Saturday Night Live is coming to the end of a rather momentous season, one which included its 50th anniversary that was as star-studded as anyone could have expected.
But as the cast of the long-running NBC comedy start to prepare for the season finale on May 17, hosted by Scarlett Johansson, the rumor mill has been heating up regarding which of the cast might leave the show this summer.
Ego Nwodim, who joined the cast in 2018 for Season 44, told Deadline recently season 50 felt like “building up to a wedding”. But as a recent study highlighted, the more one spends on a wedding, the more likely the chance of divorce.
Many observers expect there to be some departures after Season 50 but few expect a full exodus, similar to the one that happened three years ago at the end of season 47, which saw the exit of eight people including Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Alex Moffat, Kyle Mooney, Chris Redd and Melissa Villasenor as well as featured player Aristotle Athari. Cecily Strong left soon after, in December 2022, halfway through season 48.
However, few cast have left since, largely, one would imagine for the chance to appear on the 50th anniversary show, which had been announced years prior. Season 49 saw the entire cast – 12 repertory players and five featured players – return, while only Punkie Johnson, Molly Kearney and Chloe Troast left ahead of season 50.
There are currently 17 people in the SNL cast: rep players Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, Marcello Hernandez, James Austin Johnson, Colin Jost, Michael Longfellow, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, Devon Walker and Bowen Yang and featured players Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline.
SNL Season 50 Cast Shot (Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC)
So, who is rumored to be leaving?
If you believe Michael Che, he is, although this is something that he seems to say every season. In February, while performing standup at the University of Rochester, he said, “This is my last season. I’m not coming back, don’t worry. I’m done, it’s over for me. It’s been so much fun. It’s a little emotional, it’s bittersweet,” per the Campus Times. He has also been posting hints on Instagram that he’s leaving, but take those with a pinch of salt because even people close to Che aren’t sure whether he’s joking or not.
Che has been co-anchor of Weekend Update since season 40 in 2014. Would he leave without his partner in joke-swapping crimes Colin Jost or vice versa? Jost joined the series in 2005 as a staff writer before getting behind the desk in March 2014.
It was clearly important that seasoned vets such as Jost and Che, who are the fourth and fifth most tenured SNL players, respectively, behind Seth Meyers, Darrell Hammond and Kenan Thompson, were on Weekend Update during the 2024 Presidential cycle, so if they are thinking of leaving, now is a pretty good time before the country starts talking about the 2026 midterms or 2028 Presidential election. The fact that Jost is married to Johansson, who is hosting the season finale, would also make such a goodbye a nice, family affair.
But the Pop Culture Jeopardy! host, who has been developing other show ideas with Michael Davies, exec producer of the Amazon gameshow, could also leave as a cast member and remain working on the show, behind-the-scenes, particularly as he’s one of the small list of SNLers who has been talked up as a potential replacement for creator Lorne Michaels, even if few expect to ever leave the show.
Then there’s the seven-year itch. For most people, this is when they start thinking about moving jobs. For cast members on SNL, that’s the length of their initial contract, although the show has to pick up their option each year.
Obviously, Che and Jost (as well as Thompson, who has become part of the furniture at Studio 8H, although who knows, may shock us one year), have long sailed past that timeframe. But there are others who have gone past it too.
Heidi Gardner, who has been on the show for eight seasons, having joined in season 43, and Mikey Day, who has been on the show for nine seasons having been named a cast member in season 42, after being a writer for three seasons, are two of the main ones.
When asked by Deadline whether he would return for season 51, Day said, “Who knows what the future will bring?”. But Day is close friends with Streeter Seidell, one of the shows head writers – the pair have co-written sketches such as David S. Pumpkins and Nate Bargatze’s Washington’s Dream – meaning he may find it tough to leave without his writing partner.
Gardner, meanwhile, has admitted that things have gotten a “little tough”. Speaking to comedian Craig Ferguson, who used to host The Late Late Show, on his podcast Joy, she said, “I will say the only thing that I’ve started to feel a little bit is just sketch fatigue, or idea fatigue,” she admitted. “At this point, after doing Groundlings and SNL for so long, I’m like, ‘I’ve written a lot of sketches.’”
The Shrinking star, who has been in talks over various other scripted roles recently, also stoked rumors on social media, when she revealed that the cast of the show, as well as a number of writers, had been on a “retreat” in Tarrytown, which is in upstate New York, next to Sleepy Hollow, ahead of the season finale. “My heart is so full being with this vibrant family of mine. The things we do remind me of the fun of the past. The things we experience together keep me present and watching each person be their authentic self makes me so hopeful for the future,” she wrote on Instagram.
It’s hardly confirmation of her exit, but one could certainly read it as a goodbye.
