Saturday Night Live’s splashy 50th season has officially come to an end, which means it will likely be the end of the road for some of SNL’s most bel
Saturday Night Live’s splashy 50th season has officially come to an end, which means it will likely be the end of the road for some of SNL’s most beloved cast members. The jam-packed season unfolded during a presidential election and included a livestreamed concert at Radio City, as well as the star-studded SNL50 event that saw celebrities and former cast members returning to studio 8H. While no cast members have officially announced their departure since the season finale of SNL, hosted by Scarlett Johannson on May 17, it wouldn’t be a shock if some major names decided to leave Lorne Michaels’s late-night sketch show after this momentous year.
Especially given what Kenan Thompson recently told Page Six. SNL’s longest-running cast member described the ending of season 50 as “bittersweet” and delicately hinted that the cast may look a bit different when SNL returns in the fall.
“Especially this year,” he said, “it feels like there’s maybe, possibly, a lot of change next year. You want everyone to stay forever, knowing that people may be making decisions this summer…it’s always like you want your kids to stay young.”
The show’s cast is arguably somewhat due for a shake-up. Most of its current members—12 repertory players and 5 featured players—have been with the show since season 49. Ahead of season 50, the show only cut three people—full-time cast-member Punkie Johnson as well as featured players Molly Kearney and Chloe Troast—and replaced them with three newbies: Jane Wickline, Emil Wakim, and Ashley Padilla. So, now that season 50 is all said and done, which of the seventeen current cast members might be packing up their wigs and joke books? Here are a few theories.
Bowen Yang
After this year’s season finale, the internet was abuzz with rumors that Yang would leave the show. The SNL standout seemed conspicuously emotional during the cast goodbyes as the credits rolled. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Yang said he “was just processing that being one of the last ‘last nights’ that I would have, and that is a huge thing.” But when asked directly, he wouldn’t say whether he will return for Season 51 or not.
Yang has been performing on SNL for six seasons, and began as a writer even earlier, in 2018. Those familiar with the inner workings of SNL knows that Michaels allegedly locks each member of his cast into seven year contracts, before giving them the chance to renegotiate or walk away. At six seasons as a cast member and one as a writer, Yang is bumping up against that seven year mark.
And he may have a seve-year itch as well. Yang is one of the busiest cast members outside of Studio 8H: he’s got a bustling film career with major roles in The Wedding Banquet and the Wicked films. He’s also one half of the IHeart Award-winning podcast Las Culturistas, which Yang hosts with his best friend Matt Rogers. The podcast is so popular that its affiliated award show, “The Culture Awards,” is airing live on Bravo this August.
Yang has spoken at length about the toll his many professional obligations have taken on his health, saying he went through a “rough patch” and “bad bouts of depersonalization” during his tenure on SNL. On the brighter side, Yang has earned four acting Emmy nominations for his work on the show—making him the only current cast member to earn an individual nod—and has more than his fair share of iconic sketches under his belt. (We all remember where we were when the Titanic Iceberg dropped.) Having basically hit the seven-year mark and made an indelible mark on the program, it might be time for him to spread his wings and fly away.
Yang has apparently at least considered the prospect. “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.”
Chloe Fineman
The reigning queen of impressions, Fineman has been getting laughs as Timothée Chalamet, Jennifer Coolidge, Drew Barrymore and many others in Studio 8H for six seasons. But while she’s certainly made an impression on SNL, according to a few sets of expert calculations, Fineman has recently gotten less screen time than other SNL vets. (Per Variety, the five with the most screen time this season were Bowen Yang, Andrew Dismukes, Sarah Sherman, Colin Jost, and Ego Nwodim). Part of this could be blamed on Fineman coming down with Covid as a result of SNL 50, and having to miss a week of taping. But that doesn’t explain her not appearing on the show’s more recent Walton Goggins episode. Are Fineman and her many public personas ready to walk out the door?
Like Yang, with whom she joined the cast in 2019, Fineman has also found work outside the confines of NBC. She recently starred as a stripper in the Hulu movie Summer of 69, and has a role in the Freakier Friday sequel, starring Lindsay Lohan, whom she just interviewed for Elle. Fineman is also set to star in Love Language, a rom-com from Joey Powers, and pickleball comedy The Dink. And who could forget (and, honestly, who could blame her) for making a foray into prestige cinema with Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. This winter, Fineman also starred in the Broadway show All In with SNL alumni John Mulaney and Aidy Bryant.
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