“Drivers License” hitmaker Olivia Rodrigo made her “Saturday Night Live” debut this weekend — but not as a musical guest.
Instead, the long-running comedy series devoted an entire sketch to Rodrigo’s record-breaking single about getting her driver’s license and coping with heartbreak. And the teen songwriting phenom, who turned 18 the day the episode aired, was bursting with excitement on social media.
“DRIVERS LICENSE SNL SKETCH IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER IM SHAKING,” the actress and singer wrote Saturday night in a tweet that has amassed more than 200,000 likes. She also posted a video of herself watching the segment in real time on her Instagram story.
Hosted by “Bridgerton” heartthrob Regé-Jean Page, this weekend’s installment of “Saturday Night Live” sampled Rodrigo’s chart-topping earworm for a skit about a group of trash-talking tough guys playing a round of billiards at a local bar. As soon as Page’s character plays “his song” on the jukebox, the rest of the rugged squad can’t help but shed their hardened exteriors and succumb to Rodrigo’s emotional lyrics.
DRIVERS LICENSE SNL SKETCH IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER IM SHAKING
— Olivia Rodrigo (@Olivia_Rodrigo) February 21, 2021
“Sounds like it’s just some teen girl singing in her room to a piano,” Pete Davidson says.
“And that’s the beauty of it,” Page counters. “You got a problem?”
As the men begin to ponder the meaning behind the tune, Beck Bennett’s character explains, “It’s about a girl getting her driver’s license, but it’s bittersweet because it’s something she and her ex always talked about — that’s what I guess based on hearing it for the first time right now.”
“It’s like she ripped a page out of my diary — I mean notebook, I mean plain brown leather,” Bennett says nervously. “I can’t read or write!”
“I got my driver’s license 55 years ago,” a mustached, elderly man played by Kate McKinnon says. “Why is this hitting me so hard?”
(Unfortunately, we can’t embed the whole sketch here because the angsty track also reminds a tearful Mikey Day of his “b— ex, Gina.”)
Before long, Bennett and Page are shamelessly using their pool cues as makeshift microphones to sing, “Guess you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me,” along with Rodrigo. And everyone is belting in unison by the time they reach what McKinnon’s character calls “the bridge of our lives.”
“Red lights! Stop signs! / I still see your face / In the white cars, front yards / Can’t drive past the places / We used to go to,” they sing, arm in arm, while “SNL” newcomer Bowen Yang launches into a dramatic lyrical dance in front of the pool table.
The sketch even goes so far as to mention the drama surrounding the song, which fans suspect Rodrigo wrote about her “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” costar, Joshua Bassett, “who’s allegedly now with [fellow Disney actor-singer] Sabrina Carpenter,” Page’s character remarks.
(Bassett, who plays Rodrigo’s onscreen love interest on the Disney+ series, also responded to the “SNL” moment with a brief TikTok video of himself reacting to Day dropping his name in the show.)
The episode also included a spoof of “Bridgerton,” featuring Page with Chloe Fineman as Daphne Bridgerton (portrayed in the Netflix series by Phoebe Dynevor) as well as a musical performance from Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny.
Source by www.latimes.com