<\/p>\n
Fifty years ago, Lorne Michaels<\/strong> didn\u2019t believe in firing people, according to original Saturday Night Live cast member Laraine Newman<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> in a September 2025 interview, the SNL OG reflected on the showrunner’s attitude in the early days of the NBC sketch comedy series.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the time when Lorne didn\u2019t fire people,\u201d Newman, 73, said. \u201cFor better or for worse, he was very clear that he did not believe in firing people. That stood for a while, and then that changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Newman was one of the original stars on Saturday Night Live when it made its debut on Oct. 11, 1975. The original \u201cNot Ready for Prime Time Players\u201d also included John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, <\/strong>and more.<\/p>\n Newman left SNL in 1980 after five seasons, along with Radner, Curtin, Morris, and Bill Murray, amid stalled contract negotiations. At the time, Michaels also quit the show, but he returned to the helm in 1985, per Ultimate Classic Rock<\/a>.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac <\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a> \ud83c\udfac <\/strong><\/p>\n In the many decades since, summertime exits have become a theme for SNL. Ahead of Season 51, multiple cast members were not asked back, including Emil Wakim, Michael Longfellow<\/strong>, and veteran star Heidi Gardner<\/strong>.<\/p>\n An insider told The celebrity.land<\/a>that Gardner\u2019s contract was not renewed after eight seasons. \u201cIt\u2019s time for a new cast,\u201d the source told the outlet.<\/p>\n In an interview with <\/a>Puck<\/a>last month, Michaels confirmed that after keeping the core cast together for the show\u2019s milestone 50th season, it felt time to reinvent SNL for Season 51. \u201cI wanted people coming back and being part of [the 50th season],\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd 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]. \u201c<\/p>\n As for Season 51\u2019s departing cast members, Newman told THR she was especially sad to see Longfellow go, noting she was sure he would find success in whatever he does next. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve noticed about [former SNL] people is, they always thrive. Michaela Watkins had one season. There are so many people [like] that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Sep 12, 2025, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/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":" Fifty years ago, Lorne Michaels didn\u2019t believe in firing people, according to original Saturday Night Live cast member Laraine Newman. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter in a September 2025 interview, the SNL OG reflected on the showrunner’s attitude in the early days of the NBC sketch comedy series. \u201cThat was the time when Lorne didn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2019267,"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":[370830,364702,350658,350659,305353,352944,22335,31190],"class_list":["post-2019266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-garrett-morris","tag-gilda-radner","tag-jane-curtin","tag-laraine-newman","tag-lorne-michaels","tag-michael-longfellow","tag-snl","tag-the-hollywood-reporter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Original-\u2018SNL-Cast-Member-Says-Lorne-Michaels-Never-Used-to.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019266","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=2019266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2019267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2019266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2019266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2019266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}