Ahead of the season-52 premiere on September 26, the Saturday Night Live cast got some new additions. Following Ego Nwodim’s surprise departure ahead of season 51 and July’s news that Chloe Fineman would not return for an eighth season, the show was left with some important slots to fill, and after auditioning a wide range of hopefuls in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York earlier this summer, it has landed on two new performers who will be joining the cast as featured players: Grace Reiter and Saidah Belo-Osagie. Get familiar with these two comedians who will be telling stories about their audition processes and awkward meetings with Lorne Michaels on podcasts for the rest of their lives.

Reiter is a comedian and actor from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, who rose to popularity on TikTok and Instagram in 2019 thanks to viral videos in which she commits deeply to direct-to-camera musings, dance videos, and idiosyncratic characters. Now based in New York, she continues to go viral online with larger-scale productions, including her 2025 Hunger Games parody film and Minimum Wage, a short-form series she stars in, wrote, and directed that was recently picked up by Netflix. She performed stand-up on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2021 and has acted in several movies, including 2023’s First Time Female Director and 2025’s Summer of 69. In 2025, she appeared in her most notable mainstream role yet, as Tara in SNL alum Tim Robinson’s HBO series The Chair Company. 

Belo-Osagie is a Queens native best known for sketches on social media, where she plays characters lacking in self-awareness like “girl who has Muslim friends” and “girl who just learned the words 70mm and Imax.” She’s also the creator and host of the live-event series Afrobeats Futura. A self-described “clown-school dropout” (her solo clown show, Saidah Gets Closure, debuted last year), she also performs stand-up, directed the short film TINGE in 2021, and works as a digital host, most notably on the NowThis series Are You Okay? 

The September 26 SNL premiere will be hosted by Jalen Brunson alongside musical guest Katseye.

Sign up for the Vulture Daily

An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.

Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice

Related