{"id":102347,"date":"2025-08-22T17:44:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T17:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/102347\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T17:44:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T17:44:06","slug":"snl-head-lorne-michaels-promises-major-shake-up-of-cast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/102347\/","title":{"rendered":"‘SNL’ head Lorne Michaels promises major shake-up of cast"},"content":{"rendered":"

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SNL turns 50! How Lorne Michaels made comedy cool again.<\/p>\n

In the decades since its creation, SNL has become a cultural institution for American comedy.<\/p>\n

Lorne Michaels<\/a> is promising a major change in the “Saturday Night Live”<\/a> lineup.<\/p>\n

The co-founder and longtime producer<\/a> of the show said in a recent interview with Puck News<\/a> that, after wanting to keep a steady bow through “SNL’s” 50th anniversary extravaganza<\/a>, he’s ready to shake up the team of sketch comics that coax laughs in the wee hours of NBC’s weekend broadcast.<\/p>\n

“There couldn’t be those kind of disruptions, or anything that was going to take the focus off (the 50th season). And we had an election,” Michaels, 80,<\/a> said of the decision to hold back on major casting changes.<\/p>\n

SNL turns 50! How Lorne Michaels made comedy cool again | The Excerpt<\/a><\/p>\n

He added that, as the show enters the back half of its climb to a century on the air, he feels pressure to reinvent it.<\/p>\n

“It’ll be announced in a week or so,” Michaels said<\/a> of the casting news. The interview was published Aug. 22.<\/p>\n

James Austin Johnson will keep his role impersonating President Donald Trump<\/a>, however, he confirmed. Johnson has played Trump for several years, following a much-talked-about portrayal by Alec Baldwin<\/a> during the president’s 2016 campaign against then-candidate Hillary Clinton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Several current cast members are expected to exit, and auditions took place earlier this month, according to the outlet.<\/p>\n

Michaels,<\/a> who is notoriously the final boss<\/a> on the broadcast’s critical decisions, says he has, in recent years, brought a few more people in on the process.<\/p>\n

“More people are involved in the choices and in the decisions,” he told the outlet. “There’s a lot of people in that room with a lot of opinions. I make the final decision, obviously. But it’s not as if people don’t let me know how strongly they feel.”<\/p>\n

And, as for artificial intelligence, which looms for many in the entertainment world as a potential job-snatcher, Michaels said he wasn’t sweating it.<\/p>\n

“I’m not worried about A.I. because A.I. can’t guess what I’m gonna do between 10 and 11 (on show nights),” he joked, “because I have no idea!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SNL turns 50! How Lorne Michaels made comedy cool again. In the decades since its creation, SNL has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[13716,27729,181,228,236,13721,16198,1036,88,68283,27423,3103,35199,271,22442,19846,68285,3729,13723,68281,68284,68282,13547,3,6319,13270,20028,13470,13560,13544,20724,23505,23502,6318,12015,1557,20031,4196,1599,1505,1596,826,13557,92,23504,13692],"class_list":["post-102347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-affiliate","tag-artificial","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-arts","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","tag-clinton","tag-comedy","tag-entertainment","tag-hillary","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-humor","tag-intelligence","tag-life","tag-life-now","tag-live","tag-live-comedy","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-lorne","tag-lorne-michaels","tag-michaels","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-night","tag-now","tag-optimized","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-point","tag-political","tag-political-humor","tag-programs","tag-saturday","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-seo","tag-seo-team-optimized","tag-shows","tag-team","tag-television","tag-the","tag-to","tag-to-the-point","tag-tv","tag-tv-shows-u0026-programs","tag-u0026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}