Wordplay is back and so is Nikki Glaser as the Golden Globes host. The comedian walked out to Taylor Swift’s “Style” and almost immediately upped the ante from her successful bout last year. “I cannot believe the amount of star power we have in this room tonight,” she said. Glaser pulled this move last year as well, establishing herself as significantly less famous than those around her. It’s a good play up at the top — one that puts Glaser in a safe(ish) position with big names like Julia Roberts and George Clooney when she reiterates again and again that she’s not quite the superstar they are. “There’s so many A-listers,” she said, adding, “and by A-listers I do mean people who are on a list that has been heavily redacted.”
Starting off with an Epstein joke was maybe not the most promising effort, but Glaser quickly brought the room back by going in on CBS. This type of gutsy move is her bread and butter after years of cleaning up at Comedy Central roasts, taking a swipe that CBS News is “America’s newest place to see bs news.” That’s a bold play when they’re literally producing the show, but the room ate it all up.
Part of what Glaser is best at is disarming celebrities by emphasizing their fame gap without sacrificing her actual punchlines. She asked Clooney if he would take a look at her Nespresso (“I’ll look at it,” he mouthed) and took aim at The Rock by saying he was lucky that The Paper was not nominated that night. On one hand, it’s like, we’re doing a rock, paper, scissors joke? On the other hand, it kind of killed — uniting the room in a moment of pure silliness.
Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››
Leonardo DiCaprio is not often at the Golden Globes, so it felt fated that Glaser would go in on him. She went for the easy punchline with DiCaprio — a jab about all that he’s been able to accomplish so much before his girlfriends turn 30. He grimaced through the bit as he did when hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler made a similar joke back in 2014. Rather than let the observed bit stand, however, Glaser doubled down on why she did it. “Leo, I’m sorry I made that joke. It’s cheap. I tried not to but, like, we don’t know anything else about you, man,” she said which somewhat surprisingly got DiCaprio laughing for real. She then pivoted to the horny part of the monologue, referring to Hamnet as the “original name for Spanx” and working her way from “Michael B. Jordan” to “Nikki be jerkin’.”
Glaser landed the joke plane by going almost fully earnest, telling the crowd what a privilege it was to be standing among the people in the room. She told Noah Wyle he was the “only doctor” she’s seen regularly “for the past 35 years,” and she told Paul Mescal and Jacob Elordi to “keep being the same person” to her mom. Glaser does a great job keeping the punchlines on the celebrities while making it clear she’s a fan of these movies and shows. By the time Amanda Seyfried and Jennifer Garner came out to announce the first award, the room was loose and light and in the case of a soon-to-be Best Supporting Actor winner, maybe already a little too drunk.
