Keke Palmer Opens up About ‘SNL’ Hosting Debut: ‘Just Get Me on the Set’ (Exclusive)

Live from New York, it’s Keke Palmer! The Emmy Award winner couldn’t be more excited to take the stage for her Saturday Night Live hosting debut, and she’s drawing inspiration from some iconic comedy legends. Palmer opened up to PopCulture.com ahead of her Dec. 3 hosting gig, admitting she’s eager to get going with rehearsals.

“I’m very excited,” the Nope star, 29, said. “I think there’s an excited nervous energy of, ‘Just get me on the set. What are we about to be doing? What is the gag?’ So I’m very excited about that and looking forward to just being in there with the writers and seeing how they put this stuff on.” With rehearsals just around the corner, Palmer told PopCulture she’s looking forward to returning to the multi-camera format she was accustomed to on True Jackson, VP. “I’m just excited to also revisit that space again because it’s like theater meets TV, and that’s a lot of fun,” she shared.

On the precipice of such a major accomplishment, the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast host reflected on some of the people in comedy who inspire her, naming Whoopi Goldberg and Carol Burnett as comedians she admires. “I just want to be able to take up space in that way as a woman in comedy and have fun with it,” Palmer explained. “I think I just want people to have fun. That’s all you ever want, you know what I mean? It’s just to bring joy to people.”

“When you think about comedy, you want to make people laugh or you want to bring the irony or the satire,” she continued. The actress added of her upcoming SNL gig, “I’m just looking forward to exploring that with other people that are willing, and I know they’re going to be open to collaborating. I think that’s the exciting thing.”

As she heads into her SNL rehearsals, Palmer is channeling her Big “Dip” Energy thanks to her partnership with Doritos Dips – now in Spicy Nacho and Cool Ranch Jalapeno flavors. “We don’t play it safe over here, OK? That’s the whole point of taking your dipping to the next level, honey,” Palmer explained of how she gets her dip on. “It’s all about pairing it with things that you wouldn’t normally do. … So I’m talking pretzels, pizza, wings, veggies – they always need a little jazzing up.”

With the holidays around the corner, Palmer and Doritos want to see what creative culinary combos fans are ready to dip for themselves for the chance to win a decked-out kit bursting with Big Dip Energy. You can enter the Big Dip Energy sweepstakes on Instagram by commenting on the Doritos Dips launch post with the foods you think could use some BDE alongside the hashtags #BigDipEnergy and #Sweepstakes. For more details on how to enter, visit Doritos.com/DipsGiveaway.