‘Saturday Night Live’ takes on Trump’s physical exam

Chastain opens show with message

LOS ANGELES, Jan 21, (RTRS): “Saturday Night Live” opened its Jan 20 episode by taking jabs at Donald Trump’s doctor, Ronny Jackson, and the physical exam Trump underwent that said he was 239 pounds.

Opening the show was Aidy Bryant as Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who acknowledged that today was the anniversary of the Women’s March but said there were “a million women out there to celebrate the president’s first kick-a- year in office. We did it, girls!”

After mentioning Trump’s plan for the border wall that includes “some parts seethrough, some parts fence, and some parts just empty space that operate on the honor system,” Bryant’s Sanders went on to ask the press assembled for the conference in the cold open sketch to get #SchumerShutdown trending and then introduced Beck Bennett’s Ronny Jackson.

Bennett’s Jackson reiterated the stats from Trump’s real life physical exam but added he has a “44-inch coke bottle waist, legs seem to go on forever, size 12 shoes so you can fill in the blanks there.”

“The president has a rockin’ bod with enough cushion for the pushin’ and if I could I would,” Bennett’s Jackson said. “He’s healthy enough to be president for another 10 to 20 years easy.”

Kate McKinnon played a reporter who stood up to ask “How broke that brain?” to which Bennett’s Jackson said they did do a cognitive exam and the president “passed it with flying colors, no hints.”

Overall, the results were that when it came to “the physical exam, the mental exam — the Tide pod challenge, crushed it.”

Later in the episode host Jessica Chastain played the host of a show about Trump’s recent behavior called “What Even Matters Anymore?”

When Cecily Strong buzzed in to say it would matter, she got the “wrong” noise.

Supporters

“You were right that it would cross a line, but you were wrong to thing that it would matter in the least. Republicans would just shrug and just mumble something about Hillary’s emails,” Chastain said.

As the sketch went on, Chastain got visibly more upset with the pattern. “You’d think Trump supporters would get mad but then Trump blurts out, ‘Chuck Schumer did it,’ and everyone believes him,” she said. “It doesn’t even matter any more. Fake news, fake news!”

“Nothing truly matters. None of it truly matters,” Chastain said, which caused Strong, Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson to break character and speak directly to Chastain to try to calm her down.

“There’s another election in 2018, and Democrats have a real chance at taking back — oh my God it really doesn’t matter,” Strong said.

Colin Jost and Michael Che led their “Weekend Update” segment by talking about Trump, as well, starting with the government shutdown and comparing it to “House of Cards” halting production because Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct. Jost noted that in the fake government they “got rid of the sexual predator president and got a female president instead,” while Che wondered if we would have to pay taxes for the full year or could get them pro-rated, saying the government owes us “an eagle or an apple pie or something.”

“Things are so bad right now women are trying to figure out how they can be empowered by me, and the best they can say is I’m a female director,” Strong’s Daniels said. “Because unlike your industry we actually have female directors. Imagine that!”

She noted she may not be the hero people expected but she is “the hero you deserve right now.”

“Ladies, when it’s the one-year anniversary of the Women’s March, and you’re arguing over who gets to say #MeToo and who doesn’t, you get a Stormy,” she said.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: “Game of Thrones” star Peter Dinklage thinks the show is coming to an end at the perfect time.

“It’s time,” the actor said at Variety’s Sundance Film Festival studio. “Storywise, not just for all our lives. It’s the perfect time to end it. Sometimes shows stay on a little too long, the jumping-the-shark thing.”

Dinklage plays fan-favorite character Tyrion Lannister in the HBO mega-hit. Over the course of the show’s run, Tyrion has gone from simple Lannister royalty, to the Hand of the King for the reviled Joffrey

Baratheon, to a patricidal fugitive, and now stands as the Hand of the Queen to Daenerys Targaryen. Dinklage added in the interview that it’s never easy saying goodbye to such a beloved character.

“It’s bittersweet when it’s time to move on with everything,” he said. “It’s always the sad part of our business, because you get pockets of great people for short amounts of time and then you have to move on and it’s always heartbreaking. Especially when you’ve spent more than a couple months with people.”

HBO announced early this year — much to the fear of fans — that “Game of Thrones” won’t be airing the eighth and final season until sometime in 2019. Dinklage said they were about halfway through filming the final season.

“It’s the final season, and it’s a long one so we’re taking our time,” he added. LOS ANGELES: Paul Bettany is in talks to play Prince Philip in season 3 of Netflix’s “The Crown.”

The British star has been linked to the role and Variety has confirmed he is being lined up to play Queen Elizabeth II’s husband in the series, which streams around the world on Netflix. He would replace Matt Smith, who has played Philip in the first two seasons.

It would be the latest piece of key casting news after Olivia Colman was confirmed as taking over the role of Elizabeth for the upcoming two seasons from Claire Foy. Helena Bonham Carter will play the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, replacing Vanessa Kirby.

Peter Morgan created the show and has always said that he intended to change key cast members in later seasons, to better portray the main characters as they age.

The show’s producers, Sony-backed Left Bank, has Bettany in its sight and The Daily Mail reports Left Bank boss and “The Crown” executive producer, Andy Harries, and Suzanne Mackie, another exec on the show, have met with his reps in Hollywood to talk about him joining the series.

It would require him to block off about six months for season 3 production. The British actor will appear in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” and “Avengers: Infinity War” this year.