Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner amongst ‘SNL’ forged departures : NPR

SNL’s Ego Nwodim (as Miss Eggy) joined Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che for a section in May 2025. She has since introduced Season 50 was her final with the present.

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Will Heath/NBC by way of Getty Images

As Saturday Night Live nears the top of its summer season trip, a slew of beloved forged members say they’ve already taken their ultimate bows forward of the present’s 51st season.

Ego Nwodim introduced Friday that she is leaving the present after seven seasons. Her Instagram assertion got here a number of weeks after performers Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim, in addition to author Celeste Yim, introduced their departures on social media. Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and different shops additionally confirmed in late August that Heidi Gardner is leaving the present after eight seasons.

It is customary for forged members to announce their exit when a season ends within the spring or earlier than a brand new one begins within the fall. The present’s much-hyped fiftieth season — celebrated with a collection of star-studded occasions, from a homecoming live performance to a prime-time particular — ended with loads of fan hypothesis however no express forged bulletins.

SNL creator and producer Lorne Michaels, who has the ultimate say over hiring and firing choices, told Puck final week that with the golden anniversary now within the rearview, it is time to shake issues up.

“I wanted people coming back and being part [of the 50th season],” he stated, in his first interview for the reason that season ended. “And that meant there couldn’t be those kind of disruptions [to the cast] or anything that was going to take the focus off the [the 50th season]. And we had an election.”

When requested if he felt stress to reinvent the subsequent season, Michaels responded: “Yeah, for sure.”

Michaels confirmed that one forged member will not be going wherever: James Austin Johnson will proceed parodying President Trump.

In the weeks since, the present has welcomed 5 new forged members — together with one former author — to its ranks: Ben Marshall of Please Don’t Destroy, in addition to comedians Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska.

SNL returns for its 51st season on Oct. 4, with out these acquainted faces.

Michael Longfellow (from left), Heidi Gardner and Devon Walker are among the many forged members leaving Saturday Night Live earlier than its 51st season.

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John Lamparski/WireImage by way of Getty Images; Noam Galai/Getty Images for WSJ; John Nacion/Variety by way of Getty Images

Ego Nwodim

Nwodim, who joined the present in 2018, introduced her departure in an Instagram post signed with an enormous purple coronary heart.

“The hardest part of a great party is knowing when to say goodbye,” she wrote. “But after seven unforgettable seasons, I have decided to leave SNL.”

Nwodim made her mark on the present with unique characters — just like the tough-steak-loving, castmate-breaking “Lisa from Temecula” — and standout impressions — together with of singer and actress Dionne Warwick, who congratulated her on “seven wonderful seasons” in a heartwarming tweet (each addressed to and signed by “Dionne”) on Friday.

In one particularly memorable second from Season 50, Nwodim, pacing in entrance of the Weekend Update desk as her Def Jam-esque, stand-up persona “Miss Eggy,” pointed the microphone on the reside viewers for a call-and-response — solely she did not get the response she was anticipating.

“‘Cause these men ain’t what?” she requested, to which the group shouted again with an expletive (which was heard reside however later censored).

“Y’all going to have to pay for that,” stated a visibly shocked Nwodim — referring to FCC laws prohibiting profanity — as Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che burst out laughing behind her. “Lorne [Michaels] gonna be mad at y’all.”

In June, after the season ended, Nwodim told Deadline that she didn’t suppose the present had finally been fined (doubtlessly as a result of the incident occurred after the FCC’s 10 p.m. cutoff). She stated she was “sincerely stunned” — and tickled — by the viewers’s response, particularly because it gave her the “amazing experience” of attending to improvise in character.

In her farewell submit, Nwodim thanked Michaels, her castmates, and SNL writers and crew members for his or her “brilliance, support and friendship.”

“Week after week on that stage taught me more than I could have ever imagined, and I will carry those memories (and that laughter) with me always,” she added. “Now invite me to your weddings please!!!”

Heidi Gardner 

As the longest-running female member of the present forged, Gardner was one of many present’s most recognizable stars. She joined SNL as a featured participant in 2017 and was promoted to the primary forged in 2019.

Gardner rapidly turned a fan favourite for her unique, over-the-top characters on Weekend Update.

Her in style personas included cringey teenage movie critic Bailey Gismert, the exasperated “Your Co-worker who’s Extremely Busy Doing Seemingly Nothing” and Angel, aka “Every Boxer’s Girlfriend from Every Movie about Boxing Ever,” who was all the time threatening — in a deep Boston accent — to “take the kids to my sister’s.”

Gardner additionally stole scenes in sketches, together with memorably, lastly breaking character throughout an April 2024 “Beavis and Butt-Head” spoof.

“I had coached myself for so many years to not break,” she later told Vulture. “Being a perpetual people-pleaser rule follower, it was nice that I broke the rules — unintentionally, of course. I can’t help what I saw, but people were okay with it. Not only okay with it but encouraged it.”

