Saturday Night Live has added four new cast members for season 48 after a series of departures from the long-running sketch comedy show. Since its debut in 1975, the NBC staple has sported a fluctuating cast of repertory players and newer featured players. The season 47 finale bid farewell to SNL veterans Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Aidy Bryant, and Kyle Mooney. Additionally, over the summer break, repertory players Alex Moffat and Melissa Villaseñor were added to the list of departures, as was featured player Aristotle Athari, who only lasted one season.
Per THR, Saturday Night Live has hired four new cast members for its upcoming season following the slew of departures. Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, Marcello Hernandez, and Molly Kearney were recently announced as the latest cast additions, joining Andrew Dismukes, Punkie Johnson, James Austin Johnson, and Sarah Sherman as featured players. Audiences can get their first look at the new cast when SNL returns for season 48 on October 1.
Newcomer Walker has a history in standup comedy, previously featuring on Comedy Central's Up Next, and served as a writer on Freeform's Everything's Trash. Longfellow has appeared on both Conan and Laugh After Dark doing standup comedy. Hernandez serves as the creative director for Only in Dade, a Florida-based news comedy website. Kearney recently starred in Amazon's A League of Their Own reboot television series as Fern Dannely. With many of the series' popular stalwarts having left the show, the new young additions may bring Saturday Night Live a dash of energy that the long-running series may need in what showrunner Lorne Michaels calls a transition year.
Source: THR