It seems Ryan Gosling‘s penchant for breaking on Saturday Night Live is infectious, and tonight, the Project Hail Mary star and Season 51 breakout Ashley Padilla were partners in crime: cracking up in tandem during two sketches.
The first of the night, about three dimwitted cyclopes (Kenan Thompson, Mikey Day and Gosling), descended into chaos when Padilla began breaking character as a guardian of a hidden treasure, who, alongside Veronika Slowikowska, requires the correct answer to a riddle to advance to the fortune.
What should be easy layups — a fill-in-the-blank-style questionnaire prompting answers like “clock” or “wind” — is repeatedly answered incorrectly with the word “hat.” What’s more: Gosling’s cyclops keeps approaching Padilla, ogreishly calling her his wife.
Padilla makes the sketch, her varying and exasperated intonations of “stop” and “go back” drawing further breaks from Gosling and loud laughter from the audience.
But the most chaotic sketch was saved for later in the night, where the duo pair up again to portray a principal and teacher attempting to school an unruly class of students. However, Padilla’s teacher and Gosling’s principal’s attempts are stymied when the high schoolers begin conspicuously passing along notes to each other.
“The contents of these notes have been changed since rehearsal,” flashed a prompt on screen, previewing the uproarious chuckles and giggles sure to come. As Padilla read about her teacher’s sad attempts to solicit makeover tips from ChatGPT and Gosling read about his principal dejectedly missing 133 basketball shots, the two took turns laughing so hard they could not finish their sentences.
“Class dismissed!” Padilla yelled out in closing out the sketch, to loud applause.
On Friday, Gosling appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to discuss his previous three hosting stints on the late-nighter. “I get in trouble a lot for laughing on the show,” he told the host, enumerating that he is often told: “‘You laugh too much. You and Fallon.’”
And though breaking has often been viewed as a no-no on the Lorne Michaels-created comedic staple, the audience sure does love it (and the SNL cast sure seems to be having a blast), especially when it’s attached to Gosling’s movie-star charisma.
