When Oscar-nominated Cuban screen powerhouse Ana de Armas stepped onto the stage of Studio 8H to host Saturday Night Live during Season 48, she brought an infectious international warmth and comedic verve that immediately won over viewers.
Having stunned global audiences in Rian Johnson’s whodunit Knives Out, Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Blade Runner 2049, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s James Bond blockbuster No Time to Die, and Andrew Dominik’s intense Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde, de Armas arrived at SNL at the absolute summit of her career.
Rather than leaning solely on Hollywood glamor, de Armas threw herself into high-energy physical comedy, bilingual wordplay, and chaotic character work. Supported by musical guest Karol G, her episode produced some of the highest-streamed sketches of the entire season, creating an instant comedy classic.
Whether you are exploring our rankings of the 10 best Ana de Armas movies, Pedro Pascal’s hilarious SNL sketches, Sydney Sweeney’s top SNL moments, or the greatest Ryan Gosling SNL sketches, here are the 10 best Ana de Armas SNL sketches of all time, ranked by laugh count, cultural impact, and live commitment.
The 10 Best Ana de Armas SNL Sketches at a Glance
★ 1. Spanish Class (Season 48, 2023) — Co-starring Marcello Hernandez & Ego Nwodim
★ 2. Lisa from Temecula: Wedding Reception (Season 48, 2023) — Guest Star Pedro Pascal
★ 3. 2023 Monologue: American Citizenship & De Niro (Season 48, 2023) — Bilingual Monologue
★ 4. American Girl Doll Movie Trailer (Season 48, 2023) — Dark Historical Satire
★ 5. Please Don't Destroy: Hangxiety (Season 48, 2023) — Co-starring The PDD Trio
★ 6. Mattress Store Anniversary Sale (Season 48, 2023) — Co-starring Mikey Day
★ 7. The Album Recording Session (Season 48, 2023) — Co-starring Bowen Yang
★ 8. Film Festival Q&A (Season 48, 2023) — Co-starring Andrew Dismukes
★ 9. The Luxury Cruise Romance (Season 48, 2023) — Co-starring Kenan Thompson
★ 10. Weekend Update: Latin Cinema Dispatch (Season 48, 2023) — With Colin Jost
1. Spanish Class (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Marcello Hernandez, Ego Nwodim, Mikey Day, Molly Kearney
- The Premise: An American high school Spanish teacher (Ego Nwodim) tries to teach basic textbook grammar (“¿Dónde está la biblioteca?”), only to be hijacked by two native-speaking students (Marcello Hernandez and Ana de Armas) who turn vocabulary into rapid-fire telenovela drama.
- Why It Works: Blistering bilingual chemistry between Hernandez and de Armas, completely overpowering their bewildered classmates.
Spanish Class is widely considered one of the freshest, most viral sketches of recent SNL seasons. As Ego Nwodim’s teacher struggles through rudimentary phrases, de Armas and Marcello Hernandez transform the classroom into an impassioned Latin soap opera full of exaggerated romantic betrayals, rhythmic slang, and theatrical gasps. De Armas’s magnetic charisma and pride in her native tongue turned what could have been a standard schoolroom sketch into an electrifying cultural triumph.
▶ Watch "Spanish Class" on the Official SNL YouTube Channel
2. Lisa from Temecula: Wedding Reception (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Pedro Pascal, Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang, Punkie Johnson
- The Premise: The return of Ego Nwodim’s unhinged character Lisa from Temecula, who orders her steak “extra well-done” at an upscale wedding banquet, violently shaking the entire dining table while Pedro Pascal and Ana de Armas try desperately not to corpse.
- Why It Works: Pedro Pascal making a surprise guest cameo as Lisa’s lawyer brother, triggering an uncontrollable cascade of live cast breaks.
Following Pedro Pascal’s legendary hosting gig earlier in Season 48, Pascal returned for a surprise cameo in de Armas’s episode to reprise the beloved Lisa from Temecula universe. As Ego Nwodim aggressively saws through her rock-hard steak—sending glasses, plates, and wine bottles vibrating violently across the table—de Armas, Pascal, and Bowen Yang completely lost composure. Watching de Armas bury her face in a dinner napkin while tears of laughter spilled over made this live television at its most intoxicating.
