Adrien Brody’s SNL Performance Was So Bad, Audiences Think He Was Banned

As far as bad “Saturday Night Live” hosts go, Adrien Brody is certainly up there. Was he as terrible at work as Steven Seagal? I guess not, but that’s only because the bar is in hell. Although he said he would love to host again, Brody apparently ended any chance of that happening when he went off script and did an extended impression of a Jamaican guy, including dreadlocks. Even by 2003 standards, this part of Brody was considered awkward at best. I was supposed to introduce that week’s musical guest, a task that 99.9% of presenters perform without complications; instead, I wouldn’t let the bit die.

I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that he did that in the first place (see below) or that he continued doing it for 40 seconds straight. This clip sparked a rumor on the Internet that still persists to this day, that Adrien Brody did this without the show’s permission and that this was what banned him from making future appearances on the series.

It’s easy to see why a rumor like that would spread: It frees “SNL” from greenlighting such a point, explains why Brody has never returned to the show despite his continued fame, and helps contribute to the growing narrative. from Adrien. Brody is the worst. In 2017, Brody received a lot of criticism for revealing that his big, aggressive onstage kiss with Halle Berry at the 2003 Oscars it was not planned at all; The controversy added even more credence to the idea that Brody would go off script on “SNL,” much to the inconvenience and discomfort of the cast and crew.

in a Vulture’s recent profileBrody explained that he pitched the Jamaican part to the writers, and the “SNL” team approved it and got him the costume. He said he did it in dress rehearsal without a problem before doing it live, a claim that is backed up by online fans who You remember going to that dress rehearsal. and backed by the long-running “That Week in SNL” podcast, which also debunked it in 2021:

One of the oldest myths surrounding SNL is that this moment was not planned at all and Adrian Brody was written out of the show because of it. All of that is completely false. Adrian did exactly the same thing at the dress rehearsal. As stupid as it is, this was supposed to happen. https://t.co/3FamROsDRE

– That Week on SNL (@ThatWeekInSNL) October 7, 2021

“I think Lorne wasn’t happy with me embellishing a little bit, but they let me do it,” Brody told Vulture. Lorne Michaels hates improv on the show, as it’s not very compatible with the demands of a live sketch, so it’s easy to imagine Michaels holding a grudge because Brody dragged out the part for a little longer than expected.

When asked about rumors that he had been banned, Brody denied them, but added, “I’ve never been invited back (laughs). So I don’t know what to tell you.” Speaking about his experience on “SNL,” Brody also mentioned that he came in with a ton of pitch ideas. “Everyone was literally speechless at my pitch,” he said. It’s possible that this was another Steven Seagal-esque situation, in that as bad as the sketches that aired seemed, we might be more forgiving if we’d seen all the rejected pitches that the writers managed to stop.

Early on in the upcoming season of “SNL,” during an episode hosted by tennis player Andy Roddick, there was a meta sketch where tennis legend and commentator John McEnroe discussed how Roddick’s hosting stint was going so far. When asked how Roddick could screw it up, McEnroe responded that he could still “do an Adrien Brody and start babbling in a Jamaican accent for no reason.”

It was a joke reminiscent of what “SNL” would do to Elon Musk in 2021, throwing in a random comment about how bad his episode was in the cold open of the season 46 finale, just two weeks after Musk hosted . Given how much “SNL” seems to dislike Musk these days, it seems that bad-mouthing a past host’s episode is the kind of thing the show only does when they think the host was exceptionally bad. (Like Brody, I don’t think Musk will be hosting again anytime soon.)

As final proof that Brody might be unofficially banned, there was a 2010 episode of “Watch What Happens Live” when Andy Cohen asked “SNL” alum Tina Fey who she thought was the worst host during her time on the program. The video appears to have been completely scrubbed from the internet, although some articles can still be found at the time describing what happened: Fey insisted she couldn’t answer Cohen’s question, but then reportedly mouthed “Adrien Brody” to the audience.

Fey also reportedly described Brody as a bad host in an interview with Howard Stern in 2006; Audio of that interview also appears to have been scrubbed from the Internet, but it was mentioned in Stephen Tropano’s 2013 book, “Saturday Night Live FAQ: Everything There’s Left to Know About Television’s Longest-Running Comedy” (what you can buy here), as well as summarized on a Howard Stern fan site. It seems that Tina Fey recalled in 2006 that Brody had too many bad ideas for sketches and speculated that he might have been angry that the writers rejected so many of them. Although the rumor that Brody was kicked off “SNL” has yet to be proven, it is very easy to see how it spread.