On SNL, Chris Hemsworth Asks 'Am I Still a Hunk?' and Will Ferrell Reprises George W. Bush 

By Stassa Edwards  |  December 13, 2015 | 4:15pm
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Less than a year after his first time hosting, Chris Hemsworth returned to Saturday Night Live for what was another uneven episode. In his monologue, Hemsworth joked about his family’s reputation for roughhousing, stealing a phone out of Kate McKinnon’s hand and hanging up on Hillary Clinton. Though Vanessa Bayer and Aidy Bryant weren’t fond of Hemsworth’s backstage pranks, they agreed that despite his behavior, they’d still “hit it.”

Chris Hemsworth-being-hot was the most successful running gag of the night. In the best sketch of the night, “Lunch With Claire,” Thor played Claire, one of a group of women discussing hot men in Hollywood over brunch. Claire keeps bringing up Chris Hemsworth, prompting the group to ask “Is our friend Claire actually Chris Hemsworth?”

To test their theory, the women bring up Liam Hemsworth, “He’s definitely the hot-ter Hemsworth,” Aidy Bryant wrongly intones. “No way,” Claire responds, “Liam is gross. I heard he breastfed until he was four.”

Finally, when Claire/Chris is found out he explains that he just wants to know if women still like him. “Am I still a hunk?” he asks. Bryant as always gets the best line: “No. This was bad, and you’re weird now.” The sketch was self-referential and worked because Hemsworth acknowledged that he was in on his brand.

The other highlight of the evening was Will Ferrell’s return as George W. Bush. Ferrell’s W is one of the most iconic presidential impressions that SNL has produced in the last decade (nobody’s Obama has quite had the same effect), and seeing Ferrell’s goofy bro iteration of Bush will never get old.

 
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