Former Saturday Night Live star Bobby Moynihan is giving his take on the sweeping shake-up that remade the NBC show’s cast ahead of its current 51st season.
“Wait, what happened?” the comedian, a cast member on the show from 2008 to 2017, joked in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. “No, it happens all the time. It happens all the time. It’s what that show is. It’s people coming in and coming out and living their lives and having a great time.”
And for the SNL stars who remain, Moynihan hopes they have the necessary supports. “I wish them all luck, and I wish the ones who are there that they have a good therapist and good sleep,” he said.
In the weeks ahead of Season 51’s October 4 premiere, the sketch-comedy series bid farewell to repertory players Heidi Gardner (after eight seasons), Ego Nwodim (after seven seasons), and Devon Walker and Michael Longfellow (after three seasons each), as well featured player Emil Wakim (after one season). SNL also did away with the sketches by comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy, though PDD member Ben Marshall joined the cast as a featured player.
The other cast members who joined Season 51’s featured players are Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson, and Veronika Slowikowska.
Continuing repertory player Chloe Fineman, who has been on the SNL payroll since 2019, told Extra in September the cast departures were “pretty wild.”
“Some shocking stuff. A little heartbreak, sadness,” she added. “I haven’t fully processed anything, but I will say the show has such a turnover. … But these people stay in your lives, and I am excited for the new people.”
One SNL alum who was shocked by the Season 51 change-up was Punkie Johnson, who was a cast member on the show from 2020 to 2024. “WTF is happening… This is like The Departed,” she wrote in an Instagram comment on a post about Longfellow’s departure.
In the book Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, Susan Morrison detailed how SNLEP Lorne Michaels carries out the summer shake-ups, per The Hollywood Reporter. Morrison wrote: “Cast and writers are supposed to be notified by July about whether they are being asked back. (Michaels has a rule about not making big decisions in June, when he is sick of everyone, and exhausted.) That date often slips by, with people not knowing their fates until Labor Day, a month before the season premiere.”
Saturday Night Live, Saturdays, 11:30/10:30c, NBC