"Saturday Night Live" Promotes Ego Nwodim to Main Cast Member for Season 46
by Nellie Andreeva
September 8, 2020


"Saturday Night Live" featured player Ego Nwodim has been upped to a repertory player ahead of NBC late-night program’s 46th season, I have learned. A rep for SNL did not respond to a request for comment.

Nwodim has stood out in her first seasons on SNL with memorable characters, including L’evanka Trump on the Them Trumps parody. Her impersonations include Tiffany Haddish.

https://deadline.com/2020/09/saturday-night-live-promotes-ego-nwodim-main-cast-member-season-46-1234572686/

SNL is keeping its entire cast intact for Season 46 after Kate McKinnon signed a new deal (https://tvline.com/2020/09/15/kate-mckinnon-returning-saturday-night-live-season-46-snl/)

Saturday Night Live will kick off Season 46 on Oct. 3 with everybody from Season 45 returning. McKinnon's initial SNL deal expired in 2019. She signed a one-year deal to return last season. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the last time SNL didn't have turnover between seasons was Season 33 in 2007 (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/entire-saturday-night-live-cast-set-to-return-for-season-46), though Maya Rudolph left the show four episodes into that season and Casey Wilson joined after the 2007-08 writers' strike. McKinnon's future seemed to be in doubt because of her one-year contract renewal last year and because she has an Elizabeth Holmes Hulu series and a Joe Exotic Peacock series in the works. It's unclear if McKinnon will miss any episodes this season.

yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jim Carrey Set to Play Joe Biden on "SNL" as NBC Show Adds Three Featured Players & Will Have Limited Audience
by Peter White
September 16, 2020


Jim Carrey is set to play Joe Biden in the upcoming season of "Saturday Night Live" as the NBC show adds three new featured players and will have a limited studio audience when it returns.

Michaels, speaking in an interview with Vulture, said, “Maya Rudolph is coming back, and Alec [Baldwin] will be back. And I think Jim Carrey is going to do Biden.”

“There was some interest on his part. And then we responded, obviously, positively. But it came down to discussions about what the take was. He and Colin Jost had a bunch of talks. He and I as well. He will give the part energy and strength, and … [Laughs.] Hopefully it’s funny,” Michaels added.




Joining are Lauren Holt, an actor, comedian, singer and improvise, who was a house performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Los Angeles, Punkie Johnson, a comedian and writer who has worked on Space Force and Corporate and Andrew Dismukes, who has served as an SNL staff writer since season 43.

"SNL" has also added Anna Drezen as a head writer. She has been on the show since 2016.




“We need the audience, obviously. With comedy, when you don’t hear the response, it’s just different. With the kind of comedy we do, which quite often is broad, timing gets thrown off without an audience. And for me, what is most important is when you’re absolutely certain of some piece on Wednesday, and then the dress-rehearsal audience sees it on Saturday and tells you you’re wrong. . . .

I think us coming back and accomplishing the show will lead to — I hate to use the word normalcy — but it’s a thing that is part of our lives coming back, in whatever form it ends up coming back. So the physical problems of doing it — number of people who can be in the studio, number of people who can be in the control room, how you separate the band so that they’re not in any jeopardy — all of those are part of the meetings we’ve been having,” Michaels added.

https://deadline.com/2020/09/snl-nbc-show-adds-three-featured-players-will-have-limited-audience-jim-carrey-joe-biden-1234578073/

Jim Carrey Set to Play Joe Biden on "SNL" as NBC Show Adds Three Featured Players & Will Have Limited Audience
by Peter White
September 16, 2020


Jim Carrey is set to play Joe Biden in the upcoming season of "Saturday Night Live" as the NBC show adds three new featured players and will have a limited studio audience when it returns.

Michaels, speaking in an interview with Vulture, said, “Maya Rudolph is coming back, and Alec [Baldwin] will be back. And I think Jim Carrey is going to do Biden.”

“There was some interest on his part. And then we responded, obviously, positively. But it came down to discussions about what the take was. He and Colin Jost had a bunch of talks. He and I as well. He will give the part energy and strength, and … [Laughs.] Hopefully it’s funny,” Michaels added.




Joining are Lauren Holt, an actor, comedian, singer and improvise, who was a house performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Los Angeles, Punkie Johnson, a comedian and writer who has worked on Space Force and Corporate and Andrew Dismukes, who has served as an SNL staff writer since season 43.

"SNL" has also added Anna Drezen as a head writer. She has been on the show since 2016.




