Aimee Lou Wood criticises ‘Saturday Night Live’ for ‘The White Lotus’ sketch: “Mean and unfunny”
English actor Aimee Lou Wood has responded to a Saturday Night Live skit in which Sarah Sherman portrayed her character on The White Lotus, describing the parody as “mean and unfunny”.
Saturday Night Live created a spoof sketch of Mike White’s hit HBO series, giving it a MAGA twist, entitled The White Potus. Jon Hamm played a Robert F Kennedy Jr version of Walton Goggins’ character, Rick Hatchett. His character is known for pursuing his lifelong goal of enacting revenge on his father’s killer, with SNL changing this to show him holding a syringe of measles, contemplating removing fluoride from the country’s drinking water and on the verge of eating a monkey.
During this skit, Sherman appears as Chelsea, played by Wood in the show, taking on her mannerisms and wearing fake teeth for the role.
On social media, Wood initially addressed comments from a recent GQ interview in which she revealed that Mike White had fought with HBO to cast her on the show. “It was honestly from the nicest place, but my little head goes: ‘HBO didn’t want me. And I know why HBO didn’t want me, it’s because I’m ugly,’” she said in the interview. “Mike had to say ‘Please let me have the ugly girl!’”
She then clarified the comments on Instagram and hit out at SNL, saying, “Nobody at HBO called me ugly!! I just spiralled about it because of my own imposter syndrome… But whilst in honest mode, I did find the SNL thing mean and unfunny xo.” She added, “Felt righteous, might delete later.”
Later on that evening, Wood added that she is “not thin skinned”, continuing, “I actually love being taken the piss out of when it’s clever in good spirits. But the joke was about fluoride. I have big gap teeth not bad teeth. I don’t mind caricature – I understand that’s what SNL is.”
Wood continued: “But the rest of the skit was punching up and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on … Not Sarah Squirm’s fault and not hating on her. Hating on the concept.” The actor later shared that SNL had apologised to her for the skit.”
Saturday Night Live are yet to respond to Wood’s criticism.
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