By Miguel Mike Medina
Photo Credit: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC via Getty
The Saturday Night Live cast will look different for the upcoming 51st season, as a few cast members have left the show.
Who are the cast members who won’t be back for SNL?
Heidi Gardner, Devon Walker, Emil Wakim, and Michael Longfellow won’t return for the new season. Changes will happen no matter how successful a show may be. We have seen this before in the history of SNL.
Gardner spent eight seasons on SNL, joining the cast in Season 43 in 2017. In addition to SNL, she appeared in 10 episodes for another successful series, Apple TV+’s Shrinking. She’s currently in post-production on a new film, Transcending.
Gardner has written 11 episodes for the series SuperMansion and three episodes for the series Bratz.
Walker joined SNL as a featured player during Season 48. He only lasted three years at SNL.
Wakim is a new face in the comedy industry. His stint at SNL was short and fast. However, he made history when he became the first cast member of Lebanese heritage. He’s only 27 years old. If he’s strong-willed and driven, he will have a long-lasting career.
The upside is that he gained experience working for an institution like SNL. Hopefully, his confidence doesn’t diminish after this news.
Longfellow, 31, is another young comedian and actor who got let go pretty fast. He lasted three seasons on SNL and made an appearance in the film Good Burger 2 as Oscar. Longfellow graduated from Arizona State University and began his stand-up career after college.
Longfellow received a lot of love and support from current and past SNL members through social media. Whatever the reasons were for the departure, all of them, including two writing members who won’t return to Season 51, made a mark on the show, and this experience will look great on their resumes as they move on to the next chapter of their careers.
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
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