement below.
SNL always goes for a mega-star guest host to kick off the season, with recent years headed up by Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie, Miley Cyrus and Chris Pratt. So anyone without any blockbuster movies or bestselling albums need not apply for this particular hosting gig. That's obviously not the case with either Adam Driver or his episode's musical act, Kanye West.
This will mark Kanye West's first return to Saturday Night Live following his somewhat controversial appearance in early 2016, when he reportedly went through backstage rants and temper tantrums that went on just before recording and during the actual taping itself. It's been two and a half years, which is apparently enough time to let bad blood wash out, and this upcoming performance will be West's sixth SNL appearance as a music guest. To keep the hype train going, West is seeming fueling speculation that he'll soon be releasing Yeezus 2, a sequel to the bestselling 2013 album, which is feasible, since the rapper's SNL appearances tend to come around his album drop dates.
Saturday Night Live has poked fun at Kanye West before, most memorably in that A Quiet Place parody, and hopefully we'll get to see another sketch like this, possibly with Adam Driver also involved.
Saturday Night Live Season 44 is set to debut on NBC on Saturday, September 29, at 11:30 p.m. ET. To see what other shows will be popping up in primetime before and after then, head to our fall TV premiere schedule.
