Film directors as hosts

I was thinking about how Quentin Tarantino got the opportunity to host in 1995 and how unusual that was. People will point out he was riding high off Pulp Fiction but it’s interesting that he had the cultural cache for that. Very few film directors have gotten the opportunity to host.

Buck Henry co-directed the movie Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty in 1978, for which he received an Oscar nomination. He didn’t win, but I guess it’s pretty neat that an SNL 5-Timer has that distinction.

There are numerous other people who have directed movies and hosted the show (eg. Jonah Hill, Tom Hanks, soon Scarlett Johansson is slated to release her directorial debut). But these are primarily actors who direct only rarely. Who else that works primarily as a director might be fun as a host? I did forget to mention that weird Francis Ford Coppola episode from 1986. I guess that counts too although he wasn’t really hosting in the traditional sense.

Just to throw out a few names, I’m a little surprised Spielberg has never done it. He is a fan of the show and attended the 40th anniversary special. I guess it’s not shocking because he’s not an actor, but he is pretty much the biggest director of the last half-century.

Maybe Greta Gerwig could do it? She doesn’t really act nowadays and she was never really famous as an actress, but she does have experience with it and she’s cameoed twice. She seems to have a pretty good sense of humor.

Anybody else come to mind?