Emma Stone won her Oscar for playing an aspiring actress who only succeeds after a long time of failing in La La Land. It was only fitting that, when hosting SNL again, she go back to that well, this time playing someone who doesn’t reap the rewards of sudden fame.
In one of the night’s many pre-taped sketches, Stone played a plucky, foolishly optimistic, smiling-but-always-on-the-verge-of-crying aspiring thespian who’s off to her latest gig: a couple lines in a gay porn film. She plays the wife of a much older husband who gets it on with their godson on his 18th birthday. And Stone’s character is determined to really get inside what makes “Dierdre” — a character even the film’s director (Beck Bennett) knows will be scrolled through en route to the good stuff — really tick.
Stone tries to get inside a character who’s clothes are found in a “woman’s bin,” filled with loose sweatpants, a pair of “Happy 2017” glasses, and other uninspired miscellaneous attire. She works hard on barely functional lines no one will ever hear, if they even make the final cut. She even has a breakthrough before her big moment, experiencing an epic “flashback” through Dierdre’s entire life — meeting the man who would one day cheat on her with a much, much younger relative, falling in love with him despite their grim fate, grinning and bearing the obvious signs that should have tipped her off to realizing she exists inside a gay porno.
It’s a rather sad sketch — complete with not one but two lube jokes — played both hilariously and weirdly heartbreakingly by its Academy Award-winning star. Even doing a self-aware faux-award-worthy performance in a 12:50am EST hour SNL sketch, Stone expertly captures the desperation of people the industry needs but always forgets, those who chase a dream that only comes true for a fated few. And she can rap, too?
