After a failed audition years ago for Saturday Night Live, Aubrey Plaza is set to return to the long-running sketch comedy show on Saturday night’s new episode. It was previously announced that Plaza, who recently impressed critics with her performance in HBO’s The White Lotus, would be guest hosting the first episode of SNL of 2023. It marks the hosting debut for Plaza, who’s joined by a returning Sam Smith as the musical guest.

Ahead of the Jan. 21 episode, Plaza joined Jimmy Fallon for an interview on The Tonight Show. She reflected on her previous audition to join the show many years ago, revealing that she created her own characters to portray with the hopes of landing the job. While it’s easy to envision Plaza portraying these characters in amusing ways, they were perhaps a bit too dark or off-the-wall for Saturday Night Live, as she wasn’t called back for any more auditions after that. As she tells Fallon, via Variety:

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Plaza then went on to describe the other character she auditioned with.

“I didn’t make it to the Lorne [Michaels] audition, the famous final audition, but I did a preliminary first-round showcase. I remember one character I did was like a Puerto Rican news reporter that was always trying to make all of the news stories sexy, even if they were horrific news stories. I was just trying to like, sex up the news or something.”

“A pill-popping housewife that had a show called ‘Celebri-Tails,’ where I would just name celebrities and name what kind of tail they would have if they had a tail. Like I would say, ‘Lindsay Lohan would have a bushy squirrel’s tail.’ Or, like, ‘Bill Clinton would have a polar bear’s nub.’”

Aubrey Plaza Did Get a Job at SNL, But Not on Camera

     Warner Bros.

Plaza says she wasn’t hired as a cast member, but the SNL team did find a job for her to take on backstage. She was hired as an “intern in the design department,” a position she freely admits she did not take seriously. She says she didn’t actually work as much as she walked around “stalking” and “lurking in the shadows.” Even so, the SNL team apparently loved her for it anyway.

Catch Plaza on SNL when she hosts the show on Jan. 21; you can stream the episode starting the next day on Peacock.

“They loved me because I did not care about set design at all, and they wanted an intern that had no interest in learning what they did. I was just, like, creepy. Like, I was a creepy stalker. Now I’m gonna host it, so my master plan worked!”