It's been a while since we last saw Ryan Gosling in front of the camera. Sure, he wrote and directed the strange and beautiful Lost River last year, but it's been about two years since he's acted in anything. Now, with two movies to promote—The Big Short and The Nice Guys—Gosling is back where we like him: right in our faces. In honor of his latest projects, the Canadian actor hosted Saturday Night Live and was a part of one of the funniestsketches we've seen in a while.
The SNL team were set on capturing America's xenophobia this week, and Gosling opened with a monologue where he played a version of himself embarrassed to be Canadian. While it wasn't the funniest bit of the night, it was nice to see alum Mike Myers—a fellow Canuck—appear on stage wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. But the highlight of the episode, and perhaps of the season, came later in another immigrant-themed sketch.
In "Close Encounters," Gosling, Cecily Strong, and Kate McKinnon play characters who have been abducted by aliens. They begin to share their experiences with Pentagon officials—Aidy Bryant and Bobby Moynihan. Strong and Gosling play hippie-like figures who had pleasant experiences with the aliens, but McKinnon, always the standout, plays a middle-aged chain smoker whose time with the "gray aliens" weren't all that great. McKinnon goes on to tell how they watched her pee in a some sort of bowl, felt her up, and then dropped her over a Long John's Silvers. It's a pretty funny bit, only made funnier when the whole team started cracking up mid-sketch. While they were all able to deliver, Bryant seemed to have tears in her eyes and Gosling could barely contain his giggles.
We could watch him laugh forever.