▶ Watch "Lisa from Temecula" on the Official SNL YouTube Channel
3. 2023 Opening Monologue: Becoming an American Citizen
- Special Mentions: Robert De Niro, Friends
- The Premise: Ana de Armas delivers an emotional, funny monologue celebrating her recent naturalization as a United States citizen and recounting how watching Friends helped her learn English when she first moved to America.
- Why It Works: Genuine warmth, hilarious pop culture references, and a touching story about Robert De Niro visiting her father in Havana, Cuba.
De Armas began her monologue in Spanish before transitioning to English, expressing immense gratitude for her American journey. She revealed that she learned English the same way millions of immigrants do: by binge-watching Chandler Bing on Friends. The emotional peak came when she described working with Robert De Niro on Hands of Stone—and how De Niro personally visited her father’s office in Havana during a trip to Cuba. It set a joyful, gracious tone for the entire broadcast.
▶ Watch "Ana de Armas Monologue" on the Official SNL YouTube Channel
4. American Girl Doll Movie Trailer (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim
- The Premise: Riding the wave of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie frenzy, this faux trailer imagines a live-action blockbuster based on the historically tragic American Girl dolls.
- Why It Works: Pitch-black historical comedy contrasting cheerful doll aesthetics with 19th-century cholera, tuberculosis, and child labor.
Playing Josefina Montoya alongside Chloe Fineman’s Kirsten and Heidi Gardner’s Samantha, de Armas was pitch-perfect in this parody of Mattel movie adaptations. The trailer hilariously contrasts bright, glossy cinematography and uplifting modern pop anthems with historical horrors: “Her mother has cholera! Her brother lost three fingers in the textile mill!” De Armas delivered every grim historical tragedy with a bright, glassy-eyed plastic doll smile.
▶ Watch "American Girl Doll" on the Official SNL YouTube Channel
5. Please Don’t Destroy: Hangxiety (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Ben Marshall, John Higgins, Martin Herlihy
- The Premise: After a wild night out drinking, the Please Don’t Destroy writers wake up with crippling hangover anxiety, obsessively reviewing drunken texts, only for guest star Ana de Armas to reveal her own wildly out-of-proportion drunken behavior.
- Why It Works: Hyper-caffeinated millennial panic meeting de Armas’s surprising willingness to play an unhinged, violent party animal.
The Please Don’t Destroy trio has become the digital short engine of modern SNL, and de Armas matched their breathless comedic velocity. When the guys express guilt over sending an awkward text, de Armas enters to reveal she drunkenly stole a zoo animal and challenged a bouncer to a knife fight. Her deadpan delivery of increasingly catastrophic nighttime confessions demonstrated fantastic comedic range.
▶ Watch "Hangxiety" on the Official SNL YouTube Channel
6. Mattress Store Anniversary Sale (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, Kenan Thompson
- The Premise: A husband and wife shopping for a new memory foam mattress are terrified by the store’s eccentric European mattress consultants who insist on testing sleep positions under extreme emotional circumstances.
- Why It Works: Physical slapstick comedy with de Armas leaping onto bedding displays with total abandon.
Mikey Day and Ana de Armas played intense European mattress specialists who take the concept of “sleep trial” to absurd psychological lengths. Whether demanding customers recreate their most painful childhood memories on a pillowtop or conducting rigorous sleep-walking stress tests, de Armas threw herself into the physical slapstick with zero hesitation.
7. The Album Recording Session (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Bowen Yang, Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim
- The Premise: A Grammy-winning pop diva brings an avant-garde European performance artist (de Armas) into the recording booth to provide experimental background vocal noises.
- Why It Works: Bowen Yang’s escalating music-producer frustration bouncing against bizarre, whispered vocal effects.
Bowen Yang’s music studio sketches are legendary, and de Armas brought sublime absurdity to the vocal booth. Providing everything from guttural bird chirps to whispering existential threats in Spanish over a sunny bubblegum pop track, de Armas proved she can hold the center of surreal alt-comedy premises.
