Aimee Lou Wood isn’t making Saturday Night Live UK pay for the crimes of the show’s U.S. counterpart. The actress will host the British spinoff series on May 2, just over a year after SNL parodied her in a sketch she slammed as being “mean and unfunny” for mocking her appearance. At the time, Sarah Sherman, who played her White Lotus character Chelsea in the sketch, apologized. It’s in the past now. But in the latest promo teaser for SNL UK, Wood realizes she might have some slight paranoia from the whole debacle.
“Oh my God, I’m so excited. I cannot wait to get started, you know, especially after the whole thing in America with the teeth,” Wood tells a few SNL UK cast members in the clip. “So it’s gonna feel good to just wipe the slate clean.” Their replies are muffled by their hands blocking their mouths. Wood feels her suspicion creep in immediately, asking, “Wait, why are you all covering your mouths?” They make up an excuse about “doing a big yawn” and try to sell it with fake yawns, but she isn’t buying their act.
“Have you guys got fake teeth in?” Wood asks in disbelief. “Wow, this is all just one big setup to humiliate me, then? I thought SNL UK would be different, but I was wrong.” She was, in fact, wrong, but not in the way she thought. As it turns out, the cast were hiding their freshly attached mustaches. “I’m sorry,” she tells them. “It’s up to me to earn that mustache now.”
Wood is the sixth host of the debut season of SNL UK, following Nicola Coughlan, Jack Whitehall, Riz Ahmed, Jamie Dornan, and Tina Fey. Her episode will feature musical guest MEEK. Hopefully, it will be funnier than whatever SNL attempted to do with its White Lotus parody.
“I don’t regret saying it because it was breaking a pattern, which is what I would usually do — what I did when I was younger and got bullied,” Wood said last year about her decision to speak out about the sketch. “No matter what chaos came from it, I’m still happy for me and my personal journey that I said something.” In her initial statement, she clarified that she understood the nature of the show, but found their portrayal of her cheap.
In the sketch, Sherman wore oversized fake teeth and mocked Wood’s Manchester accent in a line about removing fluoride from water and eating monkeys. “Such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple of weeks ago. Yes, take the piss for sure – that’s what the show is about – but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?” Wood said. “I don’t mind caricature – I understand that’s what SNL is. But the rest of the skit was punching up, and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on … Not Sarah Squirm’s fault and not hating on her. Hating on the concept.”
Sherman later sent Wood flowers and told Vanity Fair, “I was excited to play her because she’s so iconic, her character is so iconic. And I fucking obviously never meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. Never in a million years did I get into comedy to make anyone upset. I feel terrible that anyone would feel bad.”
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