Everyone’s favorite menace is apparently a pretty good comic, too.
Willem Dafoe made his way from Spider-Man: No Way Home buzz and right into the studios at 30 Rock on Saturday, hosting the latest episode of Saturday Night Live. During his opening monologue, Dafoe touched on his early beginnings as an actor, poking fun at how expressive his face can get. “Some people have told me that my acting is over the top,” he said. “But to me, one man’s over the top is another man’s engaged performance.”
Dafoe was interrupted by a Appleton, Wisconsin couple played by Mikey Day and Aidy Bryant who ran through movies they believed Dafoe was in. Speed 2: Cruise Control...that was you in Speed 2, right?” they said. “That was me,” Dafoe replied. Dafoe, who is also from Appleton, broke out his Wisconsin accent for them.
While Saturday marked Dafoe’s first time hosting SNL in his several decades of fame, as Katy Perry took on musical duties, it certainly wasn’t his first time being part of an opening sequence on the show. Last week, he and Kristen Wiig crashed Will Forte’s monologue, with Lorne Michaels joking about accidentally texting Forte to host the thing instead of Willem.
Dafoe—who just so happens to play Complex’s favorite Spider-Man movie villain— also recently caught up with Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast, where he explained why he thinks it took so long to snag an SNL hosting gig.
“I think there was never the right combination of things,” he said, alluding to his return as Norman Osborn in the Spider-Man franchise. “Because it’s nice to pair it to a movie or something. And yes, I’ve had some successful movies in my career but they aren’t always the ones that you can hang a Saturday Night Live appearance on.”
