-I'm wondering if it's surreal for you.
You just spent the entire week in this building,
just down the hall, hosting an excellent episode
of "Saturday Night Live."
Is it weird, because most people who host
don't then come back to the building on Monday.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
I know. I know.
I just -- I spent like four days straight in this building
without seeing fresh air or breathing fresh air.
-Yeah. -And I'm straight back here.
I had a great week though. It was amazing.
-It was a fantastic -- You did say you feel like
you made a mistake that you wouldn't make again
when you met the writing staff.
-Yeah. I -- this is something -- Anyone who's gonna host "SNL,"
don't do what I did, which is go --
when they ask you, "What kind of things do you want to do?
Do you have any talents?
Do you have anything that you want to show off?"
And I thought and I thought, "I have zero talents."
[ Laughter ]
So I said, right, "I'll do anything you want me to do."
-Yeah, don't do that. [ Laughter ]
-"Any skit that you have.
Anything that you've been holding back
that you think is too controversial,
you know, I'll do it."
And they really took me at my word.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah.
-They all have, like, five of those.
They're just waiting for someone to come in
who's as innocent as you
that will make the mistake of saying that.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-You got to play Winston Churchill in a skit.
And that is -- is that the reason you're clean-shaven?
-Yeah. They clean-shaved me.
There were various reasons I was clean-shaven.
I had to play Michael Jackson and Winston Churchill.
-Yeah. -It's a sentence I'll never --
-Famously un-bearded men. Yeah.
-Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Famously hairless men.
So they shaved me, and it's the first time
I've had a reason to shave in a long time.
And I did it.
And I feel like I look like a kind of tired child.
-Yeah. [ Laughter and applause ]
You also -- this whole city block, basically, was your week
because then the premiere of "Game of Thrones" was, I guess,
last Wednesday, right, at Radio City as well.
So you basically had your whole life right here.
-Oh, it was bizarre.
I was doing the -- on the Wednesday,
they do a read-through of "SNL," and it goes on for a while.
And they were very good to let me out
'cause it's a busy week to let me out
to go to the premiere of "Game of Thrones."
But during the read-through I could hear --
'cause it was at Radio City --
I could hear the cheers for my cast mates arriving.
[ Laughter ]
And as they went on, I was sat next to Lorne.
I was kind of looking at him, going,
"I think I have to leave."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-I really do. I mean, the cheers are getting bigger.
You know, the cheers are now stopping.
I think I should probably get over there.
-You're like, "I could go to the 'Game of Thrones' premiere,
or sit next to Lorne while he's eating edamame."
I'm gonna guess that's -- -It was!
-Yeah, he was, right, yeah. [ Laughter and applause ]
-He was. How did you know? It was.
-Yeah, it was. -Yeah.
-That's what they're actually --
when "Game of Thrones" is over, they're replacing it.
The new show is just gonna be Lorne at a table eating edamame.
[ Laughter ]
I know. They think it'll go seven seasons.
[ Laughter ]
You also, I will say, while not your first sketch show --
sketch work in the building.
You did Jon Snow at a dinner party with us a few years ago.
And still one of my favorite things we've done on the show.
So thank you so much. -I loved doing that.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-We obviously -- we took advantage of the fact
that you play Jon Snow.
You're married to Rose Leslie,
one of your co-stars on the show, who's fantastic.
And she was here last year and said you pulled a very cruel --
and it -- the audience agreed with her
that it was a very cruel April Fools' Day joke,
which is she opened the refrigerator
and you had that there.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah. Yeah.
-So, did you back off April Fools',
or did you do something --
do you do no pranks a year after that
or do you try something else? -See, I started strong.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-The amount of props at my disposal has diminished.
-Of course. Sure. -This year was --
I did pull an April Fools' on her while we were out here.
And it was the most --
I'm aware this is the most first-world April Fools' --
[ Laughter ]
Before I tell this story.
But she -- I didn't know what to do.
And she has a favorite almond milk.
She won't drink any other almond milk.
So I just wrote an article about how this company
that makes her favorite almond milk was going under
because of Brexit. [ Laughter ]
Now, this backfired 'cause she immediately rang my P.A.
and got her to bulk-order this almond milk with my credit card.
[ Laughter ]
So I end up spending 150 quid on almond milk.
[ Applause ] -Yeah.
It turns out the only thing more terrifying
than seeing your severed head in a refrigerator
is just cartons upon cartons of almond milk.
You're like, "Oh, no!" -Yeah, exactly.
-I've heard you talk about, you know, in the many scenes
you have to do in "Game of Thrones,"
obviously things as an actor
you probably never would have expected before.
Seeing what that show is gonna be.
You were also dead on a table, naked dead on a table,
surrounded by -- [ Woman cheers ]
Now come on. [ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ] No, hold on.
You're cheering a dead naked body.
[ Laughter ]
Necrophiliac monsters.
[ Laughter ]
Was that embarrassing, that moment?
-I loved it. I loved that couple of days.
You know, I got to -- [ Laughter ]
They warmed the room.
I was on a table asleep, essentially, for two full days.
[ Laughter ]
-I guess compared to some of the other things they ask you to do,
that's not that bad.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-I mean, I fell -- I literally fell asleep in those scenes.
[ Laughter ] Yeah.
No, no, that was some of my best work.
[ Laughter ]
-I will say -- I was like, "He's really dead."
-Yeah. -Yeah. He's really --
Man, he's so good at dead.
-It's the way they kept coming up to me and going, "You do" --
Like, I hadn't had a compliment from some of the crew
at all about my work.
But they were like, "You do a really good dead body."
[ Laughter ]
There's a future in "CSI" for me as a corpse.
-There you go, yeah. [ Laughter ]
Have you -- when you were reading the scripts
for the final season, were you trying to do it in real time?
Or were you skipping ahead to the end
to see how everything came to a conclusion?
-I mean, there was a big temptation to skip ahead
when they sent us those final --
'cause no one wants to know what happens more than we do.
-Sure.
-But I didn't. I stopped myself.
They came so late.
They were like three days before the read-through
'cause they didn't want any leaks.
And I stopped myself.
And I -- 'cause I thought, "What's better than hearing it?"
We had this big read-through, and hearing it
with all the rest of the cast
actually reading as their characters.
So I became like a litmus test for the season.
They put a camera on me
to see my reactions as the events unfolded.
And David and Daniel, the producers, are looking at me,
and they got some pretty good reactions.
I think there'll be a documentary at some point
where you'll see -- [ Laughter ]
where you see me going like that.
-Were there actual, like, palpable moments of
this cast and crew at their last table read?
Like, I mean, not to give anything away,
but I'm assuming there's moments where you're like --
-Of course. -Yeah.
-It's going to be a terrible last season.
[ Laughter ]
But I've just been, like, deadpan.
Like, nothing happened. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] It all works out,
and everybody moves into a condo together, yeah.
-I can say that. There are definite big moments.
-That's good. I'm very happy.
Always a big moment to have you here.
Thank you so much, Kit. Great job, again, on Saturday.