Lorne Michaels Promises SNL Fans ‘Change Is Good’
Lorne Michaels doesn’t want Saturday Night Live fans to be too torn up about the cast changes for the 51st season of the show. “The show has always brought people in from different ages and different generations, and it has to,” he told Entertainment Tonight on the Emmys red carpet on September 14. “It’s how it revives itself.” In other words, SNL is constantly molting, and that means that sometimes it sheds a cast member or two (or, in this year’s case, five). The upcoming season, which premieres October 4, will have to go without season 50 cast members Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim, and Devon Walker. “It’s always hard when people leave, but there’s a time for that,” he said. “Our audience has always stayed relatively young, and more so now with TikTok.”
SNL added five new cast members as featured players, all of whom occupy different areas of modern comedy: There’s TikTok sketch comedian Veronika Slowikowska, Kill Tony regular Kam Patterson, stand-up Tommy Brennan, Dropout star Jeremy Culhane, and Ben Marshall, whose group Please Don’t Destroy made SNL video shorts from 2021 to 2025. That’s a one in, one out policy. “Change is good,” Michaels promised. “The people we’re bringing in I’m really excited about.” But can these cast members sing “Espresso” off-key at a wedding reception?
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