That’s a wrap on Saturday Night Live’s 51st season, but there’s one more matter to put to rest: who among the show’s cast accrued the most (and least) screen time over the course of the entire season?
If you’re a regular LateNighter reader, you know we track the individual screen times of each of the show’s credited players on a weekly basis. (You can view an archive of our weekly screen time reports here.)
Across this year’s 20 regular-season episodes, each of the show’s ten repertory performers and seven featured players appeared on screen for an average total of one hour, 20 minutes and nine seconds. Two succeeded in clocking in beyond two hours, while three fell short of reaching the one-hour mark. Scroll down to see how each stacked up on the screen time leaderboard.
Note: Our screen time calculation method prioritizes face time, meaning that any contiguous off-screen-but-in-scene moments and most partial-body appearances do not count. Screen time in the opening credits, bumpers, goodnights, and cut-for-time sketches is not included, nor do those portions factor into our assessment of an episode’s total running time.
Ashley Padilla – 02:31:17 (12.0%)
Season 51’s breakout star won more than just critical praise and fan acclaim: Her screen time increased a whopping 168% year-over-year, easily making her the season’s most statistically improved player, and setting a new screen time record for a second-year featured player.
Remarkably, Padilla hit five minutes or more in 15 of the season’s 20 episodes and dipped below three minutes only once—in Nikki Glaser’s November episode.
She made her largest gains in the show’s traditional live sketches, going from tenth in Season 50 (40:25) to first by a mile in Season 51 (111:31). Picking up the political impressions of Kristi Noem, Karoline Leavitt, and Pam Bondi also led to nearly 18 minutes over 13 Cold Opens (third in cast).
Padilla finished off her sophomore season with an average of 07:34 per episode, the highest average since Kenan Thompson (07:45) and Kate McKinnon (07:44), both in Season 44.
Colin Jost – 02:27:23 (11.7%)
A 10% increase year-over-year made Season 51 Colin Jost’s best season in his 12.5 years as a cast member. Though he suffered a 10% drop in “Weekend Update” screen time (about 13 minutes), he more than made up for that in 13 sketches outside of “Update,” playing Secretary Pete Hegseth in half of the season’s Cold Opens, accounting for a combined 28 minutes of screen time (19.1% of his total).
In addition to his 10 Cold Opens and 20 shifts as “Update” co-anchor, he appeared for nearly a minute in two pretapes, first as Buzz McCallister in “Home Alone” in Ariana Grande’s Christmas episode, and again in Martin Herlihy’s third short film “Lies” (in the episode hosted by Ryan Gosling).
If Jost returns for Season 52, the premiere will be his 250th episode as a cast member.
Sarah Sherman – 01:58:21 (9.4%)
Sarah Sherman was one of just four returning cast members to see their screen time decrease compared to Season 50, with a modest 3% drop. Still, she boasted the most balanced season of any cast member, posting strong numbers across all of the show’s different sketch types, including “Weekend Update” (16:20, fifth in cast), 50 live sketch appearances (81:01, third in cast), and over nine minutes each in pretapes (seventh in cast) and in Cold Opens (fifth in cast).
If she returns for Season 52, Sherman will quickly hit her 100th episode and become just the 17th woman in SNL history to reach a sixth season.
Mikey Day – 01:53:36 (9.0%)
A late-season surge, averaging 07:13 per week since March, led Mikey Day to maintain his perennial consistency and even top his Season 50 total. The double return of the “Shop TV” sketch helped the ten-season vet rack up over ten minutes alone (appearing first with Sabrina Carpenter in October and later with Olivia Rodrigo in May). He saw a significant drop in the Cold Open (down 13 minutes), but an increase in a category he routinely dominates, live sketches (up 20 minutes). Day’s best episodes came in back-to-back weeks with Ryan Gosling (10:40) and Harry Styles (13:04).
Marcello Hernández – 01:52:54 (9.0%)
Marcello Hernández netted nearly 15 more minutes than his breakout third season last year, which saw the debut of his character “Domingo” and a recurrence of the “Sabado Gigante” game show sketch.
