Saturday Night Live TV Show • Page 700

Lorne gave an interview with Matt Belloni of Puck News

https://archive.ph/2025.08.22-05024...-michaels-on-colbert-trump-the-future-of-snl/

“You said last year that you wanted to hold that core cast together through the 50th. Are you now going to shake things up?
Yes. Last season, when we were at the party of the first show, quarter of four in the morning, Dana [Carvey, who played Joe Biden] comes over to me and says, “I don’t think anyone knows you called me June 4th [to play Biden].” I wanted people coming back and being part of [the 50th season]. 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 [to the cast], or anything that was going to take the focus off [the 50th season]. And we had an election.

But now, do you feel pressure to reinvent this season?
Yeah, for sure. It’ll be announced in a week or so.

Are you sticking with James Austin Johnson as Trump?
Yes.”

 

a week or 2.... lets hope t just a week.

 

So the remaining long tenured pre-2020 cast members that could be on the chopping block

Kenan (2003)
Che and Jost (2014)
Mikey Day (2016)
Heidi Gardner (2017)
Ego Nwodim (2018)
Chloe Fineman (2019)
Bowen Yang (2019)

 

I don't see Marcello or Sherman going anywhere at least. I would be shocked if they left now. I feel like they have been being prepped by Lorne to be the headline cast members to carry the show after Bowen leaves.

 

You mean for the end of the season? They aren’t firing anyone now

 

It's pretty clear from reading that article that he's confirming cast departures will happen ahead of season 51 and it's going to be announced in a few weeks. The Entertainment Weekly headline right now is literally "Lorne Michaels confirms castmembers will leave before season 51"

Maybe that isn't how it's normally done, but I think it being the 50th kinda changed things. I don't think he wanted a huge confirmed cast departure at the end of the season to sour the celebratory vibe he was going for so he held it off.

 

That’s dumb unless and Che and Jost

 

If he feels pressure to reinvent things like he says in the article, a WU anchor switchup certainly would be a start.

 

They screen tested a new Update duo

Scoop: SNL Screen-Tested New ‘Weekend Update’ Anchors - LateNighter

Michael Longfellow and writer KC Shornima

 

Seeing please don’t destroy tonight

 

It'd be Sarah Squirm on update if they weren't cowards

 

I think they need Sarah more sketches than WU.

 

They should return to a lone anchor. It should be Longfellow by himself.

 

Absolutely no problem if they’re shaking up the WU desk

 

WU change and Kenan leaving would be the two biggest cast changes they could make.

 

I'm tired of seeing two pretty misogynistic dudes up there.

 

I think Lorne specifically mentioning the election year aspect being one of the motives behind not making any big changes for season 50 feels like a pretty clear indicator that WU is about to change

 

damn

 

I’m in the camp where I wish Keenan would be named Lorne’s successor

 

Dammit I still thought he had tons of potential especially with his Eric Adams impression and the mayors race coming up.

 

Of the new-ish cast members, I’d love to see Marcello, Longfellow, Andrew, and Ashley stay. They have to keep JAJ right because of Trump?

 

Feel like Devon never really got a shot at it. He seemed like they were trying to fill the Pete Davidson/Chris Redd-type slot and didn’t really let him do either one.