Saturday Night Live just announced its first three hosts and musical guests of 2021. The show will return to NBC on January 30 featuring first-time host John Krasinski, who will be joined by first-time musical guest Machine Gun Kelly. Krasinski was previously scheduled to host the show in March 2020, but his episode was ultimately canceled when SNL suspended production due to COVID-19 that same month before pivoting to remote episodes.
Krasinski’s episode will mark the start of five consecutive live episodes all featuring first-time hosts and musical guests: Recent Emmy winner Dan Levy will host on February 6 alongside musical guest Phoebe Bridgers, then Regina King — currently promoting her feature-film directorial debut One Night in Miami — will host on February 13 alongside Nathaniel Rateliff. The lineup for the episodes on February 20 and 27 has not yet been revealed.
Following its remote At Home episodes last season, SNL returned to live episodes taped inside Studio 8H at the start of season 46 in October. The show reportedly paid audience members to attend as a means to comply with the New York State Department of Health COVID guidelines, which prohibit live audiences “unless they consist only of paid employees, cast, and crew.†The show has not commented on any plans to go back to remote episodes in 2021 despite New York State’s latest ban on indoor dining in December and over 400,000 COVID deaths across the country, so time will tell if another pivot to remote is in the show’s near future.