Leslie Jones Leaving "SNL" after 5 Seasons, Kate McKinnon Returns for Season 45
by Nellie Andreeva
August 27, 2019


One "Saturday Night Live" favorite won’t be returning this fall while another one has opted to come back. Leslie Jones has will be leaving NBC’s venerable late-night sketch comedy program after five seasons. Kate McKinnon, whose contract was up in May, has decided to come back for what would be her eighth season on the show.

According to sources, it was Jones’ decision to depart "SNL" before the end of her contract. The standard "SNL" cast deals are for seven years but the actors’ options are picked up every year, and the performers also can ask to be released early.

https://deadline.com/2019/08/leslie-jones-departs-saturday-night-live-5-seasons-kate-mckinnon-to-return-season-45-1202705465/

Yes, I heard that on the news. I will miss her!!!!

Leslie Jones is really bad at missing her lines and laughing during skits, but she's still hella funny. Kate McKinnon is a first ballot SNL Hall Of Famer.

SNL maybe not same without Leslie Jones for upcoming Season 45 but Kate McKinnon should soon to be the senior cast member once if Kenan Thompson is focusing on different projects.

Leslie Jones Breaks Silence on "SNL" Exit: "I Am Not Dead — Just Graduating"
by Michael Ausiello
September 3, 2019


Exiting "Saturday Night Live" cast member Leslie Jones is breaking her week-long silence.

In a lengthy statement released early Tuesday via social media, Jones confirmed, “Yes it’s true I am leaving Saturday Night Live,” before adding, “I cannot thank NBC, the producers, writers, and amazing crew enough for making SNL my second home these last five years. Lorne Michaels, you’ve changed my life in so many ways! Thank you for being my mentor and confidant and for always having my back. You not only have my loyalty but you have my heart too! You have shown me skills I never imagined I had. I leave a better performer because of you.

To the incredible cast members: I will miss working, creating and laughing with you. I will miss holding it down with Kenan everyday, I will miss Cecily’s impression of me making me laugh at myself often, I will miss Kate’s loving hugs and talks when I needed. And of course Colin, you porcelain-skinned Ken doll. I will miss all my cast mates!! Especially being at the table reads with them!! Everyone needs to know Leslie Jones couldn’t have done any of the things I did without these people.”




“One last thing,” Jones added, “to the fans — you are the BEST!! Thank you for all the love and support through my SNL years and I know you will be as excited as I am when you see some of the amazing projects and adventures that I have coming up very soon! Love you all!!”

Jones then ended the statement with the hashtag, “#iamnotdeadjustgraduating.”

https://tvline.com/2019/09/03/leslie-jones-leaves-snl-season-45-saturday-night-live/

SNL maybe not same without Leslie Jones for upcoming Season 45 but Kate McKinnon should soon to be the senior cast member once if Kenan Thompson is focusing on different projects.

Leslie Jones' absence on SNL will be especially felt if Lorne Michaels doesn't shake up the cast (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/09/leslie-jones-leaves-saturday-night-live/597538/)

For the past five years, Jones has been a breath of fresh air for a creatively stagnant show. Entering election season, it looks like Saturday Night Live will be even more stale with Jones' absence, says David Sims. "There’s still time for (Lorne) Michaels to overhaul the cast—though the host and musical guest of the 45th season’s first episode on September 28 (Woody Harrelson and Billie Eilish) are already set," he says. "New cast members have been known to join at the last minute, or even during the season as Jones did, and SNL still has a strong pool of writers who could easily make the leap to performing. But with (Kate) McKinnon and many of her contemporaries sticking around, and Alec Baldwin likely to reprise his recurring role as President Donald Trump (despite the actor’s continued public grousing about it), SNL figures to stay relatively static going into a big election year. If that’s the case, Jones will be especially missed, since she was such a vital spark plug for the show. Her 'Weekend Update' appearances, which served as extensions of her stand-up comedy, were welcome bits of provocation that frequently got a rise out of (Colin) Jost (a host who sometimes struggles to gin up onscreen chemistry with his castmates). Her sketch performing was shaky at first, with Jones occasionally flubbing lines or missing cues, but she quickly settled in as a fan favorite, parlaying the experience into roles in major movies such as Ghostbusters."

