Bobby Moynihan is Leaving "Saturday Night Live"
by Megan Vick
May 17, 2017


Bobby Moynihan is officially leaving "Saturday Night Live" after nine seasons, according to Deadline. The decision comes as no surprise as Moynihan is relocating to Los Angeles to film his new CBS comedy "Me, Myself and I".

Deadline reports that Moynihan had a typical seven-year contract with SNL and signed a two-year extension. This season was planned to be his final hurrah with the show, freeing him up to delve into the network comedy world.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/bobby-moynihan-leaving-saturday-night-live/

i have always liked him on sml and i wish him the best of luck with his new show

I'd like to see him do more movies, though a small part, he was funny in Mystery Team.

"SNL's" Vanessa Bayer to Leave after 7 Seasons
by Rebecca Iannucci
May 20, 2017


Vanessa Bayer, who has been a part of SNL for seven seasons, is exiting the NBC sketch series. She joins fellow veteran Bobby Moynihan who is also departing SNL after nine seasons

Tonight’s SNL season finale, hosted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson with musical guest Katy Perry, will be Bayer’s last episode.




Bayer bid a fond farewell to the series in an Instagram post on Saturday:

"Thank you SNL for 7 years of laughs, love and incredible memories. It has been a dream come true."



Among SNL‘s current female cast members, Bayer has the longest tenure, having joined the show back in 2010. She’s known for such characters as Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy, Weekend Update child anchor Laura Parsons and, of course, her spot-on impression of Miley Cyrus.

http://tvline.com/2017/05/20/saturday-night-live-vanessa-bayer-leaving-nbc/

Why are a lot of people leaving the show? I don't understand this.

Both of them were talented, but like most of the cast, not used well.

There is a likeability about both that I think would serve them well in films. Beyer has kind of an innocence about her that could endear her to women as well as men, and Moynihan seems like he could be the next door neighbor type pretty easily, or the befuddled shy nerd in the big city.

I wish them both well. I also hope the show starts packing a bigger bench; they can't rely on Baldwin's Trump impression and Melissa McCarthy forever.

I've cut back some on my Saturday Night Live viewing over the past couple of years, but I do enjoy both of them, especially Vanessa Bayer. Sad to see them both go.

Sasheer Zamata is going too

http://ew.com/tv/2017/05/21/snl-sasheer-zamata-exits/

SNL Adds 3 to Cast for Season 43
by Derek Lawrence
Sept. 26, 2017


Just days ahead of the season 43 premiere, "Saturday Night Live" has added Heidi Gardner, Chris Redd, and Luke Null as featured players. The new faces come following the departures of Vanessa Bayer, Sasheer Zamata, and Bobby Moynihan.

The most high-profile of the new group is Chris Redd, who starred as Hunter the Hungry, the friend-turned-rival of SNL alum Andy Samberg’s lead character in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

As for Heidi Gardner, she’s a writer and voice actor on the Crackle animated series "SuperMansion", while Luke Null is a musical comedian out of Chicago.




Starting with this Saturday’s premiere, which will be hosted by Ryan Gosling and feature JAY-Z as the musical guest, the entire season of SNL will go live coast-to-coast for the first time.

Also set to host upcoming episodes are Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and The Big Sick star Kumail Nanjiani.

http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/26/saturday-night-live-three-new-cast-members-season-43/

Sasheer Zamata Opens Up about "SNL" Exit: "It Was Not What I Thought It Was Going to Be"
by Abbey White
March 6, 2018


Former "Saturday Night Live" cast member and actress Sasheer Zamata quietly left the sketch comedy show after four seasons in 2017 and hasn't spoken much publicly about the reasons for her departure.

But she opened up about her time on SNL on Monday during a day-long series of panels presented by New York Magazine's The Cut vertical, titled "How I Get It Done," where speakers also included current SNL star Aidy Bryant, Padma Lakshmi, Robin Roberts, "PEN15" co-creators and stars Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine and "Russian Doll" stars Natasha Lyonne and Greta Lee.

"I'm actually glad it happened, and the way it happened," Zamata told New York Magazine contributing editor Lisa Miller about her time on SNL. "I feel like I left being a better performer, a better writer, a better communicator, a better team worker."





Still, the comedian, who has been doing pilots and working on movie scripts over the last year, said her choice to leave was ultimately about the work and how it made her feel.

"It was not what I thought it was going to be, and I don't think anyone really thinks it's going to be that way because it's not like any other job," Zamata told Miller at the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge event.

"So it was a couple years of figuring out, 'Am I okay with this?' Do I want to just accept it as is and be like, 'That's a just a job and I guess I'll just stay and take it like everybody else?' Or do I want to try something else that makes me feel really good, and work with people who excite me and who are excited about me and want to create things that makes us feel fulfilled?"




During the panel, which also featured Minneapolis City Council vice president Andrea Jenkins, the first openly transgender African-American woman elected to public office in the U.S., Zamata recounted how her experience on an upcoming Netflix project was also not what she imagined before explaining how she turned it into something fulfilling.

"I came in for the readthrough [and] I did not like what they wrote at all," Zamata said. "But I just stayed there. I was like 'We're gonna fix this.' I'm not in that writers room; that's not my job; they only needed me for that week and then I was leaving, but I was like, 'No, we're gonna fix this 'cause I want to look good, I want to come off looking good.'"

"We just stayed there for hours and we went line by line and I ran the room, and I haven't done that before, but I was like, 'I'm just gonna tell everybody what jokes work and what don't,'" Zamata continued. "And of course, I was listening and collaborating, and thankfully I've had experiences in writers rooms to do that before."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sasheer-zamata-snl-exit-padma-lakshmi-sam-nazarian-cut-event-1192753