Though he suffered decreases across cold opens, monologues and pretapes, he logged significant increases in live sketches and “Weekend Update.” Outside of anchors Jost and Che, Hernández led the cast on “Update” in both appearances (eight) and screen time (26:07). His longest live sketch appearances were in a reprisal of “Immigrant Dad Talk Show” with Alexander Skarsgård (04:38), “Fashion District Robbery” with Colman Domingo (04:25), “Tough Guys” with Matt Damon (04:24), and perhaps most memorably in the debut of his Sebastian Maniscalco impression (03:41) with Glen Powell.
James Austin Johnson – 01:47:25 (8.5%)
In his fifth year, James Austin Johnson narrowly posted his career-best screen time (just over three minutes more than Season 50). He quietly increased his SNL prestige by moving into fifth place all-time in the “Live from New York” leaderboards, delivering the iconic line 13 times this season (51 times overall), and surpassed Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump impression record in the season finale with his 53rd turn as the president.
Not surprisingly, he led the cast in Cold Open screen time (48:42, accounting for over 45% of his season). He also logged the most growth in the live sketch category with nearly eight more minutes than Season 50 thanks to starring roles in pieces like “Boy Band” with Finn Wolfhard (03:11) and “Pilot” with Nikki Glaser (02:50).
Chloe Fineman – 01:35:34 (7.6%)
Chloe Fineman entered Season 51 as the most tenured female cast member in her seventh season and logged the strongest season start of her career, trailing only Ashley Padilla in screen time after the first six episodes before falling down the leaderboard to seventh with a reduction after the new year.
Despite scoring a career high in the Glen Powell episode (11:22) and tying for third in season-long cast appearances (81 with Mikey Day), Fineman fell just short of making Season 51 her best statistical season (05:02 per episode vs 05:03 per episode in Season 48).
Her standout moments included the pair of Scandinavian film sketches with Powell (03:42) and Skarsgård (03:28), and “Sparkle of the Sea” with Harry Styles (03:06). Among the cast, Fineman saw the most success in pretapes (23 appearances, 13:36). She also saw a massive 55% increase (over 26 minutes) in live sketch screen time from Season 50.
Kenan Thompson – 01:27:27 (7.0%)
Kenan Thompson’s record-breaking 23rd SNL season looked an awful lot like his 22nd, at least as far as screen time goes, with nearly an identical total to Season 50 (just a 29-second drop). Still, even the slightest decrease continued what’s now a four-season downward trend for the SNL legend (going back to Season 48).
Among his fellow cast members, Thompson had the most up-and-down season with six episodes below two minutes and six episodes above six minutes. He closed out the year with only 25 seconds in Will Ferrell’s finale, marking his lowest screen time in over 150 episodes.
His longest screen time appearances included “Best Buy: Mr. Pooty” with Harry Styles (04:10), “Halloween Hangover Game Show” with Miles Teller (03:38), and “Black Santa” with Ariana Grande (03:17). Late sketch entries and supporting roles continue to do the heaviest lifting in Kenan Thompson’s stat lines, averaging 01:09 per appearance (fifth lowest in the cast).
Andrew Dismukes – 01:27:26 (7.0%)
Andrew Dismukes saw the largest drop among returning cast members with about 22% less screen time in his sixth year. He’d previously made gains every season since joining the show in 2020.
He had one of the strongest starts after the first four episodes in the fall, averaging 06:35 per week, but fell to 03:49 after. Outside of his two appearances with Ashley Padilla on “Update” as “Two People Who Just Hooked Up,” his longest appearances were “Sunday Supper” with Melissa McCarthy, “Taken: Airport” with Glen Powell, “NFL on ESPN” with Teyana Taylor, and “Rasta Driver” with Olivia Rodrigo.
Dismukes led the Season 50 cast with 79 total appearances, but tied for seventh with 72 in Season 51.
Veronika Slowikowska – 01:21:53 (6.5%)
In the largest rookie class since Season 39 (2013-2014), Veronika Slowikowska stood above not only her four classmates, but all other SNL rookies of the past decade with over four minutes per episode.
She made a big splash early with over seven minutes in the third episode (hosted by Sabrina Carpenter) that featured a sketch where the pair played a singing washer and dryer. In Connor Storrie’s episode, she had nearly five minutes in just one sketch, “Ice Skating” and over four minutes in “Cyclops” with Ryan Gosling.
