‘SNL’ Season 51 Cast Reportedly Finalized: Find Out Who’s Staying After Heidi Gardner’s Exit

The upcoming Saturday Night Live cast will feature some old and new faces.

Michael Che is set to return to the hit sketch comedy show, completing the cast lineup, according to sources that spoke to Deadline.

Che, 42, will also join Colin Jost at the Weekend Update desk. (Scarlett Johansson — who wed Jost, 43, in 2020 — recently told Entertainment Weekly that her hubby is “going back to work.”)

Besides Che and Jost, the other returning cast members include Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Marcello Hernandez, James Austin Johnson, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang.

Additionally, featured players Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline will be back.

The show will also see five new faces — Ben Marshall, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson, and Veronika Slowikowska — bringing the cast to 18 people.

As the National Enquirer previously reported, multiple season 50 cast members have departed the sketch comedy series, including Devon Walker, Emil Wakim, Michael Longfellow and beloved comedian Heidi Gardner. 

Gardner, 42, spent eight years on the NBC series.

Former SNL cast member Dana Carvey discussed Gardner’s exit on his Fly on the Wall podcast with David Spade.

“From what I know as of this recording, that it was not her idea to leave,” Carvey, 70, remarked. “I could be wrong about that, but that’s what I read.”

Season 51 of SNL premieres on Saturday, October 4.