Live from New York, it\u2019s\u2026 anyone\u2019s guess heading into Season 51 of Saturday Night Live.<\/p>\n
Six weeks out from the NBC sketch series\u2019 Oct. 4 premiere, sketch series mastermind Lorne Michaels gave his first interview of the season to Puck News<\/a>\u2018 Matt Belloni, who asked: \u201cYou said last year that you wanted to hold that core cast together through the 50th. Are you now going to shake things up?\u201d<\/p>\n More from TVLine<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Michaels answered. \u201cLast season, when we were at the party of the first show, quarter of four in the morning,\u00a0Dana\u00a0[Carvey, who played\u00a0 Joe\u00a0 Biden] comes over to me and says, \u2018I don\u2019t think anyone knows you called me June 4th [to play Biden].\u2019 I wanted people coming back and being part of [the 50th season]. So when\u00a0Kate\u00a0[McKinnon] hosted,\u00a0Kristen\u00a0[Wiig] and\u00a0 Maya\u00a0 [Rudolph] came back for it. And that meant there couldn\u2019t be those kind of disruptions [to the cast], or anything that was going to take the focus off [the 50th season]. And we had an election.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut now, do you feel pressure to reinvent this season?\u201d Belloni asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, for sure,\u201d Michaels told him. \u201cIt\u2019ll be announced in a week or so.\u201d<\/p>\n Top row, L to R: Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim, Devon Walker, Chloe Fineman, Jane Wickline, Ashley Padilla & Andrew Dismukes; Bottom row, L to R: Michael Che, Colin Jost, Marcello Hern\u00e1ndez, Heidi Gardner, Mikey Day, Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang & James Austin Johnson Mary Ellen Matthews\/NBC<\/p>\n So, who\u2019s safe\u2026 and who\u2019s not? Michaels would only confirm that James Austin Johnson, heading into his third season as a repertory player (and fifth season overall), will continue to impersonate President Donald Trump this fall. That leaves the fate of 16<\/strong> cast members up in the air\u2026<\/p>\n Or 19<\/strong>, if you count Please Don\u2019t Destroy\u2026<\/p>\n Or 18<\/strong>, if you assume Kenan Thompson has tenure.<\/p>\n Of note, per LateNighter<\/a>: During Season 50, Sarah Sherman, Bowen Yang and Andrew Dismukes clocked the most screen time (excluding Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost), while featured players Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline, and Devon Walker \u2014 now in his third season \u2014 clocked the least amount of screen time (excluding PDD\u2019s Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy).<\/p>\n What follows is a list of every Season 50 cast member, arranged from least to most seasons on the show. Review the current crop of Not Ready for the Primetime Players below, then leave a comment and let us know who you would like to see back for SNL Season 51\u2026 and who you think it\u2019s time to let go.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ashley Padilla<\/p>\n One season (joined in Season 50)<\/p>\n Emil Wakim<\/p>\n One season (joined in Season 50)<\/p>\n Jane Wickline<\/p>\n One season (joined in Season 50)<\/p>\n Devon Walker<\/p>\n Three seasons (joined in Season 48)<\/p>\n Marcello Hernandez<\/p>\n Three seasons (joined in Season 48)<\/p>\n Michael Longfellow<\/p>\n Three seasons (joined in Season 48)<\/p>\n James Austin Johnson<\/p>\n Four seasons (joined in Season 47); already confirmed for Season 51<\/p>\n Sarah Sherman<\/p>\n Four seasons (joined in Season 47)<\/p>\n Ben Marshall, John Higgins & Martin Herlihy \u2014 aka Please Don\u2019t Destroy<\/p>\n Four seasons (joined in Season 47)<\/p>\n Andrew Dismukes<\/p>\n Five seasons (joined in Season 46)<\/p>\n Bowen Yang<\/p>\n Six seasons (joined in Season 45)<\/p>\n Chloe Fineman<\/p>\n Six seasons (joined in Season 45)<\/p>\n Ego Nwodim<\/p>\n Seven seasons (joined in Season 44)<\/p>\n Heidi Gardner<\/p>\n Eight seasons (joined in Season 43)<\/p>\n Mikey Day<\/p>\n Nine seasons (joined in Season 42)<\/p>\n Michael Che<\/p>\n Eleven seasons (joined in Season 40)<\/p>\n Colin Jost<\/p>\n Twelve seasons (joined in Season 39)<\/p>\n Kenan Thompson<\/p>\n Twenty-two seasons (joined in Season 29)<\/p>\n Best of TVLine<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for TVLine’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Live from New York, it\u2019s\u2026 anyone\u2019s guess heading into Season 51 of Saturday Night Live. Six weeks out from the NBC sketch series\u2019 Oct. 4 premiere, sketch series mastermind Lorne Michaels gave his first interview of the season to Puck News\u2018 Matt Belloni, who asked: \u201cYou said last year that you wanted to hold that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1975981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[352946,352943,352942,352947,352939,305353,352941,352944,352945,352940],"class_list":["post-1975980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-andrew-dismukes","tag-colin-jost","tag-devon-walker","tag-jane-wickline","tag-kenan-thompson","tag-lorne-michaels","tag-michael-che","tag-michael-longfellow","tag-mikey-day","tag-sarah-sherman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Lorne-Michaels-Teases-SNL-Cast-Exodus-Ahead-of-Season-51.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1975980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1975981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1975980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
Ashley Padilla<\/h2>\n
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Emil Wakim<\/h2>\n
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Jane Wickline<\/h2>\n
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Devon Walker<\/h2>\n
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Marcello Hernandez<\/h2>\n
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Michael Longfellow<\/h2>\n
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James Austin Johnson<\/h2>\n
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Sarah Sherman<\/h2>\n
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Ben Marshall, John Higgins & Martin Herlihy \u2014 aka Please Don\u2019t Destroy<\/h2>\n
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Andrew Dismukes<\/h2>\n
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Bowen Yang<\/h2>\n
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Chloe Fineman<\/h2>\n
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Ego Nwodim<\/h2>\n
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Heidi Gardner<\/h2>\n
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Mikey Day<\/h2>\n
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Michael Che<\/h2>\n
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Colin Jost<\/h2>\n
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Kenan Thompson<\/h2>\n
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