SNL audience duped by Will Ferrell look-alike who’s a famous rockstar… leaving even Paul McCartney ‘confused’

Saturday Night Live audience members were seeing double this week after they were confronted with what appeared to be two Will Ferrells in the season 50 finale’s opening monologue.

But fans familiar with the 58-year-old former cast member picked up on something fishy as soon as he bounded down the stairs to start his monologue.

That’s because it wasn’t actually Ferrell at all, but his doppelgänger, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, whose resemblance to the funnyman has long been a source of playful contention between the two.

Smith, 64, was dressed in a gray suit and black tie-free shirt that turned out to be the exact same outfit that the real Ferrell was wearing when he showed up just moments into the monologue to take control from the impostor.

‘I’m thrilled to be back here hosting Saturday Nigh Live. Thrilled!’ the rocker said as he tried to take control of the show. ‘I was a cast member here for seven years, and now I’m hosting for the sixth time! Amazing. It really feels like coming home.’

But then the door at the back of the bandstand swung open and the real Ferrell burst through and scurried down to the front of the stage to cut off his look-alike.

‘Hey, hey! Excuse me! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Ferrell said breathlessly as he stood side-by-side with Smith to emphasize their resemblance. 

Smith, still in character, gestured toward the audience and shot back, ‘I think I’m hosting the show.’

An indignant Ferrell replied, ‘You’re not the host, I am. You’re Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.’

As the audience started to cheer and applaud for Smith, Ferrell turned to them and shouted, ‘No! Shut up! Everyone shut up!

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ he continued. ‘He pushed me down backstage! And I fell! Hard!

‘Lorne [Michaels] had to give me mouth-to-mouth,’ he said of SNL’s creator and executive producer. ‘Seriously, what are you even doing here?’

Smith looked as if he was about to fess up, though his answer didn’t satisfy Ferrell.

‘OK, I’m the musical guest tonight,’ the drummer said sheepishly.

‘No, you’re not. No, you’re not,’ Ferrell said as he wagged his head side to side. ‘No, Paul McCartney is the musical guest.’ 

He shooed Smith away and ordered him to ‘just get of the stage, now!’ 

As the audience started to send off the Chili Peppers drummer with applause, Ferrell interrupted them again.

‘No, no, don’t clap for him. Don’t. Don’t clap for him. He’s a bad guy,’ he said, before admitting that the whole segment had been ‘really weird.’

Then Ferrell suggest he perform a ‘hard reset’ as he began his monologue all over again as if nothing had happened.

But after picking up where Smith left off and bragging that he was hosting SNL for the sixth time, Ferrell paused to say that it felt off.

‘You guys feel that. I’m very off. Chad Smith, he took the wind out of my sails. This sucks,’ he said in a funk. ‘I don’t even know if we should do the show. That’s where I’m at, emotionally.’

After the audience shouted for him to go on with the show, Ferrell joked in perfect deadpan that he would do ‘what the host does when they don’t have any ideas, so I’ll take questions from the audience.’

He took his first question from ‘the cute one,’ which turned out to be Paul McCartney.