The “Saturday Night Live” shake-up continues, as Ben Marshall has been upped to the featured cast. Also joining as featured players are Veronika Slowikowska, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson and Tommy Brennan.
The news is part of a larger roster refresh at “SNL,” which this week saw the departure of Heidi Gardner after eight seasons, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker after three seasons each, and Emil Wakim after one season.
Season 51 will be Marshall’s fifth season on the NBC sketch show, having first joined as a member of comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy. (Please Don’t Destroy member John Higgins is leaving “SNL,” while Martin Herlihy remains on staff as a writer.)
Slowikowska is best known for viral comedy sketches that she posts on Instagram, where she has 1 million followers. Her acting credits include Shane Gillis’ Netflix comedy series “Tires” as well as FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows.”
Culhane is also prolific on social media, and appears regularly in Dropout TV programming as well as performing with the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles.
Patterson, a stand-up comedian, is regularly featured on Tony Hinchcliffe’s podcast “Kill Tony” and will next be seen in Kevin Hart’s Netflix film “72 Hours.”
Brennan was named to the Just for Laughs New Face of Comedy list in 2023 and has performed stand-up comedy on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
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After three seasons, Walker announced his departure from “SNL” on Instagram on Aug. 25, writing, “Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really cool. Sometimes it was toxic as hell. But we did what we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction. We made a fucked up lil family.”
“I won’t be returning to SNL next year. It was a gut punch of a call to get but I’m so grateful for my time there,” Wakim wrote in his announcement. “Every time I scanned into the building I would think how insane it is to get to work there. It was the most terrifying, thrilling, and rewarding experience of my life and I will miss it dearly and all the brilliant people that work there that made it feel like a home.”
“Saturday Night Live” Season 51 premieres on NBC on Oct. 4. The new season comes off the heels of a landmark 50th anniversary, which was feted with with several documentaries, a Radio City Music Hall concert special and a three-hour telecast with “SNL” legends.
From Variety US