Jesse Eisenberg ‘Only Has Bad Memories’ From Hosting ‘SNL’

Jesse Eisenberg doesn’t look back fondly on his 2011 Saturday Night Live hosting gig, he revealed on Today with Jenna & Friends.

Eisenberg told Jenna Bush Hager and guest host and SNL alum Amy Poehler: “I only have bad memories because I did such a dumb thing.” The Social Network star added, “It was so unbelievably inappropriate and offensive of me.”

The mistake in question was assuming that as host, he could write all of the sketches for the episode.

“I didn’t know how it works. It turns out, they have writers,” he said.

“I’m an idiot,” he continued, “and I was also just wanting to write.” He went on to describe how his decade-long dream of writing for the show may have clouded his judgement. “My dream when I was 17 was to write for SNL. I made a packet and everything and I got an agent. And then, when I got asked to host, which was 10 years later, I assumed I could write all the sketches,” he explained.

Eisenberg was so convinced that he would be writing all the show’s sketches that he “spent the week slipping scripts to different actors,” he said.

“I didn’t realize that was not the way you do that.” His assumption was so “unbelievably offensive” to the writers that none of his sketches made it into the show. He also joked that he was “sabotaged” since he was “told by somebody” that he could write the sketches: “I was assured, ‘Yes, of course. That sounds great,’ they said.”

Poehler quipped that whoever said that was “obviously an enemy,” and offered some feedback for his episode.

“You kind of worked too hard,” she said, “Which is not…if you’re going to go one way, it’s better to go that way than the other way.” Eisenberg joked, “Not according to the people who wrote the show. They wished I went the other way.”