Later this month Saturday Night Live kicks off its 39th season and fans of the late-night sketch comedy show are bracing for a major overhaul in terms of talent. After veterans Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Jason Sudeikis moved on from the show last season, SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels was tasked with finding a new crop of potential stars who have the comedic chops to rock Studio 8H.
This August report has been confirmed: Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Noël Wells, John Milhiser, and SNL writer Michael Patrick O’Brien are all being added to the cast. Also confirmed is stand-up comedian Brooks Wheelan, a contributing writer at CollegeHumor. A grand total of six new comics are joining the SNL cast this season, and Lorne Michaels is well aware of the importance of finding the right mix of people to fill his cast.
“You can’t be famous before you’re famous,” he told The New York Times. “It’s one thing to be on a stage in Chicago or L.A.; it’s another thing to be standing in 8H. It’s like standing in Yankee Stadium. They can all play baseball, but this is something different. And the weight of all that was just more palpable to me this summer, more than ever before.”
In addition to confirming the six new cast members, Michaels dropped an even bigger bomb: in only her second year on the show, breakout featured player Cecily Strong is joining Seth Meyers at the Weekend Update desk as co-anchor. Famous for her Weekend Update character “The Girl You Wished You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party,” Strong will join Meyers at the desk in the upcoming season premiere. Michaels makes it seem like the decision was an easy one: “Cecily, from the first show, was right there,” he said. “She exploded.”
If all goes according to plan, Strong will take over as the sole Weekend Update anchor when Meyers departs SNL to host Late Night when Jimmy Fallon departs his show to run The Tonight Show. Michaels hopes, however, that Meyers will stay in his seat for the entirety of this transition season before relinquishing his title to Strong. Technically Meyers can pull double duty–Late Night only shoots Monday through Thursday leaving Friday and Saturday open for Meyers to write and anchor. As it stands, Meyers is poised to leave SNL in late February when his own late night show takes off.
Elsewhere, last year’s rookie Tim Robinson is stepping off the stage to contribute behind the scenes in the writer’s room and Colin Jost and Rob Klein will share the head writer title, the job formally held by Meyers.
SNL premieres September 29 on NBC with host Tina Fey and musical guest Arcade Fire.
[Via NYT]