Some of “Saturday Night Live’s” biggest stars are expected to depart the cast in the biggest shakeup to the late-night show in years. Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Kyle Mooney are all expected to depart, as Variety and Deadline each reported.
“SNL” honcho Lorne Michaels previously hinted that the next season of the long-running NBC sketch show would be “a year of change.” At the time, that seemed to point more toward “Weekend Update” co-anchor Michael Che, who recently told the New York Times that he’d been thinking of leaving “SNL” for the “past five seasons.”
McKinnon has been on “SNL” since 2012, making her the longest currently tenured female cast member on the show, surpassing both Cecily Strong and Bryant by five shows apiece. McKinnon has won two Emmys for her work and has been nominated nine times, portraying everyone from Hilary Clinton to a break dancing Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Amy Coney Barrett to a woman who saw the wrong end of an alien encounter. And she has had no shortage of roles outside of “SNL,” including in the “Ghostbusters” reboot and most recently as Carole Baskin in “Joe vs. Carole.” She’ll next appear in the “Barbie” movie with Margot Robbie.
“King of Staten Island” star Davidson already has the loosely autobiographical series “Bupkis” in the works at Peacock, with Edie Falco set to play his mother, and he has been a cast member of “SNL” since 2014. He took time off this season to film James DeMonaco’s horror movie “The Home,” and also has the A24 film “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” which debuted at this year’s South by Southwest, coming out in August.
Davidson’s private life has made headlines this year for dating “SNL” guest host Kim Kardashian and the subsequent online threats from Kardashian’s ex-husband, Kanye West.
Bryant is a four-time Emmy nominee for “SNL” and has also worked on her own Hulu series “Shrill.” She’s had memorable turns playing Ted Cruz, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Adele and also a sort of alter ego as “Lil Baby Aidy” across pre-taped musical sketches such as “(Do It On My) Twin Bed.”
Mooney joined the cast of “SNL” in 2013 as a featured player alongside his sketch comedy partner Beck Bennett, who exited the show ahead of this current season. Mooney has appeared in plenty of live sketches and on Weekend Update in a variety of roles, including this past week as Baby Yoda, but he’s best known for his more awkward, deadpan and even surreal pre-taped Internet-comedy sketches.
TheWrap has reached out to Davidson’s rep and “Saturday Night Live” for comment.
Natasha Lyonne (“Russian Doll”) is hosting this weekend’s season finale with musical guest Japanese Breakfast.