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"I would give that zero stars," Reese Witherspoon said of her first time hosting Saturday Night Live. "Do not recommend."

For context - Witherspoon isn't just unhappy about a few sketches that fell flat or, I don't know, getting caught lipsyncing during the musical guest portion of the show. The Legally Blonde actor (and national treasure) doesn't have fond memories regarding her first hosting gig because not only was she pretty much pressured into doing it, but also because of when it happened - that is, the Saturday after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Speaking to Dax Shepherd on his podcast Armchair Expert, Witherspoon recounted the experience she had at 30 Rock as "just too much responsibility for a 24-year-old girl." Yes, Witherspoon was only 24 years old at the time of the taping, and even more stressful than that, was getting begged to do the show by its longtime producer, Lorne Michaels.

"Lorne Michaels called me," Witherspoon recalled, "And he said, 'I really need you to show up. I really, really need this. Rudy Giuliani’s gonna be here. All the firefighters are gonna be here. Paul Simon is gonna sing. I just need you to come out and do something a little light and tell America, ‘You can’t feel sad. We gotta laugh again. We’ve got to get back the national spirit''."

Such a watershed piece of television is obviously an important moment on a national, if not global, scale, but Witherspoon was also going through a lot of personally vital moments at the time. She was not only dealing with having the biggest film of the summer and the fickle fame that comes with it, she had a one-year-old baby to take care of when she got home.

Of course, Witherspoon's constant professionalism carried her through the episode, which not only delivered on everything Lorne Michaels said it would, but also introduced the world's SNL fans to two comedians named Amy Poehler and Seth Myers. Looking back, Witherspoon said that she "completely left my body" as the episode was filming, and it would be another decade and a half until she returned to the famous SNL stage. But for all that pressure and, Witherspoon still felt she and the cast played a good game with the hand they were dealt.

"We did it," the Morning Show star told Shepherd, "And it was good."

Laugh along with Popverse's list of the Best Saturday Night Live sketches.