SNL Just Delivered The Ryan Gosling Sequel I've Wanted For 7 Years

Spoilers ahead for Papyrus 2 from SNL.

Summary Gosling's return to SNL showcased his comedic chops and allowed him to reprise iconic roles.

The 2017 Papyrus skit, featuring Gosling lamenting the font choice in Avatar, became a viral hit with over 22 million views on YouTube.

Now, Gosling returns for a sequel to Papyrus, which is full of hilarious twists.

On Saturday, April 13, 2024, Oscar-nominee Ryan Gosling returned for his third hosting stint on Saturday Night Live (SNL). The charismatic actor, who went from rom-com roles like The Notebook to leading dramatic fare like Drive, most recently impressed audiences by bringing much-needed nuance and heart to the role of Ken in Barbie, Greta Gerwig's billion-dollar blockbuster. Gosling has always boasted comedic chops to rival his dramatic ones, but appearances on SNL and roles like Ken serve as occasional reminders of just how talented the versatile actor can be when given the right material.

When it comes to Saturday Night Live, Gosling is almost as fondly remembered for his inability to keep a straight face as the skits he appears in. One recurring skit centers around survivors of alien abductions. Notably, iconic SNL alum Kate McKinnon returned to reprise her role as Colleen, an abductee who tells it like it is and, often, tries to break Gosling's character by making him laugh mid-skit. The remount of the alien abduction skit served as the episode's cold-open, but things hit an even higher note when Gosling returned as a beloved SNL character from 2017.

Related Ryan Gosling's Oscars 2024 Performance Made Us Even More Desperate For A Ken Spinoff Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” performance at the 2024 Oscars ceremony was a clear reminder of what made the movie great — and why he needs a spinoff.

Saturday Night Live's Papyrus Sketch With Ryan Gosling Explained

Gosling First Played The Avatar Font Hater In A 2017 Episode Of SNL

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In 2017, Ryan Gosling hosted Saturday Night Live season 43's premiere episode. Arguably, his most memorable (and viral) moment occurred during one of SNL's infamous pre-taped skits, Papyrus. Set to melancholy music, the skit opens with Gosling's character waking up in the middle of the night because of a recurring intrusive thought: the graphic designer behind James Cameron's Avatar didn't create a special font for the billion-dollar film's logo. Instead, the designer just used papyrus. Appearing in most word-processing programs, papyrus captures the feel of handwritten calligraphy, but isn't considered a respectable design choice.

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Haunted by what he considered to be an unforgivable choice, Gosling's character will wax on about the papyrus problem to anyone who will listen, from his therapist (McKinnon) to his friends and family. Triggered by instances of papyrus in the wild — on hookah bar menus, Shakira merch, and off-brand tea company products — Gosling wonders how "this man, this professional" got away with such an uninspired and "cruel" choice. At the end of Papyrus, Gosling looms outside the designer's house and loses it. With 22 million views on SNL's YouTube channel, the hilarity of Ryan Gosling's Papyrus endures.

Related Why Margot Robbie's Barbie Couldn't Love Ryan Gosling's Ken Perfectly Explained By Clever Movie Theory A theory explains why the relationship between Margot Robbie's Barbie and Ryan Gosling's Ken never worked but could have worked with another Ken.

SNL's Papyrus 2 With Ryan Gosling Is The Perfect Follow-Up

Ryan Gosling Returned To The Role To Coincide With Avatar 2's Release

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Seven years later, Gosling returned to SNL to deliver a sequel to Papyrus. The aptly named Papyrus 2 releases in the wake of 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron's long-awaited sequel to the original 2009 movie that caused Gosling's character such grief. Now part of a support group, Gosling's Steven does his best to avoid triggers, but Way of Water's title card becomes inescapable during a trip to the dentist. Initially, Steven is relieved: the logo isn't papyrus anymore. Later, Steven makes a horrifying realization: Avatar's new logo is just a bolded version of the papyrus font.

Much to Steven's dismay, the logo designer...is set to win an award for his work on Avatar's sequel.

Steven discovers that the logo designer, who also appeared in Papyrus, is set to win an award for his work on Avatar's sequel. When Steven arrives at the awards ceremony, he reveals that the Avatar sequel's logo is just papyrus in bold. That's when things take a surprising-yet-hilarious turn. As it turns out, Steven's father created Webdings — a notorious font that uses pictograms instead of letters. Realizing that his papyrus anger stems from his hard-to-read father, Gosling's Steven navigates a perfect follow-up story arc to one of the best SNL skits of all time.