“We need the audience, obviously. With comedy, when you don’t hear the response, it’s just different. With the kind of comedy we do, which quite often is broad, timing gets thrown off without an audience. And for me, what is most important is when you’re absolutely certain of some piece on Wednesday, and then the dress-rehearsal audience sees it on Saturday and tells you you’re wrong. . . .

I think us coming back and accomplishing the show will lead to — I hate to use the word normalcy — but it’s a thing that is part of our lives coming back, in whatever form it ends up coming back. So the physical problems of doing it — number of people who can be in the studio, number of people who can be in the control room, how you separate the band so that they’re not in any jeopardy — all of those are part of the meetings we’ve been having,” Michaels added.

https://deadline.com/2020/09/snl-nbc-show-adds-three-featured-players-will-have-limited-audience-jim-carrey-joe-biden-1234578073/

SNL's reliance on celebrities like Alec Baldwin and Jim Carrey points to a larger problem with the writing (https://twitter.com/poniewozik/status/1306311364273635329)

"I don't have strong feelings about Jim Carrey as Biden (https://www.primetimer.com/item/SNL-taps-Jim-Carrey-to-play-Joe-Biden-QwSdp4)," says James Poniewozik. "Maybe he'll be good! But continually hiring outside stars for big roles just underlines how SNL is more concerned with the *impression* of the person (voice, likeness) than the *idea* of the person (writing, character) In other words, if you have a good writing team and a good cast and a willingness to *actually say something with a point*, you wouldn't be so concerned with "What celeb would do the best impression of ___?" (But this has been true for a long time.)"

It's been that way for years - outside people come to help do impressions. It's very different then the first few years where the existing talent did everything.

In defense of SNL's celebrity guest-star addiction (https://tv.avclub.com/celebrity-cameos-now-dominate-saturday-night-live-s-pol-1845141403)

Saturday Night Live has been criticized for depending on celebrity cameos in political cold opens and for being unable to find anybody from its largest-ever cast (https://www.primetimer.com/item/SNL-will-set-a-record-with-20-cast-members-this-fall-yet-none-will-get-to-play-a-presidential-candidate-DjSqj8) to play the two presidential candidates. "Yet as frustrating as SNL’s all-star novelty (and often novice) approach to political comedy has been, it has natural roots in the shifting realities of the show’s cast," says Jesse Hassenger. "For one thing, while this 20-person cast is a new peak, it’s not an anomaly. The show’s average cast size has stayed high over the past decade, in large part because people stay on the show much longer than they used to." For example, Tim Meadows set a record for 10 seasons on SNL 20 years ago, but nowadays a decade isn't that unusual on Saturday Night Live. "At the same time," he says, "these oversized SNL rosters have given the show a surprising eclecticism in recent years. While there are certain glue-like cast members who can plug easily into various types—Beck Bennett playing dads, bros, and assorted, as he’s described it, 'big dumb idiots'; Cecily Strong working equally well as normie moms or teenage daughters; Kenan Thompson killing everything from game show hosts to one-line cameos—many of them have a very particular set of skills. This doesn’t mean they’re all limited performers, just that it’s become easier to pinpoint their personal strengths and sensibilities. Aidy Bryant loves old-timey bravado and adolescent haplessness. Pete Davidson does stand-up that’s equally cutting and self-deprecating. Kyle Mooney traffics in faux-nostalgic cringe humor. Of course, plenty of past SNLers have shown off their individual styles with sometimes frightening clarity. What’s shifted over the years has been the ratio of individual oddballs to all-purpose, impression-friendly utility players...It follows, then, that a group of Saturday Night Live performers less focused on characters and catchphrases would also feel less inspired to associate themselves with that most fleeting of comic payoffs. Though sometimes political sketches hit upon genuinely influential satire, they often follow the recurring-character playbook of repetition, catchphrases, and little comedic personality outside of caricature for the sake of itself, with the added burden of attempting to summarize actual news through weak punchlines. It’s not a coincidence that Kate McKinnon is the current cast member with both the most recurring characters and the most frequent political impressions; they draw from a similar skill set...In other words, Saturday Night Live hiring famous freelancers to do the political stuff might not speak well to the self-impressed, celebrity-saturated tastes of Lorne Michaels, but it does speak well of the current cast. Intentionally or not, many of them have opted out of the show’s clunkiest style of political comedy, and the new hires, whether they become successful or not, presumably weren’t hired to perpetuate it. So when the show inevitably opens its season with a splashy political sketch with frequent applause breaks to greet a majority-guest cast, don’t weep for the regulars’ lost opportunities to play Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump. Be envious that they, at least, can take a break and focus on weirder, funnier stuff."

