Adam Driver Played a Baby On His First Flight on "SNL"

It has somehow been five years since Adam Driver showed up on Saturday Night Live to play oil baron Abraham H. Parnassus, a supremely wealthy man who offered his son’s high school class some advice. The sketch featured Driver in old-age makeup; at one point, he impaled a taxidermied bird with his cane. On Driver’s appearance on this weekend’s SNL, he took the opposite route; if that earlier episode brought us Old Man Adam Driver, this one brought viewers Terrifying Baby Adam Driver.

To be more specific: Terrifying Baby Adam Driver on a plane.

The premise of the sketch was simple: a mother (played by Sarah Sherman) told her fellow passengers that this was her baby’s first flight. Given that the baby in question had the head of a fully grown man, hilarity ensued — both from Driver’s utterly deadpan performance and from the brief moments of horror with which the plane’s other inhabitants treated a baby with, you know, the head of a fully grown man.

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The sketch also recalled last year’s “Monkey Judge,” in which John Mulaney played a monkey overseeing a trial; in both cases, much of the humor stemmed from an erudite actor embodying a wholly chaotic character. If you’ve ever wondered what an Oscar-nominated actor playing a screaming baby would look like, look no further.