When Saturday Night Live returns for a new season, it will be without cast members Casey Wilson and Michaela Watkins. Lorne Michaels, creator of SNL, announced Friday the two women had been fired from the show. Michaela Watkins says she is shocked by her sudden elimination from the SNL cast.
“It just felt premature,” Michael Watkins said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “But on some level I feel like there are so many opportunities and things that I want to do in the future and now they’ll just happen sooner rather than later.”
Watkins and Wilson joined the SNL cast in 2008. Some of Watkins’ most popular characters on the show were her portrayals of Arianna Huffington, Today Show host Hoda Kotb and Angie Tempura of bitchpleeze.com. Wilson never truly seemed to find her niche on the show and few of her characters were particularly notable.
Michaela Watkins and Casey Wilson will be replaced by Columbia University graduate Jenny Slate and Iranian native Nasim Pedrad. The new season of Saturday Night Live premiers Sept. 26.
I’m not surprised about this. Neither seemed to quite fit in at SNL. I’m more surprised Abby Elliott didn’t get canned too. She’s less funny than both of those. Though she does do a good Angelina Jolie.
Neither did much at all for me, though SNL seems to hang on to people way longer than they should. Hopefully the next batch of recruits will be a step up.
SNL fires cast members? Is that show still on?