Posted in: NBC, TV | Tagged: macgruber, saturday night live, snl

SNL 51: Will Forte Discusses MacGruber Return for Glen Powell Episode

Will Forte discusses his MacGruber return for Saturday Night Live Season 51, alongside SNL host Glen Powell and cast member Chloe Fineman.

After the 2010 Rogue Pictures film and the first season of the 2021 Peacock series, Will Forte is trying everything he can to get MacGruber going, even if it means continuing it on its original platform, Saturday Night Live, where he created the character. That opportunity came in the season 51 episode, with host Glen Powell, on November 15th, 2025, featuring the theme surrounding the infamous Epstein Files. The Last Man Standing star spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his SNL return.

Will Forte Reflects on Pitching MacGruber Return for SNL with Glen Powell

"It came pretty late in the game," Forte said of the sketch. "I know Glen a little bit through friends, and so he had reached out. My friend put us in touch 'cause he was coming to host for the first time and just had a couple of questions about what the week was gonna be like. So we had a nice chat about that. And he said he had a MacGruber idea." The Sunny Nights star said he was working with fellow SNL alum Tina Fey on Netflix's The Four Seasons when his popular MacGyver parody came up.

"I was like, 'Okay, I don't think I could even do it if they wanted me to,'" Forte recalled. "But I didn't know what they had in mind. I thought, 'Oh, maybe they just want MacGruber to come walk out in the monologue' or something like that." The premise of the sketch involves the title character, played by Forte, joined by two partners, who assist him in trying to disarm a bomb. During Forte's SNL run as a cast member from 2002 to 2010, a female cast member and the host joined him in the MacGruber sketches, which are generally broken into multiple parts, all ending with him failing. The original female lead was played by Maya Rudolph and later by Kristen Wiig, both reprising their roles as Casey and Vicki in the Jorma Taccone film and the Peacock series from Forte, Taccone, and John Solomon. The second partner was established to be Dixon Piper, played by Ryan Phillippe.

For the SNL return, the partners were played by Powell (Colton), and cast member Chloe Fineman (Tawny), trying to help MacGruber disarm the bomb. When Tawny asks why this would happen, Colton reveals he has an unredacted copy of the Jeffrey Epstein Files, making a self-righteous speech about the imperative need to release the expose on the sex trafficking ring before he opens it up and discovers his name is in them, going to creative lengths to destroy them, like using a paper shredder.

"So me and my buddy John Solomon and Jorma Taccone — the original MacGruber team — we just started working and stayed up super late," Forte recalled. "It was really like old times, 'cause in those old SNL writing days, you are so sleep deprived. So it felt like home." For more Forte juggling work on his MacGruber return and Four Seasons, spreading Huntington's Disease awareness, and more, you can check out the entire interview.

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