Saturday Night Live made a couple of big announcements today about their upcoming 46th season, which premieres on October 3rd.
Jim Carrey will be playing former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the new season; the show will air five consecutive episodes in October leading up to the election; the entire cast is returning, plus they are adding three new featured players; and there will be limited in-studio audiences at 30 Rock for the tapings.
Lorne Michaels shared many of these details in a rare interview with Vulture today. He revealed that, as expected, Maya Rudolph will be back as Kamala Harris and Alec Baldwin will be back as Donald Trump, and then gave some background on how they ended up picking Carrey to be 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."
Last season, Biden was played at different times by Jason Sudeikis (who also played Biden on SNL during Barack Obama’s presidency), Woody Harrelson, and John Mulaney.
In addition to all the returning cast members, the three new featured players who have been added to the cast are Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson, and Andrew Dismukes. Dismukes has been an SNL staff writer since season 43; Holt is an Upright Citizens Brigade performer who Michaels said was supposed to have joined the cast toward the end of last season; and Johnson is a stand-up comedian whose credits include Space Force and Corporate.
In addition, Ego Nwodim was promoted from featured player to main cast member in her third season on the show.
Longtime SNL Live Band guitarist Jared Scharff also announced that after 13 years, he will be leaving the show.
As for why they're doing five shows in a row in October, Michaels said, "I made the decision early on, or at least about a month ago, that we would do something we hadn’t done before, which was five shows in a row. Because there are four debates and then it’s Halloween, and that’s the weekend before the election. And sadly, if the election gets extended, then we’ll be doing six or seven shows in a row."
Michaels said that hosts will be there in person, but production would be slightly smaller than usual: "I don’t think we’ll go in 25 minutes or 30 minutes long at dress rehearsal. We’ll be tighter. We’ll try to mount fewer things, only because the number of people who can be in the studio — like stagehands coming in to change the set, cast have to leave before they can enter, those kinds of problems."
He also discussed the importance of having some live audience, even though it will be reduced. "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," he said.
Michaels did note that some longtime castmembers, including Aidy Bryant, Cecily Strong and Kenan Thompson, all have commitments filming other projects as well, so they may be in-and-out of 30 Rock at different points during the season. "People will stay involved, but they may not physically be in the studio," he said.
You can read more here about Michaels' thoughts on SNL's reliance on celebrity guest stars, the importance of political sketches to SNL, Black Lives Matter, and the Shane Gillis fiasco.
