The Emmys are about a month away, but cohost Colin Jost is already starting the controversial comments. The Saturday Night Live star and co-head writer revealed in a new interview that he’s actually not a fan of award shows in general.
“I think most of the time they’re way too self-serious and focused on things that 99 percent of the country doesn’t care about. At the end of the day, it’s adults getting trophies,” Jost, 36, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Tuesday, August 14. “Why should that be taken seriously? And remember when movies like Gladiator won best picture? Why can’t good, fun things win and not just good, artsy things? They’re both good and the fun ones are sometimes a lot harder to make.”
Jost, who’s hosting with his Weekend Update costar and SNL cowriter Michael Che, later admitted he was upset about one huge snub when the Emmys nominations were announced.
“I was – I rarely use this word more than 10 times a day – flabbergasted that Kyle MacLachlan was not nominated for best actor in a Whatever-That-Category-Is-Called,” Jost said. “He played at least four different versions of Dale Cooper in the new Twin Peaks and was amazing at all of them. I thought Laura Dern should have been nominated as well, but at least she got recognized for The Tale.”
He continued: “It’s amazing that the first Twin Peaks series got overlooked in the early ’90s, and for 25 years people talked about how crazy it was that it got overlooked. And now the new series is going through the same exact thing! It’s like if we had gone through a world war and then 25 years later we had another world war! It wouldn’t make sense!”
Twitter had a field day with Jost’s comments, blaming him for the Oscars’ additional “Popular Film” category.
“What if Colin Jost is singlehandedly responsible for the popular film Oscar,” one user wrote.
Another added: “I’m determined to start each day by sharing good news! [scans Twitter for at least ten full minutes] Colin Jost is not an Oscar voter.”
However, another user brought up a good point: “It’s like all these people s–t-talking Colin Jost forgot he specializes in satire and using tension as a way of creating buzz.”
The Emmys air on NBC Monday, September 17, at 8 pm. ET.