Leslie Jones is really bad at missing her lines and laughing during skits, but she's still hella funny. Kate McKinnon is a first ballot SNL Hall Of Famer.i agree 100 percent

"Saturday Night Live" Promotes Heidi Gardner, Chris Redd to Regular Cast
by Rick Porter
Sept. 24, 2019


"Saturday Night Live's" preseason cast shuffling continues with the promotion of two featured players to full cast-members.

Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd will be part of the main cast — announced at the top of the opening credits rather than at the end — when the show begins its 45th season this Saturday. Both joined SNL as featured players in 2017.

NBC declined comment.




Their promotion means SNL will head into the season with a regular cast of 14 and three featured players in Ego Nwodim, entering her second year, and newcomers Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang (Yang was previously a writer on the show).

Leslie Jones has departed the show to focus on movie work and a forthcoming Netflix stand-up special, but the rest of the regulars are all set to return.

Comedian Shane Gillis was dropped shortly after his hiring after racial and homophobic slurs he used on a podcast came to light.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/saturday-night-live-promotes-heidi-gardner-chris-redd-1243062

Which SNL cast members will play the Demoratic presidential candidates? (https://www.vulture.com/2019/09/snl-2020-democratic-presidential-candidate-impressions-predictions.html)

The Democratic field is so wide that Saturday Night Live will likely have to bring in celebrity impressionists. Who else will play Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden other than Larry David and Jason Sudeikis, respectively? Kate McKinnon has already portrayed Elizabeth Warren, so she has that impression locked up. New cast member Bowen Yang seems like a sure thing to play Andrew Yang since they're both Asian-American. But what about Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Marianne Williamson and Cory Booker?

ALSO:

Even without Leslie Jones, SNL is still struggling to shake off its "white-bread image" (https://theundefeated.com/features/leslie-jones-may-be-gone-but-a-change-still-needs-to-come-to-snl/)
A brief history of SNL's (sort of) apologies (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/arts/television/snl-apologies.html)
Get to know new cast member Bowen Yang (https://ew.com/tv/2019/09/27/snl-bowen-yang-saturday-night-live-new-cast-member/)
Get to know new cast member Chloe Fineman (https://ew.com/tv/2019/09/27/snl-chloe-fineman-saturday-night-live-new-cast-member/)

SNL returns for Season 45 in "Emmy-winning cruise control," even with the big impeachment news (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/fien-print/saturday-night-live-season-45-critics-notebook-1244116)

The biggest newsmakers of the past week were former SNL hosts Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, yet Saturday Night Live couldn't come up with a truly inspired cold open to kick off the season. "Whenever SNL returns after a long break, there's an inevitable temptation to look at whatever the show delivers and grumble, 'With four months, that was the best they could come up with?' as if the writers room has been open non-stop since May, crafting and honing and refining six Platonic ideal sketches to start the season off right," says Daniel Fienberg. "Yeah, season-openers are just as slapdash as any other episode, which is especially true at a historical moment in which the gap from one episode to the next could force the writers to choose between 10 or 15 bumbles, gaffes or scandals relating to Former Saturday Night Live Host Donald Trump. By that standard, the writers actually got incredibly lucky this week, with most of the conversation points around Former Saturday Night Live Host Donald Trump concerning impeachment, whistleblowing and the Ukraine, which all yielded a cold open in which a lot of cast members did quickie impressions of people in Former Saturday Night Live Host Donald Trump's sphere and Alec Baldwin remained on Emmy-winning cruise control."

