'SNL' Star Reveals Status in Cast Amid Season 47 Departures
Saturday Night Live star Michael Che does not expect to join Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney, and Aidy Bryant out the door. Che serves as "Weekend Update" co-anchor with Colin Jost, who also leads the SNL writers' room. Che, 39, joined the NBC show as a writer in 2013 and joined Jost at the "Weekend Update" desk the following year.
"I think I'm staying," Che said on the new episode of Bill Simmons' The Ringer podcast, via Deadline. "I never know, it's hard, once the season's over it's best not to make decisions like towards the end of the year because all you want to do is get out of there, you've had your fill, but August or September is usually a different story. I don't have any plans to leave just yet."
Che's future on the show has drawn speculation in recent years thanks to the comedian's own comments. In March, he reportedly joked about leaving the show at some point during a stand-up performance. He then took to Instagram to say he was not leaving. "I said it at a comedy show, and some dork transcribed it & wrote an article," he wrote in a since-deleted post.
Che also joked about the incident during an interview with CBS Sunday Morning. "I was at stand-up and I was like, 'Boy, I hate SNL. And then when I'm at SNL, I'm like, 'God, I don't wanna be on the road.' It's just what you do. But, yeah, I am quitting this season, to answer your question," he said. "No! I'm kidding." Che said he has "no idea what I'm doing" and is unsure when he would ever leave.
"My head has been at leaving for the past five seasons," Che also told The New York Times. "I do think that I've been here longer than I'll be here. This show is built for younger voices and, at some point, there'll be something more exciting to watch at the halfway mark of the show than me and dumb Jost."
Outside of SNL, Che also stars in the HBO Max series That Damn Michael Che. All six episodes of Season 2 were released on Thursday. He also released a new Netflix comedy special, Michael Che: Shame the Devil.
SNL Season 47 ended with farewells for McKinnon, Davidson, Bryant, and Mooney. It's the biggest change the show has faced in years. Season 47 had the largest cast in SNL's history with 21 stars. Aside from Jost and Che, the other remaining actors are Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, Alex Moffat, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd, Cecily Strong, Kenan Thompson, Melissa Villasenor, Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, Punkie Johnson, James Austin Johnson, Andrew Dismukes, and Aristotle Athari.