Gardner has additionally acted outdoors of SNL, together with within the 2022 film Hustle and the Apple TV+ collection Shrinking. NPR has reached out to NBC and Gardner’s administration group for remark.

Michael Longfellow

Longfellow confirmed on Instagram that he won’t be returning for a fourth season, writing, “Wish I was but, so it goes.”

“It was the best three years of my life so far,” he wrote. “I feel nothing but gratitude for the experience and everyone there.”

Longfellow thanked Michaels for giving him the job, altering his life and even putting his mom on TV.

Longfellow was promoted to the primary forged at the beginning of the fiftieth season, after two years as a featured participant.

He introduced a memorable forged of characters to the Weekend Update desk, together with an Old-Fashioned Cigarette weighing in on Australia’s proposed vape ban, Michelangelo’s David defending his controversial inclusion in a grade faculty curriculum and a deeply cynical Punxsutawney Phil.

Longfellow additionally performed a job in in style sketches, together with a tune wherein he stars because the titular “Goth Kid on Vacation,” a darkly humorous scene wherein he performs an EMT responding to a death at a waterpark and one other wherein he portrays a game show host making an attempt to dump his 37-year-old pet tortoise as a prize.

“Then kill him, tough guy — you won’t,” Longfellow says to a contestant within the sketch, a line he referenced in his goodbye submit on Thursday.

“I’ll miss it all, but I’ll miss the friends I made and seeing them everyday the most,” he added.

Devon Walker

Walker introduced his departure in an Instagram post captioned “me and baby broke up.”

He in contrast his job to a turbulent marriage in a typed letter titled “Wait …. Did he quit or did he get fired?”

“Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really cool,” he wrote. “Sometimes it was toxic as hell. But … we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction.”

Walker’s appears and laid-back demeanor drew comparisons to former SNL star Pete Davidson, whom he overlapped with in a short, self-deprecating look as “Black Pete” in a 2023 song parody.

Walker portrayed politicians and different celebrities onscreen, together with Republican Sen. Tim Scott, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and TV host Michael Strahan. He introduced his personal takes to Weekend Update, discussing his adjustment to life in New York City and mocking a health influencer’s viral morning routine movies with a comically exaggerated one of his own.

He additionally gently chided followers as they mourned his departure. He commented on a tweet of images of him with Longfellow, writing: “yall acting like we died lol we just getting different jobs.”

Emil Wakim

Wakim, who joined SNL as a featured participant at the beginning of final season, introduced his exit on Instagram, writing, “it was a gut punch of a call to get but i’m so grateful for my time there.”

Wakim made historical past as the primary Lebanese-American SNL forged member. A slapstick comedian, and the son of a Maronite Christian Lebanese immigrant father and American mom, he introduced his distinctive private perspective to Weekend Update segments about issues like American patriotism and voting in the 2024 election.

“I was so lucky to bring some of myself in there and say things i believed in and i’m excited for whatever chapter comes next,” he wrote on Instagram. “Here’s to making more art without compromise.”

Celeste Yim

Yim, the primary out trans particular person to be a author for SNL, is leaving the present after 5 seasons.

“Lorne hired me over the phone when I was 23 and the job literally made all of my dreams come true BUT it was also grueling and I slept in my office every week BUT my friends helped me with everything BUT I got yelled at by random famous men BUT some famous girls too BUT I loved it and I laughed every day and it’s where I grew up,” they wrote on Instagram.

Yim has said that a few of their favourite early sketches embody parodies of the pantyhose brand “L’eggs” and the “It Gets Better” marketing campaign, wherein homosexual adults complain about numerous idiosyncratic issues unrelated to their sexuality.

Yim ended their goodbye submit by thanking an extended record of individuals, together with “every SNL assistant and production crew member who ever made any part of anything I ever wrote.”

Rosebud Baker

Baker arrived at SNL as a author halfway by way of Season 47, and joined its Weekend Update writing group at the beginning of the final season. She’s been busy outdoors of 30 Rock, releasing her second comedy particular, The Mother Lode, on Netflix in February.

Earlier this week, as LateNighter broke the news that Baker wouldn’t be returning to SNL, she took to Instagram to announce her own national tour beginning within the fall.

Steven Castillo

Castillo introduced in early September that he shall be leaving SNL for the second time. He wrote for the present from 2017 to 2021, and returned for Season 50 final yr.

“My 2nd run at SNL was never meant to be long term,” he wrote on Instagram. “I wanted to be part of the 50th, and I’m so glad I did.”

Castillo stated his seven-season run has taught him quite a bit about writing, producing and directing, and the time felt proper “to take another leap of faith and start focusing more on my personal projects.” Castillo, a slapstick comedian himself, interviews comedians on his podcast “Mind of Castillo” and has additionally been selling a “live comedy concert” headlined by his hip-hop persona, Steezus.

“It’s time to go all in on myself, take huge risks, and become the Greatest Hip-Hop Artist of all Time,” he concluded.