Timothée Chalamet returned to his teenager rapper roots as he took the mic during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live.
The Call Me By Your Name star, 27, returned to the comedy live show on Saturday (11 November) for his second time as host, with Phoebe Bridgers’ band Boygenius as musical guests.
Saturday’s episode marked the first SNL show since the end of the SAG-AFTRA actors strike, with Chalamet excitedly explaining that he could finally mention Wonka, the forthcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory spin-off he stars in this Christmas.
In his opening monologue, Chalamet parodied Gene Wilder’s song “Pure Imagination” from the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film. “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of shameless self-promotion,” he sung, before joking of his co-star Hugh Grant: “Damn, Hugh Grant got that oompa loompa dump truck.”
Towards the end of his monologue, Chalamet – who is currently dating Kylie Jenner – was joined by SNL cast member Marcello Hernández.
The comedian told that Chalamet that they “actually have a lot in common”. “You’re a big, huge movie star, and I’m on my second season of SNL,” Hernández, 26, joked. “But there is something else that we have in common.”
“That’s right. We both have a baby face,” Chalamet replied, as Hernández passed him a microphone. The beat began, with the Little Women star saying: “Let’s talk to them, right? This song is dedicated to all the baby face dudes out there.”
Chalamet (left) and Hernández performed together— (NBC/YouTube)
“Shout out Justin Bieber. Shout out Bruno Mars lil a**,” Hernández said, as the pair launched into the X-rated rap.
Together, they rapped: “I got a baby face, but my hips don’t lie / Say I’m a bad kid b****, I’m a bad guy / I got a baby face, but I’m hung like my dad / Trust me baby, I’m the best you ever had.”
Taking centre stage, Chalamet continued to rap: “I got a face like a young ‘un, but the body of a dude / So hide your wife, hide your grandma too.”
As a teenager in 2011, Chalamet appeared in a comedy rap video where he referred to himself as a “15-year-old white boy, not Justin baby”. The clip resurfaced online when he became famous.
After the pair rapped ever more explicit lyrics, cast member Punkie Johnson joined for a verse dressed as Nicki Minaj. Kenan Thompson, 45, then appeared, saying: “Whoa, y’all really going to do a baby face song without your boy.”
Thompson, who rose to fame as a teenager on Nickelodeon and has been an SNL cast member since 2003, rapped: “I’ve had this face since Kenan and Kel / I age like a vampire, I age like Pharrell / All my life, I’ve been a cutie on TV / They think I’m 19, but I’m really 63.”
Saturday Night Live returned to screens in October, having originally come to a halt when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike in May.
While the actors strike continued, cast members and guest stars were able to come back to the show as they were performing under a Network Code Agreement (also known as a Net Code), which was not one of the contracts SAG-AFTRA was striking.
