Watch Jake Gyllenhaal Cover “It's All Coming Back To Me Now” On SNL

It’s been 15 years since Jake Gyllenhaal hosted Saturday Night Live — and during his April 9 gig, the Ambulance star acknowledged that he’s grown up a lot in the years that followed. “It’s funny, I got this reputation for being this serious, intense, method actor, but honestly I wasn’t even that good at method acting ... I kind of forgot how to have fun,” he said. “That’s when I realized something I should have realized a long time ago: Acting is a really stupid job. It’s pretend, and it’s fun, and it should be filled with joy.” To that end, Gyllenhaal wrapped up his SNL monologue with an emotional performance of Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” and it was beautiful.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Gyllenhaal has embraced his musical chops on the Studio 8H stage — as he recalled in his monologue, he once sported “full drag” for a Dreamgirls-inspired number back in 2007 (“That was actually the least problematic thing in that episode,” he said). And even more recently, he joined John Mulaney for 2020’s “Airport Sushi” musical sketch. This time around, though, Gyllenhaal ditched the costumes and sang from the heart with help from Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim, and Cecily Strong. He even tweaked some of the ballad’s haunting lyrics for the occasion: “There were sketches I would never do again / But then, they’d always seemed right.”

Gyllenhaal went on to sing in several sketches throughout the evening — leading viewers to call for more music from the clear multihyphenate.

Fortunately, Gyllenhaal does reportedly have a musical project in the works — so the dream may not be that far off. According to The Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye, the actor is set to produce and star in a film adaptation of Broadway musical Fun Home, but more details are still TBA.