Jake Gyllenhaal hosts the SNL finale tonight: Find out his musical guest and how to watch!

Get ready because tonight Saturday Night Live goes live for the final time this season! Season 49 comes to a close this evening as host Jake Gyllenhaal takes to the stage as the final host of the season before NBC’s hit series goes on hiatus for the summer! 

Gyllenhaal is no stranger to SNL having hosted two times over the years. His last hosting stint was back in 2022 when he was promoting Ambulance, his action-thriller which hit theaters the weekend he hosted SNL.

What is Jake Gyllenhaal promoting on SNL?

Oddly enough, Gyllenhaal doesn’t have a new movie or show coming out that he is promoting on tonight’s SNL. His most recent project was Amazon’s Roadhouse remake which debuted on Prime Video on March 8. 

It’s likely he’ll promote the film during his SNL hosting stint, but it is odd that NBC tapped a star who does not have a new project to promote to host its season 49 finale. However, it’s not uncommon for NBC to tab big-name stars to host even if they don’t have a new project to directly promote. 

Who is the musical guest on SNL tonight, May 18?

The musical guest for tonight’s SNL finale is artist Sabrina Carpenter, who honestly should have been tapped to pull double duty tonight as host and musical guest. 

Carpenter is promoting her latest single, “Espresso,” which is topping the charts in the US and UK and is sure to be one of the songs she’ll perform tonight on SNL. With a new album in the works, it’ll be interesting to see it Carpenter debuts a new single tonight on SNL as well or performs a song off her last album, emails I can’t fwd:. 

Either way, she’s sure to be the highlight of the episode and we’re hoping she’ll participate in a few sketches tonight as well! 

Sabrina Carpenter is more than just a singer

While Sabrina Carpenter is making waves in the music industry and is performing as tonight's musical guest, she actually broke into the industry as an actress!

Carpenter made her acting debut officially back in 2011 in season 12 of NBC's Law and Order: SVU, but it was her role in Disney's Girl Meets World playing Maya Heart that served as her breakout role. Following Girl Meets World, Carpenter appeared in a handful of additional projects including Disney's animated original series Milo Murphy's Law as well as a series of Netflix original films including Work It, Tall Girl, and Tall Girl 2.

She then began to put a larger focus on singing and stepped away from acting, with Tall Girl 2 being her last credited project.

What time is SNL on tonight? 

As always, new episodes of SNL begin at 11:30/10:30c on NBC and that’s the time you can expect tonight’s new episode to begin as well! The episode will be 90 minutes in length with commercials, wrapping up at 1 a.m. ET.

If you’re not a night owl, you can always catch the episode on Peacock beginning on Sunday or watch it back via your DVR or on streaming services such as fuboTV.