’Tis the season for Colin Jost and Michael Che’s annual Saturday Night Live “joke swap” — and this year, Scarlett Johansson was caught in the crossfire.
“New York state now allows movie theaters to serve alcohol, which is how I’m finally able to enjoy my wife’s little art movies,” Jost, 41, said during the “Weekend Update” segment on the Saturday, December 16, episode as a picture of Johansson, 39, 2012’s Avengers with her superhero name Black Widow flashed on screen.
Jost, who has been married to Johansson since 2020, briefly closed his eyes and shook his head before continuing with the joke.
“I’m kidding, honey,” he pressed. “I love all of your movies. And If you asked me, you’re an even better Black Widow than Coretta Scott King.”
Jost then rested his head in his hands while sitting next to an unimpressed special guest, who was playing a character named Hattie Davis. (Davis was a fictional civil rights activist, whom Che, 40, enlisted for his portion of the joke swap to disapprove of Jost’s speech.)
Jost and Che have helmed “Weekend Update” since 2014’s season 40. To ring in the holiday season, they exchange jokes live on air — and neither comic knows what the other has written. The jokes have since become a source of discomfort for Johansson.
“I now rarely watch [SNL] without having a sense of … not overwhelming panic, just like a slight underwhelming panic because I just feel like at any moment something’s going to fall apart,” Johansson said during a July 2021 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. “And that’s the excitement of SNL and for all audiences, right? Because it’s absolutely live.”
Johansson added: “But when you’re emotionally invested in it and not just entertained by it, it takes on a little bit of a different life.”
The actress met Jost when she hosted an episode of SNL before they started dating in 2017. Two years later, Jost proposed before they wed in 2020. Jost and Johansson went on to welcome their son, Cosmo, in August 2021.
“Colin is an extremely hands-on dad, he always makes a big fuss over little Cosmo,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in October 2022. “They’re very into their privacy and downtime in the Hamptons, where they have a tight-knit support team and a wonderful laid-back lifestyle that they wouldn’t trade for the world. They’re just a very laid-back, functional pair who have a ton of mutual respect.”
Jost also is a stepfather to Johansson’s 9-year-old daughter, Rose, whom she shares with ex-husband Romain Dauriac.
Saturday Night Live airs on NBC Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET.
