Ben Affleck’s SNL episode last night was both the season finale and the fifth time the Argo director has hosted the comedy sketch show. So did he get the same Five-Timer’s fanfare as Justin Timberlake ?
Hardly. But despite the minimal reception waiting for him, Affleck is now a full-member of the Five Timer’s club alongside luminaries like Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin and Christopher Walken (fun fact: Alec Baldwin has hosted SNL 16 times).
But the real show-stealer during Ben Affleck’s SNL opening monologue was his own wife, Jennifer Garner. Affleck brought Jen on to explain to her his Oscar speech , delivered after accepting the Best Picture award for Argo .
A quick recap: Despite the fact that Ben and Jen 2.0 are among everyone’s favorite Hollywood couples, Affleck received some criticism online for referring to his marriage as “work” during his acceptance speech.
Jen may have cried those great, big happy tears, fully understanding that her husband was only trying to tell her that she was worth whatever challenges they’d face together, but more than a few folks cried foul.
“You may remember that in my speech, I thanked my wife, while also saying that the essence of marriage is work,” he said, denying that he meant that his marriage was “manual labor.”
“That’s not it,” Affleck said. “You define what’s important to you by what you dedicate your time to.”
He invited his wife onto the stage with him, and asked her what she would have preferred him to say.
“Gift! I would have said, ‘Thank you to my wife, our marriage is a gift!’” she said.
In short, it was incredibly cute. You can watch a clip of Ben Affleck’s SNL open with wife, Jennifer Garner, below: