Lorne Michaels says he’s feeling “pressure to reinvent this season” after the show’s landmark 50th year.
Saturday Night Live Season 50 Cast. (Top row l-r) Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim, Devon Walker, Chloe Fineman, Jane Wickline, Ashley Padilla, Andrew Dismukes; (bottom row l-r) Michael Che, Colin Jost, Marcello Hernández, Heidi Gardner, Mikey Day, Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang, James Austin Johnson.
Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC via Getty Images
Ahead of the season 51 premiere of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 4, Lorne Michaels confirmed in an interview that a few familiar faces will not return to the cast this fall — and those exits are starting to be announced one by one.
When asked by Puck in an interview published Aug. 22 if he planned to “shake things up” for the 2025-26 season, the SNL creator and producer replied, “Yes,” adding that he was feeling the “pressure to reinvent this season” after mostly keeping the cast intact from season 49 into the show’s landmark 50th year.
“I wanted people coming back and being part of [the 50th season],” Michaels told Puck. “So when Kate [McKinnon] hosted, Kristen [Wiig] and Maya [Rudolph] came back for it. And that meant there couldn’t be those kind of disruptions or anything that was going to take the focus off [the 50th season].”
The 2024-25 season 50 cast included 17 people in total: 14 full-time cast members and three featured players. The longest-running cast members on Saturday Night Live are led by Kenan Thompson, who started on the show in 2003 and holds the record for the longest-tenured SNL castmate of all time. Other vets in the mix: Weekend Update co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che, who both joined the cast in 2014; Mikey Day (2016); Ego Nwodim (2018); and Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang (both 2019). So far, the longest-running cast member announced to exit is Heidi Gardner, who joined the show in 2017 and has spent eight seasons on the cast.
So who won’t be back when the sketch comedy show returns to Studio 8H in October? And who is joining the cast this season? Below, find the full list of cast members exiting and joining Saturday Night Live ahead of season 51.
Leaving: Devon Walker
Image Credit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic Devon Walker joined the cast in 2022 as a featured player for season 48. He was promoted to a full-time cast member for his third and final season on the cast.
On Aug. 26, Walker confirmed his exit from the show with an Instagram post captioned “me and baby broke up.”
He expounded on his exit in a note posted to Instagram with the cheeky title “wait..did he quit or did he get fired?,” writing in part: “To me, jobs in this industry feel like a bunch of little marriages. Some of em last for a long time if we’re lucky, but most of them are fleeting. Permanent until they’re not. That’s the deal. You know what it is it when you sign up. Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really cool. Sometimes it was toxic as hell. But we did what we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction. We made a f‑‑‑ed up lil family.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DNy1KhpUog4
Leaving: Emil Wakim
Image Credit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic Emil Wakim was one of three featured players added for season 50 (alongside Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline), so he only spent one season as part of the SNL cast.
Wakim announced the news Aug. 27 on Instagram, writing in part: “i won’t be returning to snl next year. it was a gut punch of a call to get but i’m so grateful for my time there. i was at six flags celebrating my friends 36th birthday and went on a really emotional walk through bugs bunny park and stared out across daffy duck lake thinking about life. every time i scanned into the building i would think how insane it is to get to work there. it was the most terrifying, thrilling, and rewarding experience of my life and i will miss it dearly and all the brilliant people that work there that made it feel like a home. thank u to lorne for taking a chance on me and changing my life.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DN3LdLZWqPk
Leaving: Michael Longfellow
Image Credit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic Michael Longfellow joined the cast in 2022 for season 48 as a featured player and was promoted to the cast for season 50 — his final year on the show.
Deadline broke the news on Aug. 28, and Longfellow followed with an Instagram post, writing in part: “Will not be returning for a 4th season at SNL. Wish I was but, so it goes. It was the best three years of my life so far. I feel nothing but gratitude for the experience and everyone there. Lorne, you gave me the greatest job in the world and changed my life. You even put my mom on TV. Thank you doesnt begin to cover it, but thank you.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DN6phpQEdAu
Leaving: Heidi Gardner
Image Credit: Todd Williamson/NBC via Getty Images Heidi Gardner is the longest-running cast member to exit so far, joining the show in 2017 as a featured player on season 43. She was promoted to full-time cast two years later, in 2019, spending eight seasons on the show.
Like Longfellow, the news of Gardner’s exit did not come from the comic herself: Vulture was the first to report the news on Aug. 28.
Joining: Ben Marshall
Image Credit: Andrew Thomas Ben Marshall, a comic from Savannah, Georgia, is part of the longtime Saturday Night Live writing trio Please Don’t Destroy, but this will mark his first season in the cast.
This will also be the first season without all three members of Please Don’t Destroy as part of the show: John Higgins is leaving SNL, while Martin Herlihy is staying on as a writer. The trio has been behind some of the most viral Saturday Night Live videos of the past few years, including the “Three Sad Virgins” music video with Pete Davidson and featuring vocals from Taylor Swift.
Joining: Tommy Brennan
Image Credit: Liam James Doyle Tommy Brennan, a comic from Saint Paul, Minnesota, has performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and was named Just for Laughs New Face of Comedy in 2023.
Joining: Jeremy Culhane
Image Credit: Ellyn Jameson Jeremy Culhane, a comic from Altadena, California, is a regular on Dropout TV, performs at L.A.’s Upright Citizen Brigade Theater, and is known for his viral TikTok videos.
Joining: Kam Patterson
Image Credit: Jim Cambridge Kam Patterson, a comic from Orlando, Florida, is a regular on the live comedy podcast Kill Tony hosted by Tony Hinchcliffe and can next be seen in Netflix’s 72 Hours.
Joining: Veronika Slowikowska
Image Credit: Cobey Arner Veronika Slowikowska, a Canadian comic from Barrie, Ontario, is known for her viral TikTok videos and has acted on Tires and What We Do in the Shadows.
