‘SNL' Cast Unpacks Season 50 Including Miss Eggy, Chloe Fineman's Big Dumb Line, Straight Bowen Yang & Sarah Sherman Nearly Getting 'Jacked'

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While Saturday Night Live celebrated its 50th anniversary this season – with a star-studded special that featured many of the 167 iconic cast members that have appeared on the show – there was another change that helped it 'get back to its roots'.
Since Season 45, the season interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, cast, writers and crew have performed the read-through in studio 8H on the show floor, but this season they were able to get back to the 17th floor where it has historically always taken place.
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Bowen Yang, who joined the show as a writer in Season 44 before being promoted to a cast member for Season 45, said returning to the 17th floor was a 'huge deal'.
'From the first season to the 45th, read through is on the 17th floor, and then, because of Covid, because we just had to work with spatial limitations, and wanted a bigger space so we used the studio [8H] floor and we all got used to it. Four years in, it rearranged our spatial awareness as the week progresses. There's something about being back on the 17th floor where the wins feel bigger and the bombs don't feel quite as devastating, which was good for morale. It felt like this return home, in terms of the spirit of the show and where we all got to get back to the show's roots in some ways even though we're like a new, scrappy cast,' he said.
The cast returned to the 17th floor after the 50th anniversary special on February 16. Ego Nwodim agreed with Yang that it felt like a 'return home'.
Yang and Nwodim were speaking alongside their castmates Heidi Gardner, Sarah Sherman, James Austin Johnson and Chloe Fineman at an FYC event in LA. During the event, which was moderated by former cast member Fred Armisen, the group broke down Season 50 including the most controversial and fun sketches.
For the record, the topic of who is staying on the show for Season 51 didn't come up at all.
In terms of the 50th, Nwodim said having all of the alumni in the building was a 'surreal experience'. 'At one point, there was an event honoring Lorne [Michaels] between the concert on February 14 and the special and Heidi said to me 'I thought there were 500 people in this cast and I'm realizing there's only a hundred-and-something of us ever to be in the cast'. What a special honor to get to be part of that club or family. The 50th felt really nostalgic and beautiful,' she said.
Sherman added that the 50th 'felt like a little present for us sometimes too'. 'We work really hard and it can get really crazy sometimes and it was like 'Yo, what's up, it's Paul McCartney',' she added.
There was so much focus on the 50th anniversary, that it's tough to remember that Season 50 kicked off at the end of September with Jean Smart hosting and headed straight into a major Presidential election.
In fact, the cold open of the first episode featured some notable former SNL stars; Maya Rudolph returned as Kamala Harris, Andy Samberg played her husband Doug Emhoff, Dana Carvey played President Joe Biden and Jim Gaffigan played Tim Walz. In later episodes, Mike Myers returned to play Elon Musk, after Carvey had portrayed him immediately after the election.
James Austin Johnson, who plays President Donald Trump on the show, said those cold opens were 'pretty crazy'. 'I've done a few of those before, but the added pressure of the 50th and the added pressure of my comedy idols being up there with us on some of those sketches… it was just Bowen and I looking at each other, like, 'look at us with these all stars'. It made me want to raise my game and match their level. That was what the whole season was about. For me, I want to find the path to be as good as these people I've looked up to and here they are sharing the stage,' he added.
Johnson joined the show in Season 47. He said this season was the first where he took out the three new cast members – Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline – for lunch to give them a 'rundown'.
'This was the first year I cared about another living soul,' he joked. 'I came to SNL with my wife, who was pregnant at the time, and I was so wrapped up in our internal drama. This season was the first one where I [thought] I can do this. I know this, and I want to share that data with these new guys. And they're all geniuses. They're all so ready. I was blown away by all three of them. They're such naturals.'
Johnson also played Bob Dylan, which may have had a 'little bit to do with Timothée Chalamet making a movie about him', joking that it 'shouldn't have been on TV'. 'My specific Bob Dylan is like 2006 Sirius XM Theme Time Radio Bob Dylan. Already we are getting way too record store employee granular about what era of Dylan to even be making fun of,' he said.
One of Chloe Fineman's breakout sketches this season was Big Dumb Line, which featured her, Yang, Sherman and host Mikey Madison, waiting for something viral, which could be food or toothpaste. Written by Fineman, Alison Gates and Kent Sublette and directed by Tim Wilkime, the sketch also featured Joe Jonas.
