Whether he’s playing Michael Collins, a renegade garda or the personal chef of Paddington Bear, there’s little Brendan Gleeson hasn’t seen or done in his decades on screen. But this year has opened a new chapter for the Irish actor, who is part of the Oscars conversation for his role in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin.
It is no coincidence that he is also making his debut as the host of Saturday Night Live, the American television show that is a place of pilgrimage for Hollywood stars with projects to plug in or best nominations. actor on their bucket lists.
[ The Banshees of Inisherin might finally get Brendan Gleeson his long-deserved Oscar nod ]
But while Gleeson is one of our great players, it’s fair to say that a future in light entertainment isn’t in sight. Slicked back hair, neatly trimmed red-gray beard, he’s a fuzzy fish out of water as he delivers his first SNL opening monologue.
These involve the guest host going through 10 minutes of understudy, usually at their own expense. Gleeson is blessed with comedic timing but is not a storyteller or a passer. And so, while his smile remains wide, his eyes narrow into dark pinpricks as he reads from the teleprompter.
Did he write the gags? Surely not, because they curl with bells. “If you don’t recognize the accent, I’m Irish,” he says. “If you don’t recognize the face, I’m the guy you saw in that thing you don’t remember.” Oh, my God, make it stop.
It doesn’t stop. Instead, Gleeson is given a mandolin, after which he states, “I’m not really into telling jokes, so I thought I’d play a tune for you instead.”
He tiptoes through a piece of trad made famous, he reveals, by Barney McKenna of The Dubliners. Saving him is his Banshees of Inisherin teammate Colin Farrell, who arrives with a Super Mario mustache.
Saturday Night Live is a comedy institution in the United States, which is remarkable given that it’s rarely funny and, with its reported no-gags and aggressive performances, often unassailable.
They then claim that Farrell is needy and that Gleeson is withholding his affections, which is essentially the plot of their new movie. “A little goofy but lovely,” Entertainment Weekly says, which sounds fair.
Saturday Night Live is a comedy institution in the United States, which is remarkable given that it’s rarely funny and, with its reported no-gags and aggressive performances, is often unassailable. He also dipped his toes into recreational hibernophobia: when Saoirse Ronan was invited, she had to joke about his “hard-to-pronounce” name, and his sketches revolved around the theme of Irish backwardness.
Worst of all is a play that tries to ridicule Marilyn Monroe’s terrible biopic Blonde. Gleeson, with his beard intact, plays an old woman reading fan mail to Monroe. It’s really not funny, and you feel like the guest star desperately wants it to end
Did Gleeson set foot on the “Oirish” stuff? Perhaps, because his Irish identity is treated as a background wrinkle rather than a punchline. Not that it makes the episode any easier to live with.
[ When Brendan Gleeson met Colin Farrell: ‘We hit it off — in a fundamental way’ ]
There’s an excruciating bit in which Gleeson plays a marketing executive at the Denver Tourism Board dealing with a colleague wearing plastic Google eyes. He is also tasked with a skit in which he portrays a “67-year-old Irishman” pretending to be in his senior year of American high school.
Farrell returns to play with his old mucker Gleeson in a pointless — even by SNL standards — scene in which a photographer takes his shots.
Worst of all is a play that attempts to ridicule the terrible Netflix biopic Marilyn Monroe Blonde, but is somehow even more atrocious than that film. In it, Gleeson, with his beard intact, plays an old woman reading fan mail to Monroe. It’s really not funny, and you sense that the guest star desperately wants it to end. Viewers – at least Irish – will know exactly how he feels.
Brendan Gleeson should be applauded for having the nerve to try something new. And if that puts him on the path to an Oscar nomination, good for him.
Gleeson should be applauded for having the nerve to try something new. And if that puts him on the path to an Oscar nomination, good for him. But when he looks back on his career and its many ups and downs, Saturday Night Live is a footnote he might be happier to pretend never happened.
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