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Lorne Michaels Just Explained The Thinking Behind His Big 'Saturday Night Live' Cast Shakeup
Five members of the 50th season cast are departing and five new featured players are being added.
Over the summer, the departures of Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim, Devon Walker, and most recently Ego Nwodim became the largest cast turnover since 2022, when eight performers left.
Attending the Emmy Awards on Sunday, where the "SNL50" special picked up another statuette for Michaels' collection, the show's executive producer addressed the most recent cast shakeup.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
Michaels told Entertainment Tonight on the red carpet:
"The show has always brought people in from different ages and different generations and it’s how it revives itself."
"It’s always hard when people leave, but there’s a time for that and our audience has always stayed relatively young, and more so now with TikTok."
"Change is good. The people we’re bringing in, I’m really excited about."
SNL newbies are aghast, but people familiar with the show aren't surprised when cast changes are announced.
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Cast changes after every season have been a hallmark of SNL over the past 50 years.
Some performers left for film or other television work, which had gutted the original cast by 1980 when the last four original Not Ready for Prime Time Players—Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner (along with season two addition Bill Murray)—all left the show.
Others fell victim to budget cuts, just weren't a good fit for the show, or were casualties of the decision to regroup and rebrand again, and they exited SNL earlier than they wanted.
In the Michaels' biography, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, Susan Morrison wrote:
"The cryptic hiring protocols extend to staying hired. Cast and writers are supposed to be notified by July about whether they are being asked back. (Michaels has a rule about not making big decisions in June, when he is sick of everyone, and exhausted.)"
"That date often slips by, with people not knowing their fates until Labor Day, a month before the season premiere."
The season 11 premiere in 1985 saw an entirely new cast, but the next season began with most of that cast pruned.
Among those let go in 1986 were Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Terry Sweeney—the show's first openly LGBTQ+ cast member, and Damon Wayans. Clearly there's life, and a career, after getting the SNL axe.
Since SNL's debut in 1975, there have been 172 cast members.
Considering the internet and apps didn't exist when the show premiered, casting has evolved over time as well. The new additions for season 51—Ben Marshall, Tommy Brennan, Kam Patterson, Veronika Slowikowska, and Jeremy Culhane—are from the SNL writers room, the stand-up stage, and... TikTok.
Most Read
People Reveal The Pettiest Reasons They Stopped Hooking Up With Someone
Sometimes we stay with the wrong partner way too long because the sex was just that good.
However, when it's over... IT'S OVER!!!
No matter the reason, you may have to run.
I have. That's why my calves are great.
Some reasons to run are big, others small; just understand why you're heading out.
Redditor muriuki_ wanted to hear about why people so quickly ended sexy time with others, so they asked:
"What’s the pettiest reason you stopped hooking up with someone?"
Viewings
"She got mad that I never viewed her stories."
"I barely used Instagram, not even on it anymore, not my thing."
- Vivid_Potato_6544
Proud Katrina Kaif GIF by Priya Giphy
The Slug
"So he wasn’t a horrible kisser, but… kissing him was horrible… his tongue had such a strange texture… like a large slick slug… I almost can’t explain it. I’ve kissed my share of people, and I’ve never experienced that before. I couldn’t handle it and started avoiding kissing him, and I remember at one point he angrily said, 'I thought you said you love kissing!!!' Had to end it…"
- dreamingmuse
Damn Taco Bell
"Bro farted like f**king constantly. My mom told me when I was really young that she once broke up with someone because he farted a lot. I thought it was ludicrous and surely an overdramatic reaction. Absolutely not, Mom knew. Seriously though, dude ate Taco Bell for every go**amn meal and proceeded to s**t his pants all day basically."
- ForsakenFactor4913
Second Date
"A girl I dated briefly… she was super cute, but on our first date, she talked about shoes for 3 hours. We hooked up, and I think that was the only time she didn’t mention anything about shoes."
