These days, Michael Che is one of the four most seasoned veterans who’ve been on Saturday Night Live (a show that's seen a lot of turnover lately) for over a decade. That means when he does interviews, he’s frequently asked about his long history of seeing a ton of celebs come and go as host. He just gave an excellent reason as to why he’s not keen on getting into the nitty-gritty of the topic.
Che and Colin Jost are back on SNL 52 on the 2026 TV schedule for their 13th season as the hosts of Weekend Update. Here’s what Che had to say about why he chooses not to talk too in-depth about the behind-the-scenes of working with the hosts:
SNL is such a vulnerable place for everybody. Like for us, we work there. We're there all the time. We're comfortable, and people would ask like, ‘Who's the worst and who's the best.’ And I'm like, it's really not fair to say who’s – to judge somebody based on their time there, because they're there for a week.
When Che was on What Now? With Trevor Noah, he gave this candid explanation about what it's like for hosts on SNL. He also likened being on the SNL staff to “planning someone else’s wedding” every week. Since it’s a big deal for anyone who gets asked to host, there’s a lot going on at once, and they aren’t usually at their best. As he added:
It's scary, it's fast. There's no other show like it, so there's no way to prepare for it unless you just do it all the time. So, if you're hosting SNL and you don't trust the table read, you don't think it's funny, you don't trust the rehearsals and the run-throughs and the like, you don't know the process. So, why would you trust [that]?.... Especially if you don't do comedy at all.
Michael Che explained the chaotic week of a host on Saturday Night Live, too. Here’s how it goes. On Monday, the host meets everyone. Tuesday is pitch day, and Wednesday involves a packed eight-hour day of table reads that sometimes include upwards of 40 sketches. Then, on Thursday, they do rewrites, rehearsals and camera blocking. And Friday is when they do the pre-tapes. Before they know it, they’re live on Saturday night! Scary, right?
As the cast member explained, the whole thing becomes normal for everyone who works there, but it’s completely foreign and daunting to anyone coming into the process. He continued:
So, if somebody's showing you something like, ‘Trust me, it's going to work,’ and you don't find it funny, but you got to do it live on television, you're like, ‘You're going to make me look stupid. People going to think I'm not funny.’
It’s a lot of trust the celebrities have to put into everyone at SNL, so I appreciate what Michael Che is saying regarding why he doesn’t judge people on a really weird week of their lives. I wouldn't have thought about this otherwise. Also, in his words:
So, like a lot of times people have a rough go, but it's not because they're bad people. It's just because it's a scary situation.
Clearly, Che enjoys the process himself because he’s continued to come back every season since starting first as a writer in 2013. He and Jost have been consistently good co-hosts on their segment of the show, with their joke swap being a particularly memorable bit between them. The pair also had a hilarious bit outside of SNL when they were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire this week and deliberated over a NSFW Taylor Swift song. Now, he'll be back in Studio 8H with his colleagues and a new batch of hosts.
While we likely won’t be hearing from Che about what they were like as hosts, next in this season’s lineup are Inde Navarrette, Druski and John Mulaney. You can catch SNL on Saturday nights at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC or with a Peacock subscription.
