‘SNL’: ‘Star Wars’ Actor Adam Driver to Host Midseason Premiere Alongside Musical Guest Halsey

Adam Driver is quickly becoming a favorite around Rockefeller Center. During Saturday Night Live this weekend, the series announced that Driver will host the first new episode of 2020 in January. Halsey will also serve as the musical guest, after previously hosting and performing during a February 2019 episode.

Driver’s appearance on the Jan. 25 episode will follow a busy fall for the actor. He can now be seen on the big screen in Disney’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, playing Ben Solo/Kylo Ren for the final time. Netflix subscribers can also check out his devastating performance in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, opposite another SNL favorite, Scarlett Johansson.

Driver also starred in the zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die and the Amazon Prime movie The Report, in which he played a Senate staffer who discovers the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program.

Earlier this year, Driver was also nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. He earned a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Marriage Story, putting him in the Oscar race once again.

The first time Driver hosted SNL was back in January 2016, following the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In that episode, he starred in the now-classic Undercover Boss parody where Kylo Ren pretended to be a lowly radar technician on Starkiller Base.

In September 2018, Driver returned to host the Season 44 premiere. Although it was not a great episode, it did feature the hilarious “Career Day” skit, in which Driver played Abraham H. Parnassus, an oil man who was way too old to be Pete Davidson’s father. “My bones never hardened, but my spirit did!” Driver screamed in Davidson’s face before telling the class, “Be strong and CRUSH your enemies!”

As for Halsey, this will be her third time on the show. She performed during Sam Rockwell’s 2018 episode and joined Li’l Wayne when he performed in Liev Schreiber’s episode. She also hosted the Feb. 9, 2019 episode.

This weekend’s Saturday Night Live featured Eddie Murphy as host for the first time since 1984. The comedy legend brought back many of his beloved characters, including Gumby, Buckwheat and Mister Robinson. In the “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood” sketch, Murphy showed how gentrification has changed Mister Robinson’s life. Murphy also cursed during a baking sketch.

SNL returns on NBC on Jan. 25, 2020 at 11:30 p.m. ET.

Photo credit: Will Heath/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images