'SNL' kicks off 50th season with Jean Smart, Jelly Roll

(NBC) — "Saturday Night Live" is celebrating its 50th season, starting this weekend and a recent Emmy winner will be hosting for the first time.

Forty-nine seasons of "SNL" hosts have come through the doors of the historic Studio 8H, and the first one to come through for Season 50 is Jean Smart.

“I was kind of stunned and incredibly flattered,” Smart said.

The six-time Emmy winner, who co-starred for seven seasons on "Designing Women," just won her third straight Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy.

“I appreciate this because I don't get enough attention,” Smart said in her Emmy acceptance speech for her role as legendary comedian Deborah Vance in HBO Max’s "Hacks."

“One thing I’m really pleased about is men love ["Hacks'] as much as women seem to love the show, so I was very pleased about that because I wasn’t sure,” Smart said.

But going live from New York is much different from filming "Hacks," even for a stage veteran like Smart.

“If you think about it too much, you’ll get freaked out a little bit too much,” she said.

On Wednesday, Smart and cast members participated in a rapid-fire first read of 39 potential sketches for Saturday’s premiere.

“I had to just kind of guess what was going on in the script,” Smart said. “It was great, and then they narrow it down to about 10 or 12, and then it’ll be narrowed down even more by Saturday.”

The show’s milestone season will finally begin on Saturday.

“It’s like being shot from a cannon,” Smart said. “It’s a crazy process. I don’t know how they do it, over and over and over."

For 50 years.

"Saturday Night Live" premieres this weekend at 11:30 p.m. on NBC4 with Jelly Roll as the musical guest. Next week, Nate Bargatze will host, followed by Michael Keaton, Ariana Grande, and John Mulaney in the coming weeks.