Midway through Ryan Gosling’s March 7 Saturday Night Live episode, the “Passing Notes” sketch suddenly had the four-time Host and cast member Ashley Padilla fighting for their lives. As in, doing their best not to break after SNL writers Mikey Day, Streeter Seidell, and Alison Gates pulled a prank on the performers.
In a moment that evoked John Mulaney’s last-minute cue card changes to make Bill Hader laugh as Stefon, the gamified energy of “Weekend Update” Joke Swaps, and even Heidi Gardner’s authentic reaction to Gosling and Day’s “Beavis and Butt-Head” makeup, “Passing Notes” surprised the performers with a little switch-up.
Padilla, Gosling, and even sketch co-writer Day were each surprised to read lines they’d never seen before, which mercilessly roasted their characters (and at times, themselves).
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Ashley Padilla and Ryan Gosling saw their lines for the first time during SNL’s “Passing Notes” sketch
“Passing Notes” started off as a classic SNL classroom sketch, with Padilla playing an uncool teacher and Gosling joining as the principal to give an anti-bullying lecture. They spot a student passing a note, and demand to read it.
“The Contents of These Notes Have Been Changed Since Rehearsal,” a bright yellow screen graphic informed the audience. Seconds later, Padilla learned the same. It was a very rare break for Padilla, who was a seasoned Main Company performer at L.A.’s Groundlings before joining the SNL cast as a Featured Player in Season 50.
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“‘Yo, real talk: I sat behind Miss P on the bus when we were on the field trip last week. She was on her phone,” Padilla read, soon struggling to get through the new script without laughing. “She uploaded a picture of herself to ChatGPT and said ‘do you have any makeover tips for me?’ And ChatGPT just said, ‘no.’ Pretty sad, bro.'”
Then it was Gosling’s turn to read a new-to-him note. “Don’t tell anyone this, but I came to school early the other day and Principal Whit was in the school gym shooting hoops.’ Oh god, okay,” he began. “I saw him miss 133 layups in a row. After each miss he said, ‘there’s got to be a way to do this!’ When he finally made one, he tried to celebrate by ripping his T-shirt in half. But he couldn’t do it — just stretched it out really bad.'”
Things only went further off the rails from there, with Gosling having to hide his face as Padilla worked her way through a secondhand recount of her mortifying gynecologist visit. Even Day caught a stray eventually.
Watch the gigglefest that is “Passing Notes” above, see the rest of Gosling’s sketches here, and stream every episode of SNL on Peacock anytime.
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