Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow among the casting departures “SNL”: NPR

As Saturday Night Live Close to the end of his summer vacation, a multitude of beloved members of the distribution say they have already taken their final arcs before the 51st season of the show.

The interpreters Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim, as well as the writer Celeste Yim, announced their departures on social networks. Variety,, The Hollywood Reporter And other points of sale have confirmed that Heidi Gardner left the show after eight seasons.

It is customary for distribution members to announce their release when a season ends in the spring or before a new one begins in the fall. The 50th very publicized season of the show – celebrated with a series of starry events, a concert of return to a special at prospective hours – ended with great speculation of fans but no explicit distribution announcements.

The creator and producer of SNL, Lorne Michaels, who has the last word on hiring and dismissal decisions, said Puck Last week that with the golden birthday now in hindsight, it’s time to make things happen.

“I wanted people to come back and be part (from the 50th season),” he said in his first interview since the end of the season. “And that meant that there could not be this kind of disturbances (distribution) or everything that would withdraw attention from (the 50th season). And we had an election.”

When asked if he felt the pressure to reinvent next season, Michaels replied: “Yes, of course.”

Other departures, as well as new hires, could be announced in the coming days and weeks. Michaels confirmed that a member of the distribution will not go nowhere: James Austin Johnson will continue to parody President Trump.

SNL returns for its 51st season on October 4, without these familiar faces.

Heidi Gardner

Like the Older member From current distribution, Gardner was one of the most recognizable stars in the series. She joined SNL as a star player in 2017 and was promoted in the main cast in 2019.

Gardner quickly became a favorite of fans for his original and exaggerated characters Weekend update.

His popular characters included a teenage cinema critic Décingey BAILEY GISMERTthe exasperation “your colleague who is Extremely busy doing it apparently nothing” And AngelAka “Each girlfriend of boxing of each film on boxing”, which always threatened – in a deep accent of Boston – to “take the children to my sister”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86qkgk0asgo

Gardner also stole scenes in sketches, especially in a memorable way, finally breaking the character during an April 2024 “Beavis and parody of the head of the buttocks “.

“I trained for so many years not to break”, she later said Vulture. “Being a follower of the perpetual rule of people, it was good that I have broken the rules – involuntarily, of course. I can’t help what I saw, but people agreed. Not only is you fine, but I encouraged it.”

Gardner also played outside SNL, including in the film 2022 Hustle And the Apple TV + series Contraction. NPR contacted NBC and the Gardner management team to comment.

Michael Longfellow

Longfillow Confirmed on Instagram That he will not come back for a fourth season, writing: “I would have liked it to be but so it’s okay.”

“It was the best three years of my life so far,” he wrote. “I only feel gratitude for experience and everyone there.”

Longfellow thanked Michaels for giving him the work, changing his life and even Put your mother on television.

Longfillow was promoted In the main cast at the start of the 50th season, after two years as a star player.

He brought a memorable distribution of characters to Weekend update office, including a Old -fashioned cigarette weigh on the vape ban offered in Australia, David by Michelangelo Defend its controversial inclusion in a primary study program and a deep cynic Punxsutawney Phil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6o9zvnr6ie

Longfellow also played a role in popular sketches, including a song in which he plays the holder “Goth Kid on vacation“A dark and funny scene in which he plays an EMT responding to a Death in a water park and another in which he depicts a TV game host Try to unload your 37 -year -old pets turtle as a price.

“So kill him, hard to do – you won’t do it,” said a competitor to a sketch, a line he referred to his article in goodbye on Thursday.

“I’m going to miss everything, but the friends I made miss and see them every day,” he added.

Devon Walker

Walker announced his departure An Instagram publication Lésimé “Me and Baby broke”.

He compared his work to a turbulent wedding in a typed letter entitled “Wait …. has he arrested or was he dismissed?”

“Me and the show made three years together, and sometimes it was really cool,” he wrote. “Sometimes it was toxic like hell. But … we took advantage of what it was, even in the middle of all the dysfunction.”

Walker looks and relaxed behavior made comparisons with the former SNL Pete Davidson star, with which he overlooked in a brief self -held appearance like “Black Pete” in a 2023 song parody.

Walker has represented politicians and other celebrities on the screen, including republican Senator Tim ScottNew York City Mayor Eric Adams and television host Michael Strahan. He brought his own sockets to Weekend updatediscussing his adjustment to Life in New York and make fun of viral morning routine videos of a fitness influencer with an exaggerated comic one of his family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40-xlonrzgk

He also slowly reprimanded the fans as they were crying. He commented a tweet of photos of him with LongFellow, writing: “Yall acting as if we died lol, we just get different jobs.”

Emil Wakim

Wakim, who joined SNL as a star player at the start of last season, announced its release on InstagramWriting: “It was a punch of a call to obtain, but I am very grateful for my stay there.”

Wakim has entered history as the first member of the Lebanese-American distribution SNL. Standing comedian, and son of an immigrant father and American Lebanese Motherland Maronite, he brought his unique personal perspective Weekend update segments on things like American patriotism And Vote in the 2024 elections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiW8YDSGS6G

“I was so lucky to bring a game to it and to say things I thought and I am excited for the chapter that comes then,” he wrote on Instagram. “Here to make more art without compromise.”

Celeste Yim

Yim, the first trans person to be a writer for SNL, leaves the show after five seasons.

“Lorne Hired Me Over the Phone Whhen I was 23 and the Job Literally Made All of My Dreams Come True It was Was also Grueling and I Slept in my Office Every Week But my Friends Helped Me With Everthing But I Got Yelled at by Random Famous Men But Some Famous Girls Too But I LAUGHED EVERY DAY AND IT’S WHERE I GREW UP, “theyy Written on Instagram.

Eight said that some of their first favorite sketches include the parodies of tights brand “eggs“And the”It’s better“Campaign, in which gay adults complain about various idiosyncratic problems unrelated to their sexuality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfecukn6ovs

Yim put an end to his goodbye post by thanking a long list of people, including “each SNL assistant and production crew member who has never done part of everything I have ever written”.

Baker

Baker arrived in SNL as a writer in the middle of season 47 and joined his Weekend update Team writing at the start of the last season. She was occupied outside 30 rock, freeing her second special comedy, The mother codOn Netflix in February.

Earlier this week, as Manper announced the news This baker would not return to SNL, she went to Instagram to Announces his own national tour from fall.