Brad Pitt portrayed Dr. Anthony Fauci in the second at-home episode of "Saturday Night Live," that featured musical guest Miley Cyrus, an Adam Sandler cameo and plenty of disinfectant jokes.
A bespectacled Pitt, speaking in Fauci's raspy voice, tried to recast false assurances and misstatements pitched by President Donald Trump during the pandemic, for instance when Trump said there'd be a COVID-19 vaccine "relatively soon. "
"Relatively soon is an interesting phrase. Relative to the entire history of earth? Sure, the vaccine is going to come real fast," said Pitt's Fauci, seated at a desk behind a stately bookcase. "But if you were going to tell a friend, 'I'll be over relatively soon' and then showed up a year and a half later, well, your friend may be relatively pissed off."
The episode was the show's second "quarantine edition," with pre-recorded segments at actors' homes delving into the frustrations and touchstones of quarantine life, but, of course, with an SNL twist.
Sandler and Pete Davidson teamed up to mock being cooped up with family for a musical duet called "Stuck In The House," another sketch featured a Zoom version of "Law and Order" and another poked fun at zealous fitness moved online during the pandemic with one boasting of "eating clean" by preparing a "Clorox juice" cleanse.
Cyrus, sitting fireside with a guitar, performed Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here."
Pitt's depiction followed a Fauci interview on CNN when he jokingly said he thought Pitt should portray him when he was asked to chose between Ben Stiller or Pitt. The cold open also featured Trump's far-fetched statements earlier this week about disinfectant and light being studied in the fight against the virus.
"When I hear things like the virus can be cured if everyone takes the Tide Pod Challenge, I'll be there to say, 'Please don't,'" said Pitt's Fauci, before he broke character, took off his wig and paid tribute to Fauci and thanked him.
There also were jabs at Trump's battle with governors in an outdoors segment with Cecily Strong as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has blasted Trump's handling of the pandemic. Strong's Whitmer urged continued social distancing.
"We're not out of the woods yet," she said, gesturing to her surroundings. "We never will be. We live in Michigan."
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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