Is Saturday Night Live New Tonight?

Saturday Night Live officially kicked off its 48th season of bringing laughs to American households last week and once again, tonight, Saturday, October 8th, there’s another new episode of SNL set to air in just a few hours. Harry Potter and Paddington star Brendan Gleeson is set to host tonight’s new episode of the series. The actor is on hand to promote his movie The Banshees of Inisherin,. Situations like this almost always result in SNL bringing in some surprise guests, and considering Gleeson co-stars in that movie with Colin Farrell it certainly seems like a possibility that The Batman star could make an appearance. Willow, daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, is set to appear as musical guest.

Ahead of his episode tonight, Gleeson has already appeared in some hilarious promos for Saturday Night Live. Earlier this week a video was released online which saw Gleeson reveal his first true love, skateboarding, featuring a convincing body double and some camera tricks making it look like the 67-year-old Irish actor was totally shredding through stage 8H. Another featured Gleeson with Willow and Saturday Night Live cast member Chloe Fineman, including a reveal from Gleeson about what Paddington is really like.

We theorized earlier this week that considering Gleeson previosuly played former president Donald Trump in the Showtime mini-series The Comey Rule that SNL may very well ask him to put on the blonde wig once again. Trump remains a frequent target for ridicule by SNL, even before he got into politics, but he’s lampooned even more now by the show. After Alec Baldwin stopped performing as Trump on the series, regular performer James Austin Johnson was given the gig, and has largely become the favorite for not only how he manages to nail Trump’s voice but also his manner of speaking. Dueling Trumps between Gleeson and Johnson seems to be a likely sketch at some point on the new episode

A handful of newcomers to Saturday Night Live have been confirmed to appear with Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker all announced as featured players for the new season of SNL. Colin Jost remains the head writer for the show and will continue to appear on Weekend Update alongside Michael Che. Other current favorites like Kennan Thompson, Cecily Strong, Austin Johnson, Bowen Yang, and Fineman all continue to appear as well. 

Saturday Night Live Season 48 is ongoing now with new episodes airing on both NBC and Peacock. All 47 seasons of Saturday Night Live are also now streaming on Peacock.