You might know Colin Jost from NBC’s long-running comedy show Saturday Night Live. Jost has been a writer on the show since 2005 and one of the show’s co-head writers between 2012 and 2015 and since 2017. Jost appears in occasional live sketches, most recently playing Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in political skits. He also co-anchors Saturday Night Live’s popular Weekend Update segment with Michael Che, another head writer. You might have also heard of Jost’s celebrity fiancé, the world’s highest-paid actress and Avengers star Scarlett Johansson. Jost himself is a well-established actor, stand-up comedian, and writer, but how did he get here, and more importantly, how did he achieve his current net worth of $6 million?
Who is Colin Jost and how did he get on Saturday Night Live?
Colin Jost is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He was born and raised in Staten Island, New York in 1982. Jost pursued writing from a young age, serving as editor for his high school newspaper and then at Harvard University, where he studied the History and Literature of Russia and Britain and served as president of the infamous publication The Harvard Lampoon. Ironically, Jost shared a dorm at Harvard with 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, who Jost has been portraying in the current season of Saturday Night Live’s political sketches.
Writing jokes for different formats ranging from page, stage, and camera, Jost is an all-around writer and comedian. Jost has written comedy since his first year at Harvard (for The Harvard Lampoon) and performed stand-up for well over a decade now. Jost was hired by Saturday Night Live as a writer straight out of college. Jost has been writing for Saturday Night Live since 2005, holding the position of co-head writer from 2012 to 2015 and since 2017. Jost also writes for and co-anchors the “Weekend Update,” a regularly occurring Saturday Night Live sketch that functions as a fictional news program and reports humorously on current events. In Weekend Update, Jost and his co-anchor Che tackle the week’s biggest events featuring a combination of real and parodied news elements—all while (usually) maintaining straight faces.
As it turns out, Jost is a lot more than just a writer and a Weekend Update reporter on Saturday Night Live. In the field of script writing, Jost wrote the screenplay for and held a small role in the comedy Staten Island Summer in 2015 and played another minor role in the romantic-comedy How to Be Single in 2016. Beyond Saturday Night Live, Jost has appeared on other shows as a stand-up comedian and television personality, including Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and more. Jost performed stand-up comedy at Caroline’s on Broadway, the “Just For Laughs” Festival in both Montreal and Chicago, and was named 2011’s “Breakout Artist.” On television, Jost co-hosted the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards with Michael Che in September 2018, and has written for other award shows, including the 75th Golden Globe Awards. Jost has also published a selection of written pieces in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, as well as other distinguished publications.
Colin Jost’s Saturday Night Live Salary
As both a current member of the main cast and a co-head writer who has been writing for the show since 2005, Jost earns $25,000 per episode of Saturday Night Live. As he always has made regular appearances on the show, it’s safe to assume that Jost would make about $525,000 per season of Saturday Night Live, as there are 21 episodes per season per year.
This salary puts Jost high on the list of current salaries at Saturday Night Live. Even though Jost only started appearing in live sketches when he became a Weekend Update co-anchor in 2014, he’s been with the show so much longer. Jost is currently tied for second place with Kate McKinnon for the highest net worth of current cast members. McKinnon, unlike Jost, has done a wide ranging variety of impressive impressions on Saturday Night Live—Hilary Clinton, Rudi Giuliani, and Justin Bieber, to name just a few—and boasts quite a few other roles in television and film to her name. Meanwhile, Kenan Thompson, Saturday Night Live’s longest-serving cast member ever (since 2003) and all around comedic legend beats out the rest of the cast with a net worth of $9 million.
How did Colin Jost achieve a net worth of $6 million?
Jost might be earning over half a million dollars each season of Saturday Night Live, but how did he achieve his current net worth of $6 million? Jost’s primary source of wealth comes from his career as a comedian and writer. Jost’s impressive career took off when he was hired as writer for Saturday Night Live right out of Harvard. Although he has held a variety of important positions with the show, Jost has also pursued work outside of Saturday Night Live as a popular comedian and an accomplished writer. In 2018, Jost added “award-show host” to his already impressive resume,
Meanwhile, Jost’s fiancé, American actress Scarlet Johansson, is worth an estimated $165 million, leaving some dedicated (or nosy) fans to point out the difference in their paychecks. But that’s neither here nor there. In fact, given the overall twist in average income that follows gender lines in the United States—women, on average, earn the equivalent of abou 80 percent of men’s earnings even while more women attend college and earn degrees—it’s refreshing to see a Hollywood couple where the lady earns more than her male counterpart.
In the end, Jost has accumulated his net worth of $6 million over the years at Saturday Night Live and other significant gigs, many of which certainly led to further fame and fortune. Now-a-days, Jost is best known for the Weekend Update segment. The comedian reportedly paid over $2 million for his fancy 2600 square foot house in the Hamptons. Not too shabby.
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