On the heels of Glen Powell’s hosting debut on Saturday Night Live, the remaining hosts and musical guests for Season 51 on the 2025 TV schedule have been announced. Among those is another first, actor Josh O’Connor. He will be taking on Studio 8H on December 13 with musical guest Lilly Allen and not surprisingly, he’s nervous. But he got some interesting advice from Paul Mescal.
O’Connor’s hosting gig comes in anticipation of the latest Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, which releases on Netflix the day before he hosts. Despite starring in the movie alongside an A-list cast that includes Daniel Craig, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, and Jeremy Renner, O’Connor is still as nervous as ever taking a gig as big as SNL. He told Variety just how quickly he agreed to do it, even though he’s freaking out on the inside:
It’s an easy yes because it’s like, iconic and the coolest and the biggest honor ever to be asked. But I’m also, like, shitting myself.
Being nervous about hosting Saturday Night Live is definitely normal, considering it’s Saturday Night Live. Even the cast, both past and present, gets nerves and anxiety. Luckily, Mescal is not going in alone. He’s been able to talk to some friends about hosting, including Mescal. The two actors recently starred in the Oliver Hermanus-directed period romance drama The History of Sound and have remained close since filming. So close that O’Connor reached out to Mescal, who hosted on December 7, 2024, to see if he had anything of use to share, and it didn’t exactly go as O’Connor had planned:
Everyone’s been kind of useless in different ways. Paul started off by being incredibly encouraging and reassuring, and then, I guess, forgot the brief, and by the end was like, ‘Then you have a panic attack.’ I’m just excited, and I’m so honored to be asked.
It is pretty funny knowing just how unhelpful Mescal’s advice was, but at the very least, he was encouraging and hyped that O’Connor was hosting. Plus he was honest. It’s better just to let him know right away that he may or may not have a full-blown breakdown. Besides, it might have been nice to know that Mescal was feeling the same way as O’Connor about hosting, even if it wasn’t the best way to show it.
Since O’Connor most recently worked with Steven Spielberg on his upcoming movie in 2026, there’s nothing he can’t handle. Fans will be excited to see how he will do, especially since he’s done plenty of comedy, so they know what he’s capable of. Hopefully, he’s been able to get actual and helpful advice from other SNL host veterans, and that Mescal was able to give him some wise words.
Meanwhile, other December hosts include Melissa McCarthy on December 6 for the sixth time. Wicked: For Good star Ariana Grande will be rounding out the year with the fan-favorite Christmas episode on December 20, and it will be her third time as host. These final episodes of 2025 will be exciting to watch, and fans won’t want to miss them.