Daniel Craig is a busy man, so he could be forgiven for not being immediately aware that his nonchalant way of introducing The Weeknd on Saturday Night Live in March 2020 has become a meme. But now the No Time to Die star is aware, and he thinks it’s “lovely.” When Craig hosted Saturday Night Live, he was supposed to be promoting his last James Bond movie, but the film was postponed just days before, becoming the first major Hollywood movie affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Craig hosted the last in-studio episode of Saturday Night Live Season 45, which aired on March 7, 2020. While introducing The Weeknd’s performance of “Blinding Lights,” a tired-looking Craig just said, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Weeknd.” The moment quickly became a meme, with a whole Twitter account that tweets a clip of Craig’s introduction every Friday. On May 28, The Weeknd got in on the joke himself, tweeting, “Ladies and gentlemen, the…“
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During a new interview with The New York Times, Craig was asked if he was aware of the popularity of the clip. “No, what is that?” he asked. Times journalist Dave Itzkoff then explained the situation, noting how people like to share the clip to welcome the weekend. “They do? It’s amazing,” Craig replied. “I don’t know what that is, but thank you. That’s lovely. I suppose I’d have to have social media to know what that was all about.”
Craig’s final outing as James Bond will finally hit theaters in the U.S. on Oct. 8 after opening in the U.K. on Friday. The film gets the unique distinction of being a rare movie promoted twice on SNL, since Rami Malek, who plays the villain Safin, will host the show on Oct. 16. Unfortunately, he won’t get a chance to introduce the weekend since his musical guest is rapper Young Thug.
Elsewhere in his interview with the Times, Craig admitted that one of the things he will miss the most about playing Bond is the “massive” team effort it takes to make them. Craig finishes his run as Bond with five films, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, and No Time to Die. He is now working on a sequel to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out and is returning to Broadway to star in Macbeth next year.
“I’ll miss the massive team effort that it takes,” Craig said. “It’s nearly five years since we started this project, as frustrating and sort of anxiety-making as that can be. Sometimes it feels like it’s not going to happen, but it’s an incredibly creative process and I will miss that. I’ve got other projects I do, and they’ll reward me, but there’s nothing quite like a Bond movie.”