Ego Nwodim and Chloe Fineman (Caro Scarimbolo/NBC)
Then, there’s Ego Nwodim, who is wrapping up her seventh season on the show, having joined in season 44. Nwodim, who has been in the top five of screen time this season, behind Yang, Dismukes, Sherman and Jost, per the Saturday Night Network, feels like she’s just hitting her stride.
But when asked whether she would return for season 51, she told Deadline, “We like to keep things mysterious around here. That’s part of the allure of SNL, we don’t know what’s going to happen week to week, let alone in the fall, so who knows.”
Elsewhere, Chloe Fineman is finishing up her sixth season, having joined in season 45. Fineman, who has had the lowest screentime of any of the rep players, other than Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker, has been on a tear recently booking some high-profile jobs outside of SNL world, starring as a stripper in Hulu movie Summer of 69, which comes out May 9, as well as roles in the Freakier Friday sequel, alongside former colleague Vanessa Bayer, Love Language, a rom-com from Joey Powers and pickleball comedy The Dink. She was also in Francis Ford Coppola’s 2024 film Megalopolis. However, Lorne Michaels has opened the door to his stars appearing in more non-SNL projects over the last few years.
Talking of movie stars, Bowen Yang has become a breakout star in the last few years. Yang, who also joined the SNL cast in season 45, starred alongside Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked, is in Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet, a remake of the Ang Lee film and is among the voice cast for the Dr. Seuss adaptation The Cat In The Hat. There’s also a potential Fire Island sequel in the works, while Las Culturistas, the podcast he hosts with Matt Rogers, is growing, with Bravo set to air its upcoming awards show.
Yang recently admitted that he was preparing for life after SNL. “SNL, it’s just this moving, living, breathing thing,” he told People. “Especially after the 50th, I’m seeing what life after the show is like and how beautiful it is, and how so many people, no matter how long they were at the show, are just with their families and loving their lives and not letting the years take away any of that experience for them. And then with SNL… new people come in and you do have to sort of make way for them and to grow and to keep elevating themselves. That inevitably requires me to sort of hang it up at some point — but I don’t know what the vision is yet.”
There are obviously a number of rising stars who show no sign of leaving. James Austin Johnson, who joined in season 47, has become a key member thanks to his impression of President Trump; Andrew Dismukes, who joined the cast in season 46, is one of the most used players on the show; Marcello Hernandez, who joined in season 48, has become a breakout star, in part thanks to his character Domingo, a favorite of Sabrina Carpenter, and Sarah Sherman has had the third most screen time behind Yang and Dismukes this season.
Michael Longfellow and Colin Jost (Will Heath/NBC)
If Jost and Che leave Weekend Update, Michael Longfellow has a strong chance of replacing them as one of the anchors. He appeared on Weekend Update on his first ever show and is a regular on the segment even if last weekend he joked that he hasn’t been on the show much this season. “I work like 12 hours a week. When you love your job, it never feels like work. No, I’m just not in that much stuff this season. It’s fine, I walk around, they don’t really keep tabs on your whereabouts here,” he joked on last week’s Weekend Update alongside Jost.
There’s always a question mark when it comes to new featured players. This season, Ashley Padilla, formerly of The Groundlings, standup Emil Wakim, and TikTok star Jane Wickline joined. Padilla has had more screentime this season than Wakim and Wickline, per Saturday Night Network’s stats guru Mike Murray, and is widely liked within the vaunted halls of 30 Rock, but she was also the only cast member who did not appear in a sketch for SNL50.
Wakim has had his up and down weeks but Wickline has appeared less than any other cast member apart from Devon Walker. Wickline, however, has over 1M followers on TikTok, so she may appeal to a younger audience that may not be as familiar with the show.
What about Lorne? In 2021, he told CBS Mornings’ Gayle King that the 50th anniversary would be a “really good time to leave”. However, he has walked that back. In September, he said there was “no immediate plan” to step down and that “as long as I can keep doing it, I’ll keep doing it”. The 80-year old Canadian does not appear to be going anywhere. While 50 was a lovely nice, round number to end on, remember Michaels has only been in charge of 45 of these seasons, so he may want to do 50 seasons himself (or any other excuse not to leave).
Seth Meyers called Michaels’ retirement a “false narrative”. “I think it made sense for Lorne — who’s got a flair for the dramatic — to say, ‘I think I’ll be done at 50’. It’s not like Lorne’s got something else he wants to do more than this,” the late-night host said last March.
Tom Broecker, a producer and costume designer, who has worked on SNL since 1994, told Deadline that whatever happens in the future, there’s “always forward motion”.
“We never look back. We’re always pressing to see what the next thing is, and that’s how the show is done, and that’s how the show is created,” he added.
As we head closer to the May 17 season finale, with Johansson and musical guest Bad Bunny, we’ll soon see who’s got a tear in their eye at the end of curtain call.
