“Saturday Night Live” has added its first new castmember for its 44th season in Ego Nwodim.
Nwodim graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in biology and has been a regular cast member at the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles where she performed her one-woman show, “Great Black Women … and Then There’s Me.” “SNL” also added Alan Linic, Alison Gates, Eli Mandel and Bowen Yang as writers.
The venerable NBC sketch comedy show returns Sept. 29 with host Adam Driver and musical guest Kanye West. On Friday morning, “SNL” creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels teased Alec Baldwin’s return as president Donald Trump on James Andrew Miller’s “Origins” podcast, stating: “Oh, I think he’ll be back.”
Mikey Day, Melissa Villaseñor and Alex Moffat will be promoted to repertory players this season, a person with knowledge of the casting told TheWrap Monday. Additionally, Chris Redd and Heidi Gardner will return to “SNL” as featured players for Season 44. In August, it was announced that Luke Null, a featured player in Season 43, won’t return to the show for its upcoming season.
The rest of the cast includes Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Michael Che, Pete Davidson, Leslie Jones, Colin Jost, Kate McKinnon, Kyle Mooney, Cecily Strong and Kenan Thompson. Che and Jost hosted the 70th Primetime Emmys this past Monday night.
This will be Driver’s second time hosting the sketch comedy show, which returns for its 44th season on Sept. 29. The musical guest will be Kanye West, who will be making his seventh appearance.