The Christmas desire that Kate McKinnon had for herself has been granted: she has arrived safely at Studio 8H.
As she presented the mid-season finale of Saturday Night Live, the 39-year-old actress who plays Barbie joked about being “back at her old job.” This was her first appearance on the sketch comedy series since she left the program in 2022.
Immediately after beginning her monologue, McKinnon began by enumerating the reasons she quit the show, one of which was that her “skin was reacting poorly to the prosthetics.” One of the reasons she left the show was because of this. On the other hand, she did mention that she had a very successful year, which included her role as “Weird Barbie” in the enormously successful film and television series Barbie.
By saying, “I walked in [the Barbie set] on the first day, and they were like, ‘You look perfect,’ and I was like, ‘These are my clothes,'” she was referring to the outrageous clothing choices that her character made.
During the opening speech, McKinnon made a joke about how she was not quite at ease being herself. She said that she is used to playing roles and making up hilarious sounds. She said that ever since she left Saturday Night Live, she had been attempting to “assemble a human personality” in addition to playing the part of the “freak next to the hot person” in skits. The broadcast moved to some of the actress’ most famous personas, such as dressed as the quirky character Effie Trinkett from The Hunger Games next to the presenter Josh Hutcherson and as a Victorian woman next to Martin Freeman. She referred to these costumes as “awesome.” This was done to explain precisely what she meant.
Due to the fact that it was the holiday season, McKinnon even demonstrated her singing abilities by pretending to play a little piano. She said that she was “required to sing” by Lorne Michaels, the creator of the program. The words of her performance of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” were what she told Michaels when he invited her to host the show, thus she decided to do her own unique arrangement of the song.
McKinnon continued by saying that the most enjoyable aspect of coming to Saturday Night Live was the opportunity to see old friends. She then invited fellow Saturday Night Live alumni Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig to join her on stage after she finished her speech. When Wiig returned, he said that it was “so great to be back [with] so many memories.” Wiig and Rudolph even made a joke about their successes since leaving the show, with Wiig citing Taylor Swift’s achievements and Rudolph putting Beyoncé’s as their own.
McKinnon made her farewell appearance as a cast member on the very last episode of the season, which aired in May of 2022. During the 37th season, which aired in 2012, she had joined the cast. She was the first openly lesbian cast member to join the series at the time she joined for the first time.
Based on the information provided by Entertainment Weekly, the actress presently holds the record for the longest period of time that a woman has been a part of the show’s roster.
In the latter part of the previous year, McKinnon spoke on her choice to remove herself from the program. “I thought about it for a very long time, and it was very, very difficult,” she revealed during an interview on Live With Kelly and Ryan. “Everything was very, very difficult.” “Throughout my whole life, the one thing I have ever desired to achieve is to be on Saturday Night Live. Yes, I did it. I was in love with it, and I had the finest decade of my life, but suddenly I realized that my body was exhausted, and I got the feeling that it was time.
NBC broadcasts Saturday Night Live every Saturday at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time (ET).