‘SNL’ Announces Several New Cast Members for Season 48

Saturday Night Live Season 48 will have a smaller cast than past seasons, as only four new featured players are coming in to replace the outgoing seven. NBC and SNL announced the new batch of comedians joining the series, including A League Of Their Own star Molly Kearney and Big Mouth writer Devon Walker.

Marcello Hernandez and Michael Longfellow will join Kearney and Walker. All four have backgrounds as stand-up comedians, notes The Hollywood Reporter. Hernandez is the creative director of news/comedy rand Only in Dade and was named a Just for Laughs New Face of Comedy. Kearney plays Fern Dannely on Amazon Prime Video’s A League of Their Own and performed at Comedy Central’s 2019 Up Next showcase. Longfellow performed on NBC’s Bring the Funny and TBS’ Conan, while Walker was part of Comedy Central’s 2017 Up Next. Walker also wrote for Netflix’s Big Mouth and Freeform’s Everything’s Trash.

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NBC previously announced that Season 48 will begin on Oct. 1, with more new episodes following on Oct. 8 and Oct. 15. Each episode starts at 11:30 p.m. ET and will stream on Peacock. The premiere will also air live on the West Coast, beginning at 8:30 p.m. PT. NBC still has not announced hosts and musical guests for the first three episodes.

SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels has also not confirmed the returning cast, but at least seven Season 47 stars are not returning. Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney, and Pete Davidson all announced their plans to leave before the Season 47 finale aired. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Alex Moffat, Melissa Villasenor, and Aristotle Athari will also not be returning. So far, Villasenor is the only member of the second batch to confirm their exit.

“This will be a transition year. Change years are always difficult but always exciting. There are new people. There are four new people at least for now,” Michaels told reporters at the Emmys on Monday, reports Deadline. He later suggested that the pandemic kept the Season 46 and 47 casts together longer than anyone expected.

“The pandemic sort of interfered with the national order of things. I think there was a bonding, people got very close,” Michaels said. “When we did those at-home shows, you got to see everyone’s apartment where and how they lived. There was an intimacy and connection between the audience and the group. I couldn’t imagine we could work without that whole team so we kept going.”

SNL added more Emmy awards to its collection Monday, increasing its record haul to 93, including specials and short-form series. The show won the Outstanding Variety Sketch Series award for the sixth consecutive year. It was the show’s only victory for Season 47. McKinnon and Bowen Yang also scored nominations, while comedian Jarrod Carmichael scored an Outstanding Guest Actor nod for his episode.