“Saturday Night Live” lost a fan in Amy Lou Wood after the sketch show poked fun at her HBO series “The White Lotus” over the weekend. In a series of posts shared to Instagram, Wood slammed the segment, which included a visual gag making fun of her teeth, as “mean and unfunny.”
The sketch in question, called “The White POTUS,” featured Jon Hamm playing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Sarah Sherman as a riff on Wood’s character Chelsea. On the series, which aired its Season 3 finale last week, Chelsea is partnered with Walton Goggins’ Rick; here, Chelsea is partnered with RFK Jr. As Hamm’s RFK Jr. rails against fluoride in water to Sherman, who plays his girlfriend, the actress responds in a British accent (Wood is from Manchester). More notably, Sherman was wearing an exaggerated tooth prosthetic — an attempt at mocking Wood’s own teeth.
“I did find the ‘SNL’ thing mean and unfunny xo,” Wood wrote on Instagram. She later added that “everyone” was agreeing with her about the sketch, so “I’m glad I said something instead of going in on myself.”
“[It’s] such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple weeks ago,” she wrote in another post. “Yes, take the piss for sure — that’s what the show is about — but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?”
The actress later noted she was happy she said something about the sketch because her comments sparked an outpouring of support from fans and followers — and “SNL” apologized. “I’ve had apologies from ‘SNL,’” she wrote in another Instagram Story.
Wood, who has a noticable gap between her front teeth, has become something of a focal point in conversations surrounding physical beauty since her debut on “The White Lotus.” Her teeth have become a talking point, something the star initially embraced but appears to be pulling back from.
While speaking to GQ in an interview published April 8, Wood said she hopes to speak more about her work. “It makes me really happy that it’s symbolizing rebellion and freedom, but there’s a limit,” she explained.
“The whole conversation is just about my teeth, and it makes me a bit sad because I’m not getting to talk about my work. They think it’s nice because they’re not criticising. And, I have to go there … I don’t know, if it was a man, would we be talking about it this much? It’s still going on about a woman’s appearance,” she added.