Jim Carrey's SNL Joe Biden impression isn't cutting it (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/10/snl-jim-carrey-biden-issa-rae)

Carrey's name trended on Twitter (https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/jim-carrey-joe-biden-snl-saturday-night-live-replacement-trendin/) during Saturday Night Live (https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/112196-s46e03-issa-rae-justin-bieber/) last night as viewers called for him to be replaced (https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/jim-carrey-joe-biden-snl/). "Saturday Night Live has a Jim Carrey problem," says Karen Valby. "He gives a bad Joe Biden when the country has never needed a good Joe Biden more. It sounded like a great get at first. Here was a big-time star that could balance out the heft of Alec Baldwin’s Trump. But after three episodes, Carrey still hasn’t managed to break through. Maybe he’s too physical a performer, or too needy a showman, to capture the flapjack earnestness of the former vice president. It makes a person pine for Woody Harrelson and his chew gum dentures. Harrelson managed to imbue his Biden impersonation with both a car salesman’s glint and his own Woody Boyd guilelessness. Meanwhile, Carrey seems stuck doing uncomfortable schtick at half speed. You can almost feel him bristling to push the bit further into some exaggerated insanity, which will only grate worse. He’s a monkey tasked with playing a tortoise." During last night's cold open sending up Trump and Biden's dueling town halls, "the sketch still lost all energy every time we switched back to Carrey," says Valby. "Biden by nature is a tough character to play; his decency, his gaffes, his tendency toward hokum and verbal meandering aren’t juicy Achilles heels to dig around in for sport. But it’s time for either the show or Carrey to pivot."

ALSO:


Adele to make her SNL hosting debut next week, joined by musical guest H.E.R. (https://deadline.com/2020/10/adele-to-host-saturday-night-live-october-24-musical-guest-h-e-r-hosting-debut-1234599400/)
Kanye West responds to Issa Rae's “Kanye? F him!” joke (https://variety.com/2020/music/news/kanye-west-issa-rae-snl-1234808842/): "I’ve always said SNL uses black people to hold other black people back. My heart goes out to Issa Rae. I’m praying for her and her family. I know that the twenty years of service that I’ve paid in the entertainment field has furthered our ability to be more successful.”
SNL let NBC off the hook for scheduling its town hall vs. Biden's town hall (https://news.avclub.com/snl-lets-nbc-off-the-hook-for-that-whole-trump-town-hal-1845405762): "Okay, okay, 'Weekend Update' host Michael Che did make a joke (https://www.thedailybeast.com/snls-michael-che-slams-nbc-for-hosting-accused-sex-predators-trump-bill-cosby-and-matt-lauer) about Saturday Night Live network NBC 'having a type' in enabling Donald Trump to self-program a competing town hall TV event on Thursday opposite Joe Biden’s previously scheduled one," says Dennis Perkins. "(Cue graphic of NBC stars Trump, Bill Cosby, and Matt Lauer.) The COVID-positive Trump bailed on a socially distanced remote second debate, if you recall, with NBC controversially jumping at the chance to play ratings reality competition. Which they—and Trump—lost handily, by the way. But SNL’s requisite cold open about the dueling gabfests began with a crawl claiming parent company’s ratings-grab was actually a “thirst trap” set for Trump, with Kate McKinnon’s acidly polite Savannah Guthrie promising viewers angry at NBC to just wait and see what her 'surprise badass' moderator has in store."
SNL let down Issa Rae with a forgettable episode (https://tv.avclub.com/issa-rae-hosts-an-improbably-forgettable-saturday-night-1845405171): "Having an actor host the show and having a comedian host shifts expectations, and opportunities," says Dennis Perkins. "Rae wasn’t provided with many chances to go big, apart from trotting out a decent comical French accent at one point, but grounded her sketches with aplomb. (Sure, she gave the occasional host’s cue card glance, but she’s better at that than Chris Rock was, and Rock was a cast member.) With Rae in the house, however, I couldn’t help but come away thinking about those missed opportunities."
Watch Lorne Michaels' interview with Willie Geist on Sunday Today, where he talks about Trump and coronavirus (https://www.today.com/video/lorne-michaels-talks-about-new-season-of-saturday-night-live-93962821902)