SNL turns 50! How Lorne Michaels made comedy cool again.
In the decades since its creation, SNL has become a cultural institution for American comedy.
Lorne Michaels is promising a major change in the “Saturday Night Live” lineup.
The co-founder and longtime producer of the show said in a recent interview with Puck News that, after wanting to keep a steady bow through “SNL’s” 50th anniversary extravaganza, he’s ready to shake up the team of sketch comics that coax laughs in the wee hours of NBC’s weekend broadcast.
“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, said of the decision to hold back on major casting changes.
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.
“It’ll be announced in a week or so,” Michaels said of the casting news. The interview was published Aug. 22.
James Austin Johnson will keep his role impersonating President Donald Trump, however, he confirmed. Johnson has played Trump for several years, following a much-talked-about portrayal by Alec Baldwin during the president’s 2016 campaign against then-candidate Hillary Clinton.
Several current cast members are expected to exit, and auditions took place earlier this month, according to the outlet.
Michaels, who is notoriously the final boss on the broadcast’s critical decisions, says he has, in recent years, brought a few more people in on the process.
“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.”
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.
“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!”
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