Talk about Lucky No. 7… This Saturday, Sofia Vergara became only the seventh Latina to host NBC’s Saturday Night Live in the sketch comedy show’s 37 seasons.
And the 39-year-old Colombian actress—who gave one of the night’s most memorable acceptance speeches at this year’s Golden Globes—didn’t disappoint in her first at-bat as guest host.
Looking absolutely stunning in a sleek black bustier-dress, the “world’s most desirable woman” kicked off the show with a hilarious monologue that included welcoming viewers to “La noche de sabado en vivo” and poking fun at her sex appeal and unmistakable accent.
“I always heard that immigrants had a really hard life when they came to America,” joked Vergara. “But when I showed up here everyone was so nice. The men bought me drinks and offered me a place to sleep. This country welcomed me with open arms… and pulled-down pants.”
Later Vergara—a two-time Emmy nominee—appeared in several memorable skits. She played an anchorwoman shooting a promo with a complicated coworker, a sex education teacher in another of Kristen Wiig’s hilarious Gilly sketches and a woman trying to find her birth mother on Fred Armisen’s always funny The Manuel Ortiz Show skit—which included an appearance by musical guest One Direction’s members as her five sons.
One of the brightest moments of the night came when Vergara impersonated another actress with a distinctive voice: The Nanny’s Fran Drescher. The Colombian bombshell mastered Drescher’s high-pitched voice and quirky laugh during the Bein’ Quirky with Zooey Deschanel skit.
In another highlight, Vergara played the newest member of the team reporting on the 74th Annual Hunger Games, a parody of the recent blockbuster smash The Hunger Games . The skit featured Vergara’s character Maria Gutierrez reporting live from the arena on the action of the 24 tributes battling to the death. “They should call it the FUNger Games,” said Vergara. “‘cause everyone is having so much fun.”
But the biggest laughs of the night came when Vergara played herself while shooting a Pantene commercial with a Penelope Cruz, who also has a discernible accent. While Vergara was given easy words to say in the commercial, Cruz had to say difficult words like “follicular development” and “ammonium laureth sulfate.”