Lorne Michaels Breaks Silence on Huge ‘SNL’ Cast Shakeup

Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels finally addressed the shock exits of some of the show’s cast members earlier this month.

“The show has always brought people in from new, different ages and different generations, and it has to it’s how it revives itself,” Michaels told Entertainment Tonight on the Emmys red carpet Sunday night. “It’s always hard when people leave, but there’s a time for that.”

After the exits of Devon Walker, Emil Wakim, Michael Longfellow, and Heidi Garnder, the show announced new players Ben Marshall (of sketch group Please Don’t Destroy), Veronika Slowikowska, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, and Kill Tony protegé Kam Patterson.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — Episode 1870 — Pictured: (l-r) Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, Heidi Gardner, Marcello Hernández, and Sarah Sherman during the

Recurring cast member Chloe Fineman told Extra on Friday that she was surprised by how “young” the new players are. “When I saw how young the new cast was, I immediately got a laser,” the 37-year-old said, joking that she might consider a “forever-35 facelift.”

Michaels addressed the youth of his new cast members to ET Sunday, saying, “Our audience always stayed relatively young, and more so now with TikTok. Change is good and the people we’re bringing in, I’m really excited about.”

While Gardner’s exit was particularly jarring after eight seasons on the show amid reports that her contract was not renewed, the departure of Ego Nwodim also shook the show’s fans. Nwodim announced her departure Friday after the next season’s cast was already confirmed—and she’d been named as a returning member.

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Other major stars in the show’s cast like Kenan Thompson, Bowen Yang, Chloe Fineman, Mikey Day, Sarah Sherman, and Marcello Hernández are all expected to return when SNL premieres its 51st season on Oct. 4.

After accepting SNL‘s Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) from Tina Fey, Michaels, who’s publicly toyed with the idea of retiring from the show, said, “I won this award for the first time 50 years ago, in 1975. I was younger and I had a lot of dreams about what would happen, and not one of those dreams was that I would still be doing the same show for the next 50 years.”