'Sometimes you'll have 15 ideas on a Monday or Tuesday and they never go anywhere but it was one of those Tuesdays where everything was a no and I pulled up an old Notes app of ideas I've had. Forever 31 was one I'd had for a really long time and the other was Big Dumb Line. They were things I never thought anyone would want to do but Alison and Kent, our head writers [thought] they were great and they both came about. They are kind of critiques on people or things I don't like about myself. But the line thing is an epidemic in the West Village. It's also in Los Feliz, it's Silver Lake, it's in Echo Park, it's in London,' she said.
Nwodim's breakout sketch of the season was Miss Eggy, where the eponymous stand-up pitches herself to host the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The sketch, which aired on April 5 and was written by Josh Patten, Asha Ward, Carl Tart, and Will Stephen, caused a little bit of controversy after Nwodim turned the microphone to the crowd and they responded, albeit the second time they cursed. 'We're gonna get fired for that,' Nwodim's Miss Eggy replied. 'Y'all gonna have to pay for that. Lorne's gonna be mad at y'all.'
Nwodim said that the sketch, which was part of Weekend Update, saw her have to do live choreography to avoid blocking Colin Jost or Michael Che. 'That was kind of a fun challenge for me,' she said.
She joked that it would have been 'easier' and more 'comfortable' if she'd been doing it from behind the desk, but you'd lose something if she wasn't pacing.
'The audience never says anything on SNL. We didn't expect them to say anything. They're just supposed to laugh or not laugh, but we didn't expect them to say anything. But I think because I was in front of the desk and I was pacing, and I was doing something perhaps they hadn't seen before, they're like, 'Oh, we're in this, we're all having a time together. We were doing a dance together, and then they did a move I didn't expect,' she said. 'They really threw me for a loop. But it was so exciting, because I love improv, and so getting to play with them was so fun.'
Armisen praised Heidi Gardner's physical comedy on the show. 'A couple years ago, I fell through a desk, and it was really fun, and I thought I want to do that more,' Gardner said. 'Whether it's falling through a wall or just pushing my body physically, it's been fun. I'll think I know a character but it's really cool to be out there and feeding off of what the audience is responding to. What monster am I making?'
She added that sometimes people know those monsters. 'I had someone write to me and they're like 'I had a really complicated relationship with [their] mother and that character really made me miss her and I really didn't like her'. Great.'
The character? Mom visiting New York.
Yang said there's an 'interiority' to Gardner's characters, especially on Weekend Update. 'You see the glances sort of skew a certain way and it just, it telegraphs it for the audience in a way that is this guiding hand. It's like, here's where I'm going, come with me, and it's going to be a safe, fun place for you,' he said.
Sherman said that it's not always big, broad strokes, though. 'You'll have like a mini body roll, or like character has a twitch that is different from another character's twitch,' she added.
Sherman has become one of the most recent breakout stars of the show, having joined in Season 47 with characters such as RFK Jr.'s brain worm, clad in a 'couture' worm outfit. But she revealed that she pitched one sketch this season that has yet to make it to air.
'I had a thing for the finale that we wrote on a Tuesday night till 5am, no problem, it's not like, I'm holding a grudge about it. I was f*cking jacked, so I had giant veiny jacked arms. Close your eyes, if you will. And in your minds' eye, imagine I have giant veiny pulsing, jacked arms, pecs, a giant chin, and I have just been a mocap actor for the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park. Cut before table read. Don't pity me. She will live again,' Sherman said.
One of Yang's most popular sketches over the last couple of years is Bowen's Straight. He initially hooked up with Sydney Sweeney before reprising his heterosexual alter-ego in the Season 50 finale alongside Scarlett Johansson.
Yang revealed that the sketch, which was written by Gary Richardson, Auguste White and Will Stephen, was originally Bowen's Bisexual before going 'full-tilt hetero'.
'I do like that people have stopped to point out to me [that I] still talk like a gay person. I'm presenting as an effeminate man in my dress and in my mannerisms, besides the little bro-isms, [but] when you follow him home and you see what his home life is, it's really devastating,' he joked.
In the most recent sketch, Yang seems to sleep with Gina Gershon, Nwodim and Gardner before taking off to Tokyo with Emily Ratajkowski in his sports car with its Y4ng B4ng license plate.
'Who's idea was it to slap me on the ass?,' asked Nwodim. 'That was mine,' replied Yang.
'Bowen and I sit next to each other at table read, and he leans over and says 'I hope it's okay that I smack you on the ass in this',' she continued. 'I look like I was enjoying it, because I did.'
The awards love-in belies the fact that there will likely be changes on show ahead of Season 51. But regardless, it's clear that this group are close. 'We all like each other, for real,' said Sherman.
'It's like we always say 'SNL, when you're here your family'. And I feel like these are my family members,' added Nwodim.
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