The internet faces an overload of traffic and emotion, because a global celebrity seized the spotlight from another celebrity in public. Spectators expected a relaxed evening, until Harry Styles altered the atmosphere with Ryan Gosling at SNL. The episode ranked as the most spontaneous and disorderly event of the past four weeks.
Harry Just Totally Out-Staged Ryan Reynolds
Harry Styles displaced Ryan Gosling as the center of attention. The two men have no family connection, but they generated the most erratic scene of the current season. Reynolds abandoned his prepared routine after he learned that Harry Styles had moved through the crowd seven days before Reynolds’ own performance. The singer referenced in “Watermelon Sugar” did more than attend—his presence redirected all attention to the venue.
“Is that Harry Styles? What are you doing here, man? I think the camera’s been focused on you a bit. Your coolness is becoming a distraction.” Gosling accidentally called his film Project Harry Styles during his mock panic while promoting his new film, Project Hail Mary.
Ryan Gosling, who is famous for “breaking” (laughing during sketches), stayed relatively composed until Mikey Day walked on stage and kissed him on the cheek, claiming he just wanted to get a closer look at Harry.
The joke continued to build from there. As the broadcast switched to a split-screen showing both of them on stage, Gosling quickly asked the control room to take it down. Instead, the camera cut right back to Styles, which only made the audience louder. However, the joke took another turn when a cameraman was seen wearing a shirt with the writing “I love Harry,” making the obvious bias impossible to miss.
Gosling tried to take control of the stage once again by jokingly singing a few lines from Styles’s hit song “Sign of the Times.” Styles, seated on the side, joined in by mouthing the lyrics to the song from his seat as the audience cheered even louder, but hilariously pivoted to “I’m Just Ken” when he got flustered. Gosling laughed through the joke, knowing the joke had taken over the moment. “Just please get him off the screen,” he continued to joke as he tried to continue with his monologue.
At this point, the joke had completely taken over the moment. What began as a quick audience cutaway became a joke that lasted the entire monologue.