{"id":661615,"date":"2026-05-24T03:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661615\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T03:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:35:09","slug":"pete-davidson-john-mulaney-on-lying-to-snl-hosts-bombing-monologues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661615\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Davidson, John Mulaney On Lying To ‘SNL’ Hosts Bombing Monologues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSaturday Night Live alums Pete Davidson<\/a> and John Mulaney<\/a> did a bit of acting themselves while interfacing with the big names hosting the late-nighter week to week, revealing during a recent panel conversation how they would placate celebrities that bombed their opening monologues.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the Netflix Is A Joke Festival<\/a>, Mulaney reflected on his time as a writer on the Lorne Michaels-helmed juggernaut from 2008 to 2013.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I was 25, I\u2019d tell Oscar-winning hosts \u2014 I\u2019d write their monologue and be like, \u2018You\u2019re gonna say all that, it\u2019s gonna go great,\u2019 and they\u2019d tank 8 times out of 10,\u201d he said, as Davidson laughed and admitted he, too, would tell hosts they \u201ccrushed it\u201d even when they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey\u2019ll have actor face. They sort of don\u2019t get it, because they\u2019re just an actor,\u201d Mulaney, who got his start as a standup, continued. \u201cAnd they\u2019d be like, \u2018Hey, was that good?\u2019 And you\u2019re like, \u2018No! Do you have ears?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDavidson admitted that he would often tell hosts: \u201cYou\u2019re really performing for the people at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRiffing on the bit, Mulaney added: \u201c\u2018Play for the camera. The audience, they\u2019re just there to help you, but they\u2019re not gonna laugh a lot.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe King of Staten Island actor admitted he would lie about the demographics of the live audience to make the medicine go down easy: \u201cAnd I always would go: \u2018They\u2019re tourists. They wait outside and they try to win a lottery. Half of them probably don\u2019t even speak English.\u2019 They do. They\u2019re big fans of the show; they camp outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMulaney then recalled an instance where \u201ca very big comedy star bombed \u2026 His own fault because he was very difficult writing the monologue,\u201d but when he checked in with the Big Mouth actor if he was bad, \u201cI went: \u2018It\u2019s bad acoustics.\u2019 It\u2019s famously one of the best mic\u2019d sound studios in the world. It used to be home to the NBC [Symphony] Orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSNL<\/a> recently concluded its 51st season. The finale episode featured host Will Ferrell and musical guest star Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday Night Live alums Pete Davidson and John Mulaney did a bit of acting themselves while interfacing with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,38807,13954,12016,92],"class_list":["post-661615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-john-mulaney","tag-pete-davidson","tag-snl","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}