Reese Witherspoon is looking back on her somber Saturday Night Live hosting debut, which came just weeks after the September 11 terror attacks.
“I would give that zero stars. Do not recommend,” Witherspoon, 49, said of her experience with hosting during her appearance on the Monday, November 3, episode of Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast.
Witherspoon explained that she had originally been scheduled to host the season’s second episode, not the season opener. However, the first episode had been canceled in light of the attacks.
“[SNL creator] Lorne Michaels called me, and he said, ‘I really need you to show up. I really, really need this. Rudy Giuliani is gonna be here. All the firefighters are gonna be here. Paul Simon is gonna be here,’” the Morning Show actress recalled. “‘I just need you to come out and do something a little light and tell America that we gotta laugh again. We’ve got to get back the national spirit.’”
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Witherspoon, who was just 24 years old when she hosted SNL for the first time on September 29, 2001, admitted that she felt a lot of pressure regarding her appearance on the show.
“I also had a baby. I had a 1-year-old. I was a new mom. I had the biggest movie come out that summer,” she said, referring to her and ex-husband Ryan Phillippe’s daughter, Ava, now 26, and her 2001 hit film Legally Blonde.
Though Michaels, now 80, told Witherspoon that it was “OK” if she “didn’t want to do” the show, she said she didn’t want to “quit” on her obligation, especially in a time of need.
“But we did it. And it was good. And it was Amy Poehler‘s first show, Seth [Meyers],” she said.
Witherspoon admitted that she “completely left [her] body” during the episode and did not return to SNL for nearly 15 years. (Her second and most recent time hosting was in May 2015 during season 40.)
“It’s not the show’s fault. It was just too much responsibility for a 24-year-old girl,” she concluded.
The September 29, 2001, episode replaced its typical cold open with a performance from Paul Simon, who sang “The Boxer” in front of several FDNY firefighters. Additionally, Michaels appeared with former NYC Mayor Giuliani, who encouraged the show to keep moving forward despite the tragedy. Alicia Keys served as the week’s musical guest.
In 2023, Meyers, 51, opened up about the post-9/11 episode marking his SNL debut.
“When you do your first SNL a couple weeks after 9/11 in New York City, you realize no one else cares about what you’re going through,” he said on “The Great Creators With Guy Raz” podcast. “It would have felt so big, and then in a way that was healthy and right, it felt manageable and small to figure out how to do sketch comedy in front of a live audience considering what all of us had just been through.”
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Poehler, 54, has also recalled her experience, saying on the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast in March that she felt like comedy would be changed forever.
“The whole country was like, ‘We’re never going to laugh again. Comedy’s over, that’s a wrap,’” she recalled. “I remember thinking, ‘I hear you, yes, respectfully, I hear you, but …”
O’Brien, 62, responded, “There was a famous article that said irony is dead, like nothing will ever be ironic again. Except … it’s just like ‘Well, no. This is what humans do. Whether it’s the fires in Los Angeles, whether it’s 9/11. We get hit over the head, we are stunned, we collect ourselves and then we go back to doing what we do.”