Saturday Night Live wanted to take Amy Adams’ hosting stint to a bridge too far, and the actress revealed exactly what she said no to.
Adams hosted the show for the first time in 2008, when the comedy trio The Lonely Island served as writers. Andy Samberg, who formed the group with Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, had a sketch in mind for the actress that never saw the light of day. Seth Meyers, who hosts a podcast with the trio, brought it up to the six-time Oscar nominee on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Tuesday.
“Andy was talking about—we watched a digital short you did called ‘Hero Song’ when you hosted,” he said, “But that was not his first idea for you.”
“He said he brought this song to you, and it was like the filthiest song. I’ve never heard it. Do you remember it? “ he asked.
Adams replied, “I do, but I’m not—I mean, it was... I’ll give you the gist without telling you the punchline, which it was like, this couple was… he got bit by a spider in the park. And she’s like, ‘Honey, I love you so much. And now that you’re dying, is there any last wish?’ And he’s like, ‘Yes, I never got a chance to…’ and then said what could only be described as the most graphic thing that he wanted to do… with me,” Adams explained.
“He applauds the fact that you spoke up for yourself because you basically were like, ‘I can’t do this,’” Meyers said.
Adams had just starred in 2007’s Enchanted as a naive, animated princess who is thrust into the live-action real world to fend for herself in New York City. The popular film made her a hit with very young fans. “I was so keenly aware of all the young girls that were watching Enchanted, and I didn’t want to be the princess singing about that particular act, you know?”
Meyers said that Samberg realized that Adams was right to turn it down soon after the sketch was scrapped. “He said that literally the next day, he watched a five-year-old come up to you and be like, ‘You mean so much to me, and I love…’ And he was like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe I almost made her do that!’”
Adams insisted that Samberg was really “gracious” about her response to the sketch. “I still care so much about all of the kids and now young adults that were kids,” who love the movie, she added, though she still finds herself surprised when she meets those now much older fans. “Now they’re like, ‘We grew up with you.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m old.’”
Adams returned to host SNL‘s Christmas episode in 2014, where she again avoided raunchy jokes. She also reprised her iconic Enchanted role for the 2022 Disney+ sequel, Disenchanted.