"I thought she was nervous, so I booked our second date. 15 minutes into our date, she began talking about how amazing the shoes someone had in front of me were. I turned around and told her things weren’t going to work out. Never looked back."
- rodrigoelp
She's Gone
"She got mad when I got into a car accident and ended up in the hospital while on the way to her house. I had emergency surgery and woke up to some crazy a** texts. Never saw her again, darn… lmao."
- Xplosionsauce13
"I once had a FWB ghost me out of nowhere. I think I sent him a text like 'What are you doing this weekend?' after not hearing from him for a bit, then let it be. Turned out someone had hit him on his motorcycle, and he broke his leg in a few places. He texted me a month later, and we hung out again. That's a wild reaction to the situation."
- casstantinople
All. The. Time.
"She had this silly, oversized beret that I thought was an occasional fashion choice, but it turned out to be a personality piece she wore all. the. time."
- t33znuts
Holding the Audience
"He once interrupted me at a party of his friends while I was telling a story, totally holding the audience... and he apologized for me being a little weird."
- Creative-Pressure482
"I was once with a small group of friends and my date. We were walking around an exhibit, and I had bought a plant. A friend asked me a question, and I went to point and knocked my plant down; my date just wouldn’t let it go. Hounded me about being clumsy the rest of the time, making it so awkward."
- Collector-of-Dragons
BLAH
"He always peed on my toilet and around it !!!!!! I was so mad, finally I showed him like WTF !!!! I made him clean it and now he is just somebody I used to know… blah."
- Fatale_Morale
"One of my exes did the same thing. Peeing all around - floor, wall, toilet lid. Every night, I stepped into it with my bare feet. I was furious, I begged, I politely asked, I showed him how to check it after use, and clean it. Once time I resigned and stopped clean. After two weeks, our toilet smelled like a public toilet, and on the wall was a yellow crust. I left him for different reasons, but sometimes I still remember this and still hate it."
- Life_Bit_4298
Whatever
"I was so unbelievably tired, all I wanted to do in the morning was sleep in. But he kept calling and pestering me at like 7 am to meet his parents. So I texted him that it's over, turned my phone off, and went back to sleep."
"No regrets."
- Uninspired_Hat
Silly...
"I got a new phone and was shopping for a case. I wanted to get a silly one (It had Carlton from Fresh Prince doing his dance). She saw it and said I should get something sensible. I realized I was dating someone who didn't share my sense of whimsy and fun. I broke up with her the next day."
- HiThisIsMichael
The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air Reaction GIF Giphy
The Insult
"She called me, saying she had made me some cookies and wanted to drop them off. When she dropped them off, they were store-bought cookies on a plate to look homemade. I hinted that I knew they were from a particular store, and she doubled down on the lie."
"I couldn't get over the insult to my intelligence. I cooked for a living!"
- Daddy_vibez
EWWW...
"Baby talk. I hate baby talk. I'm an adult; speak to me like an adult. If we're in the moment, the last thing I ever want to hear is the infantilization. Ew. I absolutely love redheads, and she was possibly the hottest one I had ever been with. Still, baby talk. I cannot do baby talk."
- ChavoDemierda
A Shell
"She told me a story of how she was at the beach with her family and found a conch shell in the water. She saw it was occupied and decided she wanted the shell more than its occupant, so she proceeded to kill the conch. I was so disgusted by this story that I left, and we never talked again. Btw, she was in her 20s and it wasn't some little kid who doesn't know any better situation."
- firepitt
Give me Fruit
"He had an exaggerated aversion to vegetables that resulted in him getting gout. Even after how bad his gout was, he never bothered to change his diet. In an attempt to help, I prepared a soup for him that had onion in it. He was so disgusted, and didn’t bother to eat it or say thank you. That was the final straw for me, I broke up with him that same evening... lol."
- esfernyy
Psycho
“'She eats her peas… one at a time.'"
- Burghpuppies412
Happy Vegetables GIF by PlayKids Giphy
Let people enjoy their peas.
And never lie about cookies.
Good lord... they're not that hard to bake.