8. Film Festival Q&A (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Michael Longfellow
- The Premise: An auteur director and her lead actress field pretentious, completely nonsensical questions from aspiring indie film students at a prestigious European cinema panel.
- Why It Works: Scathing, razor-sharp satire of modern cinema festival culture and pretentious artistic jargon.
Having spent years on international festival circuits for films like Blonde and Blade Runner 2049, de Armas brought authentic firsthand experience to this parody. Her character’s grand, nonsensical philosophical responses to even more ridiculous student questions skewered high-brow cinema pretension with effortless elegance.
9. The Luxury Cruise Romance (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Kenan Thompson, Colin Jost
- The Premise: A glamorous European heiress vacationing on a Caribbean cruise falls head-over-heels for the ship’s deeply unqualified, unbothered shuffleboard coordinator.
- Why It Works: The clash between high-glamour European romance and Kenan Thompson’s relaxed, unbothered cruise worker energy.
Kenan Thompson’s legendary ability to play completely unimpressed regular guys shone brightly against de Armas’s breathless melodrama. As de Armas declared undying passion on the lido deck, Kenan’s desire to simply finish his shift and eat soft-serve ice cream created a hilarious, warm-hearted contrast.
10. Weekend Update: Latin Cinema Dispatch (Season 48, 2023)
- Co-stars: Colin Jost, Michael Che
- The Premise: Ana de Armas visits the Weekend Update desk to talk about Hollywood representation and her experiences working with legendary directors across three continents.
- Why It Works: Natural, charming back-and-forth banter with Colin Jost that highlighted her witty personality.
Sitting at the Weekend Update desk, de Armas charmed both the live audience and the hosts with quick, self-deprecating humor about Hollywood pronunciation, red-carpet fashion mishaps, and her fast-rising career. It brought a triumphant, celebratory close to a stellar hosting debut.
Ana de Armas SNL Sketches Comparison Table
| Rank | Sketch Title | Season | Key Co-Stars | Highlight Moment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spanish Class | S48 (2023) | Marcello Hernandez | Turning basic grammar into fiery telenovela drama |
| 2 | Lisa from Temecula | S48 (2023) | Pedro Pascal, Ego Nwodim | Uncontrollable table-shaking live corpsing |
| 3 | 2023 Monologue | S48 (2023) | De Niro tribute | US citizenship celebration and Friends English |
| 4 | American Girl Doll | S48 (2023) | Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner | Cheerful doll smile during 1800s cholera outbreak |
| 5 | PDD: Hangxiety | S48 (2023) | Please Don’t Destroy trio | Confessing to wild, chaotic drunken night crimes |
| 6 | Mattress Store Sale | S48 (2023) | Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson | Bizarre psychological memory foam sleep tests |
| 7 | Album Recording | S48 (2023) | Bowen Yang | Bizarre avant-garde vocal bird sounds in booth |
| 8 | Film Festival Q&A | S48 (2023) | Andrew Dismukes | Skewering pretentious cinema panel jargon |
| 9 | Cruise Romance | S48 (2023) | Kenan Thompson | Melodramatic heiress falling for shuffleboard guy |
| 10 | Weekend Update | S48 (2023) | Colin Jost | Quick-witted Hollywood representation banter |
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Ana de Armas host Saturday Night Live?
Ana de Armas hosted Saturday Night Live on April 15, 2023 (Season 48, Episode 17), with Colombian superstar Karol G appearing as the musical guest.
Did Pedro Pascal appear on Ana de Armas’s SNL episode?
Yes! Pedro Pascal made a surprise cameo appearance during the Lisa from Temecula: Wedding Reception sketch, playing Lisa’s brother and triggering widespread live breaking among the entire cast.
What was the most viral sketch from Ana de Armas’s episode?
The Spanish Class sketch co-starring Marcello Hernandez and the Lisa from Temecula wedding sketch became massive viral sensations, pulling in tens of millions of views across YouTube and TikTok.
Has Ana de Armas been nominated for an Academy Award?
Yes! Ana de Armas received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her devastating portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in the 2022 film Blonde.