Harry Potter Hits Saturday Night Live

You can expect a never ending supply of Harry Potter related jokes on Saturday Night Live come January as one of the stars of the popular franchise will be making his hosting debut on the sketch comedy show. Since I’ve already let slip it’s a man, I guess we can cross off Emma Watson as the potential host. That leaves Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe. Who would you rather see performing with the likes of Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig? I’ll make this simple for you: it’s Daniel Radcliffe!

No offense to Rupert Grint, but I’m not sure he’s popular enough to be a host of SNL before Radcliffe. Grint is a wonderful guy and a great actor and will forever be remembered as Harry Potter’s sidekick, Ron Weasley, but that’s just it. Why go for the sidekick when you can have the main hero? If anyone’s going to draw in more viewers it’s going to be Daniel Radcliffe/Harry Potter. TVLine reported he would host the January 14 episode, accompanied by musical guest Lana Del Rey. This is good timing for Radcliffe, who has his first non-Harry Potter related film, The Woman in Black, releasing three weeks later.

As the Harry Potter franchise went on, it became clear Radcliffe has a funny bone, particularly in Half-Blood Prince, but will that mean he’ll be worth watching on SNL? It’s hard to say at this point. The safest bet may be to just wait and see. It’s not like they’re going to do a trial run for us viewers so we can get a sense of how funny it will be.