Saturday Night Live’s Season 51 ended up with five new cast members, the biggest single-season intake since 2013, and the group got together for a rare interview at 30 Rock ahead of the May 16 finale with Will Ferrell and Paul McCartney.
For the new arrivals, the timing mattered. Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim had all left the cast before the season finale, opening the door for the additions and giving the show an unusually large reset at once. Veronika Slowikowska joined after becoming known on Instagram. Kam Patterson came aboard after working on the live roast podcast Kill Tony. Jeremy Culhane arrived as an L.A. improv performer. Tommy Brennan joined as a Minnesota-born stand-up comedian. Ben Marshall moved up to the main cast after four years as a writer and as part of Please Don’t Destroy.
The five newcomers said the shift from earning attention elsewhere to surviving inside Studio 8H has been immediate. Brennan tried to frame the experience in positive terms, while Patterson cut in with, “What kind of roller coaster?” Culhane described New York as a restart after a looser life in Los Angeles, saying nobody treated him like he was at the bottom, but that everyone around him had so much more experience that he felt he did not know how to do the job at all. Marshall said he felt “like a senior and a freshman at the same time.”
That mix of confidence and uncertainty is what makes the group’s arrival notable. Season 51 did not just add fresh faces; it replaced a stretch of familiar voices with people whose paths into the show ran through very different lanes, from Instagram and podcasts to improv, stand-up and the writer’s room. The five-member intake was SNL’s biggest since the show added six cast members in one season in 2013, which is the kind of turnover that changes how a live comedy machine sounds and moves.
There is also friction in the way the job works once the spotlight arrives. Brennan said it is hard to accept that a sketch can move without you, especially when a line you loved gets cut and you never know whether it was your fault. He said the challenge is finding the nerve to believe you have ideas the show has not already heard, and Marshall said letting go is part of the process. Culhane compared the learning curve to watching his dog, saying the animal never knows what is about to happen but stays calm anyway, which is how the job has felt to him. He also called Marshall their “unc,” saying he has acted like the group’s uncle through the transition.
The finale on May 16 closes a season that began with serious personnel changes and ended with a rare influx of new talent. That kind of turnover can unsettle a veteran show, but it also gives SNL something it always needs: new voices willing to pitch, fail and keep going live.
