Saturday Night Live doesn’t always get it right, but it got it very wrong with a widely slammed skit on Irish accents, with Chris O’Dowd the latest star to weigh in on the sketch.
The long-running programme sparked a furor last week, during the episode hosted by Wednesday star Jenna Ortega, for a sketch parodying the Oscars 2023.
In it, presenters Mario Lopez and Maria Menounos mock-interviewed celebrities, including The Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who were impersonated by Mikey Day and Molly Kearny respectively.
‘How do you guys like your chances tonight?’, the actors are asked to which the comedians reply in extremely put-on, hard-to-understand accents.
Their attempts at answering the question were rewarded with: ‘Wow, and they haven’t even started drinking yet!’, as the faux actors shuffled away.
Colin, 46, himself called out the sketch at the Academy Awards and fellow Irish actor Chris, who shot to fame on The It Crowd, has shared a theory about it with Metro.co.uk.
The Bridesmaid star, 43, confessed he hadn’t yet watched the SNL sketch, as he was at SXSW Festival in Austin, but had heard it ‘wasn’t great.’
‘I can’t share any thoughts on it because I haven’t watched it. I will do,’ he continued, before adding: ‘I know most of the SNL writers are recruited from Havard, so maybe they just don’t come across Irish guys very often.’
Chris, who is starring in the upcoming Apple TV Plus drama The Big Door Prize, insisted his experience as an Irish actor in the States had been positive.
He said: ‘I have found, if I’m honest with you, working in Hollywood has been it’s been grand. Being Irish has been nothing but helpful and useful.
‘I think that living in America for 10 years, I’ve had nothing but positivity about being Irish. I’ve had no problems with people understanding me.’
In The Big Door Prize, Chris plays Dusty, a married father-of-one, whose world is rocked when a mysterious machine appears in the general store.
First appear at Chris O’Dowd has a theory behind SNL’s panned sketch mocking Irish accents
