[Starts with SNL monologue intro]
[Cut to SNL stage]
[Band is playing music]
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, Oscar Isaac.
[Oscar Isaac walks in and to the stage]
[cheers and applause]
Oscar Isaac: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. This is my first time hosting SNL. They actually asked me to host back in 2015. But I said “No, I’m not ready. I want to wait till after the pandemic.” And they were like, “What pandemic?”
My name is Oscar Isaac, but my full name is Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada. I said to Hollywood, you can pick two of these names. Guess what they went with? The white ones. I’m half Guatemalan, half Cuban. Or casting directors call that ethnically ambiguous. According to them I can play anything from a Pharaoh to Timothée Chalamet’s daddy. You know that joke? A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar. Yeah, I could play anyone in that joke.
But I am excited. I’m joining the Marvel Universe with Moon Knight. It’s kind of a full circle moment since the first movie I was ever in was called “The Avenger”. Not “The Avengers”, which was a massive blockbuster. No, no, this was “The Avenger” which is a movie that I wrote, directed and starred in when I was 10 years old. It was shot on location in my buddy Bruce Ferguson’s backyard in our hometown of Miami, Florida. I play a ninja assassin training to fight his nemesis and we actually have a clip. This is real. Check this out. [Cut to old video of Oscar Isaac when he was a kid doing kungfu stuff.] Okay, there’s the opening title. And there I am kind of losing my balance a little bit at perfect editing. And here comes my big stunt. A trained two months for this. [he breaks a stick] Ya!
[Cut back to Oscar Isaac]
I mean, arguably better than the real Avengers. And I made it for half the budget only $110 million. But I took it really seriously. Maybe a little too seriously, like in this scene. [Cut to another old video of Oscar Isaac when he was a kid.] Okay, they’re enacting my heart out and there’s my friend’s dad cleaning the pool. [Cut back to Isaac Oscar] Shout out to Mr. Ferguson. Shout out to my buddy Bruce. He’s at home watching and he had no idea our old movie was gonna be on SNL. I actually had to sign a licensing agreement to show it. It’s true. NBC Universal now owns the Avenger. Coming this fall to Peacock.
I’ve got one more clip. This is a scene I did with myself where I play both parts. Okay, here we go. [Cut to another old video of Oscar Isaac when he was a kid.] That’s that’s me on my own henchmen. Oh no, that’s what I do with a sword. Total commitment from the start. Now you might be asking, “Oscar, why did you use your monologue to show us these old home videos?” And the reason is, it’s important to encourage kids to be weirdos. Because every once in a while, one of those weirdos grows up to host SNL.
We got a great show for you tonight. Charli XCX is here. So stick around we’ll be right back.