Ahead of the season 51 premiere of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 4, Lorne Michaels confirmed in an interview that a few familiar faces will not return to the cast this fall — and those exits are starting to be announced one by one.

When asked by Puck in an interview published Aug. 22 if he planned to “shake things up” for the 2025-26 season, the SNL creator and producer replied, “Yes,” adding that he was feeling the “pressure to reinvent this season” after mostly keeping the cast intact from season 49 into the show’s landmark 50th year.

“I wanted people coming back and being part of [the 50th season],” Michaels told Puck. “So when Kate [McKinnon] hosted, Kristen [Wiig] and Maya [Rudolph] came back for it. And that meant there couldn’t be those kind of disruptions or anything that was going

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