Following the conclusion of season 51 of NBC’s Saturday Night Live in May, Deadline has reported in an exclusive that Chloe Fineman (Search Party, High Fidelity) will depart the series after a seven-season performance tenure. Reportedly, she is in discussions to join Netflix’s upcoming drama series Myron Bolitar as her next project.
Fineman had originally joined the late-night sketch comedy program in the beginning of the 2019-2020 season, gaining further notoriety during the show’s pandemic episodes for her impersonation skills, which swiftly became an iconic marker of her performances in the following years. Deadline highlighted that she was widely recognized as a standout performer and earned several viral sketches under her belt, such as the “Domingo” series alongside cast member Marcello Hernández (Happy Gilmore 2, The Improviser), which garnered millions of views across YouTube and TikTok. During her tenure, she was able to do voice work and appearances for several series and films, including Megalopolis, Big Mouth, Freakier Friday, and Laid.
See Fineman’s Instagram post below, bittersweetly announcing her departure and chronicling her time at SNL.
The caption reads:
“After [seven] wonderful seasons at SNL I have decided it’s time for my next chapter.
It’s cliche to say this but working at SNL has been the greatest privilege of my life. I still can’t really believe I got to be part of it. I fell in love with the place the second I walked through the door. Lorne (if you’re reading this on your burner account) I want you to know that I am forever in your debt.
Every day I was lucky enough to be surrounded by the best people in the business, and I was constantly amazed watching them work. Sewing a JoJo Siwa costume in 10 hours. Writing a cold open at 2pm on a Saturday. Finishing the VFX of a video minutes before dress (I don’t know if ‘finishing VFX’ is the right technical term but you get the idea).
I’m definitely not the first to make this observation but it really is funny looking back at it all now, because at the show you get so invested in everything you work on. You sob uncontrollably when your sketch isn’t picked. You storm into a producer[‘s] office telling them they just made the biggest mistake of their lives, you call everyone you know to complain. And then you look back a few years later and it was a sketch called ‘lipstick for thicc dogs.’
But that’s just the show. You respect it so much that you give it absolutely everything you have even when it’s incredibly stupid. So you’re ecstatic when it works out and the most devastated you’ve ever been when it doesn’t. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter all that much but it did at the moment.
It’s really hard to leave SNL but it does feel like the right time. I’m going to miss it a lot. But the people who work there are my family and that place is my home, and I know I’ll never be too far away.
And I swear to god, one day, sometime in the future, they WILL make lipstick for thicc dogs.”
As detailed by Deadline, Fineman had been SNL’s longest-tenured female member in season 51 after the prior summer departures of former cast members Heidi Gardner (Hustle, Life of the Party) and Ego Nwodim (Mr. Throwback, Hoppers). However, this exit is not unsurprising, as the majority of successful SNL cast members have followed a similar pathway of departure after the conclusion of their first seven-year contract.
But this word is not law, as several successful members have also continued to extend their tenure – such as sketch writer and performer Mikey Day (Home Sweet Home Alone, Terminator: Termination) with 10 years, SNL’s longest-tenured cast member to date Kenan Thompson (Good Burger, Kenan & Kel), and Weekend Update segment hosts Colin Jost (Tom & Jerry, How to Be Single) for 13 seasons and Michael Che (Top Five, Lyle) for 12 seasons.