Darren Aronofksy’sThe Whaleinspired one of the standout sketches featuring hostWoody Harrelsonon the newest episode ofSaturday Night Live. In the sketch, Harrelson plays an actor named Keith who’s put on hundreds of pounds specifically to play this role, only to find out that the project is no longer happening. You can see how this goes down in the parody by watching the video below, viaSNLon YouTube.
In the sketch, a filmmaker (Mikey Day) is at a movie studio to inform the cast of a film calledThe Hippothat the project has been canceled. He apologizes to them for the personal sacrifices that they’ve made for the movie, including one cast member dying her hair brown and another for spending weeks job shadowing a therapist. But perhaps nobody had it worse than Harrelson’s Keith, who gained 450 pounds in six months to play the lead role inThe Hippo. Needless to say, Keith isn’t very impressed with the minor complaints that his co-stars are having.
Things get a bit worse when the director starts talking about the changes that the studiowantedto make before outright canceling the project. For the others, that means possibly recasting their roles or cutting them entirely. But for Keith, he learns for the first time that he had the option of wearing a fat suit instead of putting on hundreds of pounds in reality.
“Was that an option?” Harrelson says, surprised that the director fought back against the studio’s wishes, so he could be a method actor" for the role.
“I really kind of wish you had brought me into that conversation,” the actor laments.
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Woody Harrelson Joined the Five-Timers Club
Harrelson joined the SNL Five-Timers Club in the new episode ofSNL. Musical guest Jack White was also made a part of the club after serving as musical guest for the fifth time. They’ll be followed by Travis Kelce and Kelsea Ballerini on the March 4 episode with Jenna Ortega and The 1975 coming in on March 11. They followed the pairings of Aubrey Plaza and Sam Smith, Michael B. Jordan and Lil Baby, and Pedro Pascal and Coldplay.
The new episode ofSNLfeaturing Harrelson as host can be found streaming on Peacock, along with every past episode of the show. As forThe Whale, the film spoofed in the new sketch that some say will earn Brendan Fraser the Best Actor award at the Oscars, you may check out that film now for rental on Digital while the DVD and Blu-ray will be coming on March 14.