ALSO:

Why Pete Davidson missed SNL season premiere (https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/saturday-night-live-premiere-pete-davidson-is-a-no-show/): Davidson is in Atlanta shooting the James Gunn-directed The Suicide Squad
Celebrity drop-ins were the bright spot -- and that's a problem (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/09/saturday-night-live-45th-season-premiere-review/599062/): Host Woody Harrelson "stepped in as Joe Biden, wearing a set of particularly shiny dentures; Larry David returned was Bernie Sanders, a role he played during the 2016 election with ornery aplomb; and Maya Rudolph showed up as Kamala Harris, dominating proceedings with a recurring bit about her fondness for empty catchphrases," says David Sims. "All three performers were solid, but none can be relied on to stop by every week as the show gears up to cover the Democratic primaries. Michaels’s tendency to rely on veterans who will grab headlines is understandable, but it means newer cast members like Ego Nwodim and Melissa Villaseñor remain on the sidelines unable to make a name for themselves. As the 45th season of the show moves forward, developing the rest of the cast should be SNL’s priority, not putting in calls to Ray Donovan."
Alec Baldwin's Trump cold open was dispiritingly toothless, but the Democratic debate sketch wasn't much better (https://tv.avclub.com/in-its-season-45-premiere-saturday-night-live-plays-th-1838581128): "If the cold open was glib and lukewarm on the subject, the Democratic town hall was an outright embarrassment of pandering guest spots and deadeningly tone-deaf mischaracterization," says Dennis Perkins, adding: "For the SNL machine to gaze over the smoldering news landscape concerning the gathering impeachment sh*tstorm and decide that 'watery, irrelevantly inoffensive celebrity impression' was the direction to go in suggests that it’s Saturday Night Live, rather than the Democrats, who can’t focus up and do the damned job."
Season premiere gave off a same-as-it-ever-was vibe (https://decider.com/2019/09/29/snl-recap-woody-harrelson/): "The show’s political coverage has felt lost in a sea of Trump these past few years, with the lack of any specific point of view beyond 'Trump = bad,'" says Larry Getlen. "Given that, seeing three political sketches in the season premiere, two of which merely existed to give as many cast members as possible some screen time, shows they not only haven’t figured out how to give their political material more bite, but haven’t bothered trying. SNL seems increasingly unwilling to rock the boat or even offer any pointed opinions beyond the one they know their viewers already share."
So far, SNL Season 45 looks like Season 44 (https://www.theringer.com/tv/2019/9/29/20889719/saturday-night-live-45th-season-premiere): "The show is still stuck lampooning the Trump years in all their excruciating absurdity with the uneasy knowledge that it’s a major player, and a major target, in the resulting culture wars," says Rob Harvilla, adding: "Draw your own conclusions from the fact that the funniest thing to happen during the SNL season premiere was definitely not supposed to happen," which was Aidy Bryant's breaking over wardrobe malfunction.
There was no mention of Shane Gillis, but Woody Harrelson's monologue seemed to tackle on "cancel culture" (https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/saturday-night-live-woody-harrelson-monologue-1203352954/)
Harrelson debuted a hilariously creepy Joe Biden impression (https://www.thedailybeast.com/saturday-night-live-premiere-woody-harrelson-hilariously-mocks-joe-bidens-creepiness)
Kamala Harris responds to Maya Rudolph impersonating her (https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1178289966675304448): "That girl being played by @MayaRudolph on @nbcsnl? That girl was me."
Andrew Yang responds to Bowen Yang playing him (https://www.thewrap.com/andrew-yang-bowen-yang-snl/): “Haha great to see @bowenyang as me on @nbcsnl!” In a separate tweet, he added: “Tip to the @nbcsnl writers – you should work on some new lines for @bowenyang because I’ll be here all through 2020.”
Andrew Yang's "YangGang" really didn't like Bowen Yang's impression (https://tvline.com/2019/09/28/snl-video-andrew-yang-reaction-bowen-yang-impression-saturday-night-live/)
Watch Aidy Bryant completely lose it in the midst of a mid-sketch costume change (https://uproxx.com/tv/aidy-bryant-break-snl-sketch-inside-the-beltway/)
Watch Billie Eilish's gravity-defying performance (https://ew.com/tv/2019/09/29/watch-billie-eilishs-gravity-defying-saturday-night-live-performance/)
SNL unveils a Downton Abbey trailer with a surprise ending (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1khDR7yzZ0I)
Here's the full list of SNL Season 45 writers (https://www.vulture.com/2019/09/snl-season-45-writers.html): Chappelle's Show co-creator Neal Brennan had a guest-writing credit for the season premiere