Ashley Padilla has joined Universal’s comedy The Catch, giving the current Saturday Night Live cast member a role in a studio film led by Emma Stone and Chris Pine. Her part has not been disclosed.
The casting is drawing attention now because Padilla is one of the more talked-about names on the current SNL roster, and this deal pushes her into a higher-profile feature setting at a time when the film is already on the calendar for May 21, 2027. She joined Saturday Night Live in Season 50 after coming from the Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles, and she also appeared in the final season of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The Catch is being directed by Dave McCary from a project that has gone through several hands on the page, with Jen Statsky and Travis Helwig writing a draft after Patrick Kang and Michael Levin wrote the original spec script. Emma Stone, McCary and Ali Herting are producing through Fruit Tree’s first-look deal with Universal Pictures, while Shawn Levy and Dan Levine are producing through 21 Laps, and Michael H. Weber is also producing. Erik Baiers and Jacqueline Garell are overseeing the film for the studio.
Universal has kept the official logline under wraps even though the movie has previously been reported as centering on a baseball fan played by Stone who accidentally alters the trajectory of a game-winning catch. That leaves Padilla’s role as the piece still missing from the picture, even as the ensemble around her takes shape.
For Padilla, the move marks a clear step from sketch comedy and television into a major studio feature with two established stars and a long runway before release. The question now is not whether the film is real or moving forward; it is how much screen time Universal is giving her when the movie finally reaches theaters next spring.
