Jennifer Lawrence Shares SNL Hosting Regrets And Makes Strong Case To Be Invited Back (Beyond Just Being Jennifer Lawrence)

Jennifer Lawrence hosting Saturday Night Live in 2013
(Image credit: NBC)

Hosting Saturday Night Live is something of a rite of passage for movie and TV stars. Some actors dream of hosting SNL, while others have admitted being a little scared by it, but it’s always a big deal when a celebrity takes the stage for the first time. Jennifer Lawrence hosted the show back in 2013, at the height of her Hunger Games fame, and though Lorne Michaels has yet to invite her back, she really wants to do the show again for completely understandable reasons.

Jennifer Lawrence Barely Remembers Her Time Hosting SNL

Appearing on the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast, the topic of SNL came up with the former cast member, though she was long gone from the show by the time Lawrence hosted. Poehler asked what Lawrence remembers from her time hosting, and the answer, it turns out, is not much, because the X-Men actress was really sick at the time she was on the show. She explained:

Skewed, skewed. . . . I have to go back and do it again because I had walking pneumonia. I was under a lot of pressure and doing a lot, and I was shooting one of the Hunger Games movies. I was shooting, I think the second one, while doing all of this campaign, and I would have to like fly, go to a party, shake hands, and then land and shook. Like, poor me! But I was very tired.

It’s hard to understate just how massive a star Jennifer Lawrence was at this period. She was in the middle of both the Hunger Games and X-Men franchises. She had been nominated for two Oscars and won one of them for Silver Linings Playbook. It’s not a shock that she was buried with pressure, and with everything else going on, SNL was just a blur.

Lawrence Wants To Return And Try More Things

However, there’s another reason that Lawrence would apparently like to return to Saturday Night Live. It seems that in her early 20s, Lawrence was far less amenable to trying new things on the SNL stage. She’d like to go back and do the show again now because she’s be more open to whatever ideas the writers might have. Lawrence explained:

I remember I was also at that bad age. I don’t know if other people were like this at this age, where you get asked like ‘Can you do any impressions or anything?’ and I was like, ‘ No. You know, like, I don’t want to be like ‘And I can do this, and I can do that. I just kind of made everything everybody else’s problem. I was like, ‘I don’t know how to do that. I can’t do that.’

It seems Jennifer Lawrence feels she didn’t make the best of her time on SNL. However, a willingness to do more might very well make the idea of bringing Lawrence back a very enticing proposition. Some actors have turned down SNL because it’s a bit too far outside their comfort zone. But when actors are willing to put themselves out there, it frequently creates some of the most memorable sketches of Saturday Night Live.

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.

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