With just over one week until the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, the late night sketch comedy series has announced the addition of one new cast member as a featured player: Upright Citizens Brigade comedian Ego Nwodim. Plus, SNL has hired four new writers this season. Find out all about the latest updates for Saturday Night Live‘s new season below.
Ego Nwodim might not be a name you’ve heard before, but there’s a chance you’ve seen her pop up on Law & Order: True Crime, Two Broke Girls, Adam Ruins Everything or Living Biblically. Or maybe you saw her in Funny or Die’s sketch video about women dealing with the fact that didn’t love Wonder Woman as much as everyone else:
Nwodim has certainly paid her dues in the comedy world, and Vulture points out her hard work landed her a spot on the coveted New Faces roster at the 2016 Just for Laughs festival. She was also part of the CBS Diversity Showcase and cut her teeth at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. She even has a one-woman show called “Great Black Women … and Then There’s Me.” Plus, she’s appeared on high profile comedy podcasts like Comedy Bang Bang, Hollywood Handbook, and Spontaneanation.
It’s good that Saturday Night Live isn’t satisfied with having only one black woman in the cast. Leslie Jones is hilarious, but she’s not nearly versatile enough to be able to play an array of black female characters. Nwodim will bring a whole new perspective, and hopefully she has some range to play characters too.
In addition to the new featured player, NBC also added four new writers to the staff. Alan Linic, Alison Gates, Eli Mandel and Bowen Yang have all been added to the roster. This comes after a little change happened behind the scenes with Bryan Tucker being given a new senior writer position. But Michael Che, Colin Jost and Kent Sublette are all still the head writers of the show, for better or worse.
Saturday Night Live is returning on September 29 with host Adam Driver and musical guest Kanye West.
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