‘SNL’ Adds Three Cast Members, Says Goodbye to Chloe Troast
On the eve of (well, a few weeks before) the kickoff of Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary season, the show announced that it was hiring three new cast members, according to Deadline: Ashley Padilla of the Groundlings, stand-up comic Emil Wakim and TikTok star Jane Wickline. In a somewhat surprising move, Chloe Troast revealed that she won’t be back after a promising first season, joining Punkie Johnson and Molly Kearney as departing cast members.
As for the new cast members? Padilla comes to the show from the Groundlings, the improv sketch troupe that’s delivered cast members like Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig and Molly Shannon. She recently guested on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Night Court.
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Wakim becomes the show’s first Lebanese-American cast member. He made his Tonight Show debut in 2022 and has spent recent years opening for Hasan Minhaj and Nikki Glaser.
Wickline brings her off-kilter comedy (and nearly one million followers) to the show. In addition to her popular TikTok channel, she was a cast member on the online sketch show Stapleview. She’s the first performer to transition from TikTok to SNL, although comics like Andy Samberg, Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney previously parlayed online video success to getting cast on the show.
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In addition to the new cast members, SNL announced that three of its featured players are getting promotions to the main cast: Marcello Hernández…
…Michael Longfellow…
…and Devon Walker.
While the promotion of breakout star Hernández was expected, the move was more surprising for Longfellow and Walker given their struggles to find screentime. Maybe their new position in the opening credits will mean more sketches as well.
