We’re only a week away from Saturday Night Live’s milestone 50th season debuting on the 2024 TV schedule, and fans are already pumped to see what the writers come up with to comment on the upcoming presidential election. It’s already been confirmed that Maya Rudolph will be back for SNL 50 to portray Kamala Harris, and James Austin Johnson will presumably resume his scary accurate impression of Donald Trump. “Weekend Update” anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost spoke about having guests like Rudolph come on for such roles and how the cast feels about it.
While we’re pretty sure about the presidential candidates (Lorne Michaels has been a little coy about his plans for SNL 50), it’s not known who might portray other political figures including Harris and Trump's running mates, Tim Walz and JD Vance. Hell, even second gentleman Doug Emhoff hoped to see an impression of himself. So just how bothered are the cast members when outsiders are brought in to do the job? Colin Jost admitted to THR:
If you’re someone in the cast who’s like, ‘I have a better impression than that person coming in,’ it’s probably frustrating. But it’s sort of the reality of our show.
To me, that sounds like confirmation that some cast members do get rubbed the wrong way when another celeb is brought in, possibly for purposes of name recognition or simply just looking like that political figure. But the reality is that sometimes you have to check your ego for the sake of the show.
Another reality that Lorne Michaels and co. have to face is that because of all of Saturday Night Live’s great presidential impressions over the years, this is now something that the audience expects. Colin Jost said they didn’t want to start writing too soon because things change in the news so quickly, but fans started doing that planning for them, like when “the world” decided Maya Rudolph was returning before she’d agreed to it. Jost said:
The weird thing now is as soon as news like Kamala’s running happens, America just starts debating who’s going to play them on SNL. Before we’ve even had a conversation about it, there’s a list of 10 people who should play Tim Walz.
Yes, that's a real list, and fans actually had some great suggestions for Tim Walz's impressionist. That’s really a compliment to the actors and cast members like Maya Rudolph, Alec Baldwin, Will Ferrell and more, because Michael Che pointed out that such political impressions on Saturday Night Live haven’t always been the expectation. Che told Jost:
You kind of started that by having Melissa [McCarthy] play [Sean] Spicer, no? I feel like that wasn’t a thing when I first came here and it became a thing.
Oh yes, Melissa McCarthy’s caricature of the former press secretary was a thing of beauty (though Spicer definitely had thoughts on McCarthy’s impression), and one can understand why SNL fans would be excited to see iconic moments like that being created from the current election cycle.
Thankfully, we don’t have long to wait to see who exactly will show up, because SNL’S 50th season premieres at 11:30 p.m. ET Saturday, September 28, with Hacks star Jean Smart guest hosting and Jelly Roll as the musical guest. The milestone season will also see several former stars popping in, and fans are already freaking out about John Mulaney and Chappell Roan.
Saturday Night Live will air on NBC and can be streamed with a Peacock subscription.