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The Saturday Night Live stars gathered at a farewell party to toast the cast members leaving the show this year.
Season 50 cast members Heidi Gardner, Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim and Don’t Don’t Destroy John Higgins were in attendance. Chloe Trost, Molly Carney and Panky Johnson all left after Season 49, but 40-year-old Johnson was the host of the evening.
This event came one day before season 51 of the late-night sketch comedy show premiere.
Maxwell Brown
Speaking only with the people at the party, Johnson and Trost revealed the reality that they would be fired from the long-term show. Trost, 28, says that while the show “fundamentally changed” her life, she found a “really difficult” adjustment after the SNL stint.
“When you fall, you don’t get the cushion,” she says.
“Even before the show, they were guide lights, so that’s what I saw. And without it, honestly, I don’t know where I’m,” Trost tells people.
Maxwell Brown
As for Johnson, who spent four seasons with Studio 8H, she tells people that SNL “mad put pressure on you,” and says “I can’t leave SNL and do the same thing as before.”
“Everyone always feels like you have to do the next big thing,” she explains.
Johnson continues: “I’m fine, cool, you had to find a way to understand the difference between doing something really great, and now you’re just fine with just making a move and hurrying and not understanding what’s next for you.
The comedian described SNL as “another monster, another beast.” “It’s very difficult to understand such a place. They just throw you into the water – you know how to swim. They don’t give you a life jacket.”
Maxwell Brown
But she says the experience “builds something within you and makes you very strong.”
“I feel like I can go out to Hollywood and handle anything. “They really built me up and made me mentally stronger, so I don’t think I can’t break me any more.”
“I will not return to my fourth season in the SNL,” Longfellow, 31, said.
He called the experience “the best three years of my life so far,” and said it was “the biggest job in the world and changed my life.”
Walker, 34, also issued a statement in the news of his exit.
“I did the show together for three years and it was really cool at times. Sometimes it was toxic like hell,” he wrote in the post. “But we did what we made the most of it, even amid all of our dysfunction.
Mike Coppola/NBC via Getty
Wakim, 27, admitted that learning not to return to Season 51 is a “gut punch,” but he called his one-season run “the most frightening, thrilling and rewarding experience on Instagram.”
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In the exit, five newcomers participated in the SNL cast of Season 51. Veronika Lowerikowska, Kam Patterson, Ben Marshall are Don’t Destrow, Tommy Brennan and Jeremy Culhane. They all debut at their premiere on October 4th.
