\nSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — Episode 5 — Pictured: (l-r) Will Ferrell as Craig Buchanan, Cheri Oteri as Aranna during the ‘Football Game’ skit on November 11, 1995<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
1995<\/h2>\n In 1995, with the show’s 21st season, Will officially made his debut as a cast member, and quickly became known for his screwball sensibilities, ease with physical comedy, and ability to lean into funny accents and impressions.<\/p>\n\n\nSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — Episode 4 — Aired 11\/04\/2000 — Pictured: Will Ferrell as George W. Bush during “A Glimpse of our Possible Future” skit <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
2000<\/h2>\n His impressions, in particular, made him one of the show’s most notable stars, particularly for playing the likes of Alex Trebek, Neil Diamond, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, and his arguably most famous, then-president George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n\nSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — Episode 20 — Air Date 05\/18\/2002 — Pictured: The Saturday Night Live Cast during Will Ferrell’s final send-off on May 18, 2002<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
2002<\/h2>\n In 2002, after a seven-year tenure, Will (and Ana Gasteyer, also pictured) departed SNL<\/em>. The actor was absent from several episodes during his final season while he was filming Old School<\/em>, with the season finale being his final turn as a main cast member.<\/p>\n\n\nSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — Episode 19 — Aired 05\/14\/2005 — Pictured: Will Ferrell during the monologue<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
2005<\/h2>\n Just a few years later, though, Will returned to host SNL<\/em> for the very first time. By this point, he was well known as part of Hollywood’s “Frat Pack,” and had credits like Old School, Elf<\/em> (both 2003), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy<\/em>, and Starsky & Hutch<\/em> (both 2004) under his belt.<\/p>\n\n\nSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — “Will Ferrell” Episode 1774 — Pictured: Host Will Ferrell during the Monologue on Saturday, November 23, 2019<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
2019<\/h2>\n By November 2019, Will was one of the most recognizable faces in comedy in Hollywood, an executive producer for the Emmy-winning drama Succession<\/em>, and a two-time Golden Globe nominee. His return as a host (with King Princess as the musical guest) finally pushed him to the five-timers club.<\/p>\n\n\nSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — Episode 1904 — Pictured: (l-r) Musical guest Paul McCartney, host Will Ferrell, and Marcello Hern\u00c3\u00a1ndez during Promos on Thursday, May 14, 2026<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
2026<\/h2>\n After a six and a half year hiatus, Will returned as the host for May 16’s season 51 finale, joining the Wings frontman as musical guest for his sixth time as the host. And it’s safe to say, he’s definitely still got it!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Ferrell is back for another Saturday Night Live gig, his sixth time as a host. The actor and comedian, 58, joins the rare group of celebrity hosts who’ve gone beyond the illustrious five-timer club, doing so with his season-ending stint as the host on May 16’s episode (joined by Paul McCartney as the musical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2420647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[474253,312076,315982,374986,25403,306353],"class_list":["post-2420646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-30-rockefeller-center","tag-cast-member","tag-getty-images","tag-musical-guest","tag-paul-mccartney","tag-will-ferrell"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Will-Ferrells-SNL-transformation-over-30-years-in-near-unrecognizable-photos.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2420646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2420648,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420646\/revisions\/2420648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2420647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2420646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2420646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2420646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}