Timothée Chalamet Pretty Sure ‘SNL’ Pulled ‘Big Prank’ on Him

Timothée Chalamet made clear in his Saturday Night Live monologue that he really wants to win an Oscar—and shared his sneaking suspicion that getting to host and serve as musical guest may have been a huge mistake.

“A Complete Unknown just got eight Academy Award nominations, and I’m truly overjoyed," Chalamet said. “It’s an enormous honor going to these award shows. It’s such a great experience, but I just keep losing, and each time it gets harder to pretend it doesn’t sting.”

Chalamet showed a series of clips of himself reacting to those losses over the years; he smiled and clapped in the first one, but by the last one he was clearly distraught.

“The most embarrassing part is, I’ve had this sad little speech in my pocket for four years that I’ve never gotten a chance to read,” Chalamet confessed. “So I was thinking maybe tonight I could read it for everyone here. Is that possible?”

At this point, an audience member subbed in as the awards show presenter—but wait for it, there was a mix-up: SNL mainstay Kenan Thompson was named instead, leaving poor Chalamet seething in the audience once again.

Chalamet also shared some kind words about Bob Dylan, describing him as a “brilliant artist” whose “music and career has become a guiding light to me.”

The actor acknowledged the rarity of him both hosting the show and starring as musical guest in the same night.

“I’m so grateful Saturday Night Live is still doing weird stuff like this 50 years in,“ Chalamet said. ”They’re either really nice for letting me do this, or incredibly mean and this is all a big prank. I sincerely can’t tell. We’ll find out.”

When it was time to play music, Chalamet opted not to go the easy route and recreate one of his meticulously rehearsed performances from A Complete Unknown, but rather pulled out two relatively obscure tracks that he explained were personal favorites. After an introduction from Adam Sandler, he put his own unique spin on “Outlaw Blues” from 1965’s Bringing it All Back Home and “Three Angles” from 1970’s New Morning—both of which were recorded after the timeline of the Oscar-nominated film.