Dwayne Johnson is typically down for anything when he hosts Saturday Night Live. Michael Che singled out the A-Lister and former WWE Champion in a recent interview as one of his favorite hosts specifically because he always shows up open to any ideas. You can really see that across his five hosting appearances too. The writers clearly go harder and pitch weirder concepts for him than many other hosts because he’s down to try whatever like say The Rock Obama. That doesn’t mean, however, that there’s not the occasional idea he’ll still veto.
During that aforementioned conversation with Complex, the longtime Weekend Update co-anchor said he once pitched The Rock an absolutely filthy sketch that didn’t happen. The actor was promoting his initial casting as Black Adam; so, Che pitched another kind of Black Adam sketch that would see The Rock playing Adam from Adam and Eve. Instead of having his rib removed to make Eve, however, Adam was apparently going to tell God it was because he wanted to go down on himself. Here’s a portion of his quote…
I had one for the Rock that he didn’t do, but it was during Black Adam and he was playing Adam from Adam and Eve,and he asked God to remove his ribs so he could go down on himself.
I have no idea why Johnson turned the sketch down. Maybe it was because it’s blasphemous. Maybe it’s because it has the potential to be racially problematic. Maybe it’s because he didn’t want to wear the fig leaf or whatever the costume would have required. Maybe it just didn’t speak to him. Regardless, it’s interesting that Che told the story but then also specifically mentioned that The Rock, at least compared to other hosts was down for almost anything.
I feel like The Rock was the best. He was down for everything. He’s like legit funny, consummate professional, could do anything.
This conversation really makes me wonder how many hosts are just turning down things left and right. There are always stories going around about certain hosts being difficult to work with or saying no to anything that might be even the slightest bit problematic, but maybe the average host coming in is giving a lot more nos than we realize too. That would explain why Johnson is getting his shine here in the middle of a story about him passing on a sketch.
Regardless, it’s clearly all love between Johnson and everyone at SNL. He liked the Instagram post with this video, and he’s also spoken very highly of the show in interviews. He’s even be willing to come back for cameos when he’s not the full blown host, obviously because he enjoys the process and being around all the people.
Unfortunately it’s now been almost ten years since Johnson last hosted SNL. He’s obviously been very busy crushing it as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood during that lost decade, but I’m really hoping he’ll find some time in his schedule to return and host again. As Che said, he’s up for (almost) anything, and pairing that willingness with his natural charisma and fantastic comedic timing is always a recipe for a good episode.
Even without The Rock, SNL should give us a fantastic stretch of episodes coming up thanks to some compelling upcoming hosts. Druski is set to take the reigns this weekend, and he’ll be followed by John Mulaney, both of whom should give us plenty of standout moments.
