Meet The New ‘SNL’ Cast Members Who Will Be Joining The Variety Series In Its 45th Season

The upcoming 45th season of Saturday Night Live is already shaping up to be one of the show’s most interesting. Of course, between former cast member Eddie Murphy’s triumphant return to Studio 8H to serve as guest host, Leslie Jones’ departure after five years on the program, and Alec Baldwin’s unwillingness to portray President Donald Trump, “interesting” is only one of many words that we can use to describe SNL‘s next season. Thankfully, as indicated by the variety series on Thursday, there will be some new faces and voices to help us choose the best ones.

In a press release and a tweet from its official account, SNL announced that comedians Chloe Fineman, Shane Gillis, and Bowen Yang would be joining the series as featured players for season 45.

If Yang looks familiar, that’s because he’s been working at SNL for the past year as a writer and occasional bit player. Many of his co-written sketches, including “Cheques” and “GP Yass,” have popped up in Sandra Oh and Steve Carell’s guest-hosted episodes. He even played Kim Jong-un in “Kremlin Meeting.” Outside of SNL, though, Yang shines as the co-host of the Las Culturistas podcast and on Twitter, where his comedic lip sync videos routinely result in viral gold.

https://twitter.com/bowenyang/status/1086273380926537728

A frequent Groundlings performer and one of the 2018 Just For Laughs Festival’s “New Face” standouts, Fineman is a master character actor and impressionist. In fact, all one has to do to prove this is scroll down her Instagram account’s feed, where she regularly posts videos of herself performing as Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson, Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby, and whatever the hell this is:

As for Gillis, who was named a “New Face” at this year’s Just For Laughs Festival, his background is primarily in stand-up. His work has appeared on Comedy Central, as well as at the network’s increasingly influential Clusterfest comedy festival.