Some beloved longtime "Saturday Night Live" cast members won't be returning for Season 51, including eight-season veteran Heidi Gardner and seven-year favorite Ego Nwodim.
"SNL" creator Lorne Michaels told Puck he'd shake things up ahead of the next season of the iconic comedy sketch series.
Cast members Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow and Emil Wakim, as well as writer Celeste Yim, have also announced they’re leaving the coveted comedy stage.
The show is adding several featured players for the new season: Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska. Marshall has been an "SNL" writer since 2021 and appeared in videos as part of the trio Please Don't Destroy.
Here's who's leaving:
Ego Nwodim
The funnywoman, 37, likened her time in Studio 8H as a seven-year-long celebration.
“The hardest part of a great party is knowing when to say goodnight,” she told fans in an Instagram story on Sept. 12.
“I have decided to leave SNL. I am immensely grateful to Lorne for the opportunity; to my castmates, the writers, and the crew for their brilliance, support, and friendship.”
With her Saturdays now off, she joked, "now invite me to your weddings please!"
Nwodim played a wide breadth of "SNL" characters and in recent years had drawn laughs from the wildly confident, well-done-steak-loving “Lisa from Temecula.”
Heidi Gardner
Gardner won't be returning after an epic eight-year run on the "Saturday Night Live" stage, NBC News has learned. Variety first reported her departure.
NBC didn't comment publicly on Gardner’s departure. Gardner hasn't spoken about her exit. She made her “SNL” debut in 2017 in Season 43.
She was the longest-tenured female cast member during Season 50, according to Rolling Stone.
Gardner appeared in a variety of sketches and was known for her "Weekend Update" characters "Bailey Gismert," a cringey teenage film critic, and "Angel, Every Boxer’s Girlfriend from Every Movie About Boxing Ever."
Gardner also has a flourishing career outside of 30 Rock, appearing in the Apple TV+ series “Shrinking” and the films “Hustle,” “Life of the Party” and “Trust Fall.”
Devon Walker
Walker announced his departure on Aug. 25 on Instagram, with the caption: “me and baby broke up.”
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
Michael Longfellow
Longfellow called his tenure “the best three years of my life so far.”
“Will not be returning for a 4th season at SNL. Wish I was but, so it goes,” he wrote on Aug. 28 on Instagram. “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.”
Emil Wakim
Wakim, a featured player on the show, said on Aug. 27 “it was a gut punch of a call” to learn he won't return for "SNL's" next season.
“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,” Wakim wrote on Instagram.
“i was so lucky to bring some of myself in there and say things i believed in and i’m excited for whatever chapter comes next. here’s to making more art without compromise,” he added.
John Higgins
Higgins, a member of Please Don't Destroy, shared a screenshot on Instagram on Sept. 2 of a Vulture article with the headline "Please Don't Destroy's Era of SNL Videos Is Ending."
The comedy trio was made up of Higgins, Martin Herlihy and Marshall, who now joins the main cast.
"I can’t believe how lucky I was to be a part of this show. It was my dream and I got to live it. And to do it with my two best friends and my dad was an unbelievable experience," Higgins wrote in the post.
He said he was "excited to pursue acting opportunities"
"Thank you to everyone who made my time there so special, it made this decision that much harder," he wrote.
Celeste Yim
Yim bade farewell to the show after five seasons as a writer, saying the job “literally made all of my dreams come true BUT it was also grueling.”
“I loved it and I laughed every day and it’s where I grew up,” Yim wrote Aug. 24 on Instagram.
Yim also noted that they are the “first ever out trans person to be a writer for SNL.”
”I always felt honored to be working within the long tradition of queer writing at the show,” Yim wrote. “I feel so powerless to protect trans people in the world but writing connects us and makes us permanent, so it’s what I will continue to do.”
Season 51 premieres Oct. 4. “SNL” airs on NBC, a division of NBCUniversal, which is also the parent company of NBC News.
