On Tuesday evening, hordes of students flocked to the Salomon Center for Brown Lecture Board’s spring event — a conversation with writer, comedian and actor Colin Jost. The event was moderated by Brown Lecture Board President Will Havens ’25.
Jost is known for his work on Saturday Night Live, where he started as a writer in 2005 and became co-head writer in 2012, later taking on the role of co-anchor on the show’s “Weekend Update” segment in 2014. During his time on SNL, he has won five Writers Guild Awards, two Peabody Awards and has been nominated for 14 Emmy Awards.
Jost also wrote the film “Staten Island Summer” and has acted in films such as “How to Be Single” and “Tom and Jerry.” In 2020, he published his memoir “A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir,” which became a New York Times Bestseller.
The last time Jost was at Brown was for a college tour, he said at the beginning of the event. The “only colleges I was accepted to were Harvard and Brown,” he added. Although he eventually attended Harvard as an undergraduate, Jost said that his parents met at Brown, and it remains “a very special place” for him.
Jost said he originally struggled when he started as co-anchor of “Weekend Update,” revealing that his experience was “deeply existentially stressful” for his first several years. But after some time, he said that he grew more accustomed to the role and began to have more fun with it.
“Now it is something I genuinely look forward to at the end of every week,” Jost added.
Jost also spoke about the often unpredictable nature of “Weekend Update,” highlighting how former SNL cast members such as Bobby Moynihan and Leslie Jones would incorporate physical comedy into their live performances.
“Once you get past being nervous that you’re going to get fired all the time, you start to appreciate those moments and how rare they are and how thrilling it is to be in that moment live,” Jost said.
While Jost himself is typically only on-air in “Weekend Update,” he still continues to write sketches for other cast members on SNL. Since his role on the show is more “limited” in terms of his performance capacity, Jost said he enjoys getting to write for cast members who deliver a line in a way that is “so much better than it was even written.”
Jost also revealed that he has written more SNL sketches than have aired on the show, noting that the process is “way more rejection than it is acceptance.”
He shared some sketch ideas that did not make it on the air, including Law and Order UTI, Kevin Hart coming down Santa’s chimney for Christmas and 23andMe for dogs.
“In my version, you would send your dog’s DNA in the mail, and they would send you back a piece of paper that said — ‘its a fucking dog,’” Jost said.
Jost and his “Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che’s well-known segment “Joke Swap” originated from the pair wanting to tell jokes that were cut and not allowed to appear on the show, Jost said. He went on to share several “censored” jokes with the crowd.
During the event, Jost also emphasized the role comedy plays during the “absurdity” of current times and present issues with the federal government.
While he joked, “I definitely don’t think I’m going to solve” current political issues, he explained that he does believe “comedy can be helpful in highlighting particular hypocrisies.” And while Jost doesn’t believe all comedians must engage with politics directly, he said they can play an important role in democratic systems.
Lecture attendee Thomas Leggat-Barr ’28, a fan of Jost’s previous work, told The Herald that he thinks “satirizing news is something that I feel like is increasingly important.” He added that people “should make jokes out of some of the really crazy stuff that's happening right now.”
In his lecture, Jost similarly touched on the role of comedy in more interpersonal life challenges and how it can help people “cope with difficult times.”
“If you have friends who are funny, your life is going to be happier,” Jost said. “If you have a partner in life who’s funny, it’s going to get you through a lot of hard times,” he added, referring to his wife, Scarlett Johansson.
In an interview with The Herald, Eden Lewis ’27 said that she had attended the event since she is a big fan of “Weekend Update” and “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” — which Jost hosts. “I thought his comedic timing was really good,” Lewis added.
For Maya Varma-Wilson ’27, the best part of the event was hearing Jost tell jokes that didn’t make the cut for SNL. “I didn’t know how comedic he would be sitting on stage without a script, but I thought he was really good,” Varma-Wilson said. “He played off the interviewer and the audience really well.”
Anna Hurd ’25 said that she enjoyed how “personable” Jost was, adding that he was very “engaged with the audience.”
“When you watch him on SNL, you think that he’s playing a character, but it’s just kind of himself,” Hurd said. “I feel like that came through in the stories that he told.”
Talia LeVine is a section editor covering arts and culture. They study Political Science and Visual Art with a focus on photography. In their free time, they can be found drinking copious amounts of coffee.
Sophia Wotman is a University news editor covering activism and affinity & identity. She is a junior from Long Island, New York concentrating in Political Science with a focus on women’s rights. She is a jazz trumpet player, and often performs on campus and around Providence.
