Lorne Michaels has completed his shakeup of Saturday Night Live, at least for the start of season 51, which will kick off Oct. 4.
The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that a number of veteran SNL stars will return for the new season, including the show’s longest tenured cast member Kenan Thompson, as well as Chloe Fineman, Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Mikey Day and Michael Che, who will return to the Weekend Update desk alongside Colin Jost.
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They will join Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernandez, James Austin Johnson, Sarah Sherman, Ashley Padilla, and Jane Wickline in the cast, alongside five new faces (well, four new faces, and one familiar face): Ben Marshall, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska.
Marshall, of course, is a member of the comedy troupe Please Don’t Destroy, whose taped sketches have been a fixture of SNL since they joined in 2021. Please Don’t Destroy will still work together outside of the show, but the sketches will end, with John Higgins exiting the show and Martin Herlihy continuing on as a writer.
The shakeup at SNL comes after the show lost some boldface names this summer, including the versatile Heidi Gardner, Devon Walker, Emil Wakim and Michael Longfellow.
As THR has noted, however, cast shakeups are an annual tradition for the show, with Michaels always seeking to add new names and swap out some existing cast members, though some years are more dramatic than others.
With the show’s 50th anniversary behind it, Michaels and the creative team will now be looking forward, and thankfully for fans of the show, it seems many of its biggest stars will still be there to keep the momentum going. That said, some cast members do sometimes leave or announce their looming exits mid-season, allowing for an on-air tribute.
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