In the Storrie episode, Slowikowska became just the third rookie in over 150 episodes to lead the cast (joining Marcello Hernández in Season 48 with Jenna Ortega, and James Austin Johnson with Owen Wilson in the Season 47 premiere).
Michael Che – 01:20:43 (6.4%)
Michael Che had the most predictable season of all of the cast members, appearing in one segment per episode as co-anchor with Colin Jost on “Weekend Update.” He regularly trails behind his co-host in “Update” screen time and this season was no exception, with Che finishing out the year at a 37-minute deficit.
This season saw Che become the fifth-longest tenured SNL cast member in history, surpassing Fred Armisen, joining fellow current cast members Kenan Thompson and Jost on that very elite list. His longest appearance of the season came in the finale hosted by Will Ferrell which featured the latest edition of Jost and Che’s “Joke Swap.”
Jeremy Culhane – 01:08:55 (5.5%)
Culhane finished Season 51 with a bang, hitting a career high (09:02) in a finale that included the return of his character “Mr. On Blast” and saw him surpass Veronika Slowikowska for most appearances among rookies (68). He had two early breakouts in the fall, “Pinwheel” with Nikki Glaser, and “Free Sample” with Melissa McCarthy. He took over the role of Vice President JD Vance following the departure of Bowen Yang and his impression of Tucker Carlson recurred late in the season. Culhane had the best statistical season for a male rookie since James Austin Johnson in Season 47.
Jane Wickline – 01:06:51 (5.3%)
Though overshadowed by the historic season of her Season 50 classmate Ashley Padilla, Jane Wickline also showed massive improvement with a 39% increase in her sophomore screen time. Pairing up with rookie Veronika Slowikowska, she anchored “Cousin Planet” with Melissa McCarthy, and “White Castle Drive-Thru” with Harry Styles.
She more than doubled her live sketch usage (up to 45:03 vs. 17:47 in Season 50), while maintaining a heavy presence at the “Weekend Update” desk as she brought two more songs (one about the cast of Stranger Things and one on chronic tardiness), a recurrence of “The Couple You Can’t Believe Is Together” with Marcello Hernández, and two new characters (sex therapist Lindt Greer and button collector Tamara).
Ben Marshall – 01:00:37 (4.8%)
As a member of Please Don’t Destroy, Ben Marshall had uniquely already accumulated over 39 minutes of career screen time before he made his rookie debut in Season 51. That may be one reason he led the rookies with over ten minutes of pretape screen time (fifth in cast).
His longest leading role of the year came late in the season in “My Ex,” alongside Ashley Padilla in the Olivia Rodrigo episode. He made his “Update” debut in Melissa McCarthy’s episode as a “Redhead Who Just Went on Vacation.” Other highlights of an up-and-down season included “Tutoring the Cool Kid” with Connor Storrie (02:23), “Sensitive Strippers” with Josh O’Connor (01:54), and “Heated Wizardry” with Finn Wolfhard (01:34).
Bowen Yang – 00:54:35 (4.3%)
Bowen Yang became the first cast member since Cecily Strong in 2022 to exit the cast midseason when he bid SNL farewell after six and a half seasons during the Ariana Grande-hosted Christmas episode.
Other than an absence during Sabrina Carpenter’s episode (where he still managed to appear in the “Grind Song” pretape), Yang averaged 06:38 per episode during his final run, his highest average since Season 48 (06:42).
He began Season 51 with an “Update” appearance as Dobby the House Elf in the premiere and teamed up with Amy Poehler (who also left the cast after the Christmas show in 2008) for “Theme Songs Masterclass.” He reprised a couple of his most prolific characters including George Santos (03:30, Miles Teller) and Dr. Please (02:54, Josh O’Connor) before reuniting with Aidy Bryant for the fifth iteration of the “Trend Forecasters” in his last “Weekend Update.”
Yang was joined by host Ariana Grande and musical guest Cher in his final appearance, “Delta Lounge” (his second-longest career appearance), and totaled 13:12 for the entire episode (his second-highest career episode, behind only Season 49’s Jason Momoa episode, where he logged 13:32).
Tommy Brennan – 00:53:53 (4.3%)
Brennan had early breakouts with an “Update” self-introduction (03:04) in Sabrina Carpenter’s episode and “Karaoke Night” with Nikki Glaser (03:09) before peaking in the sixth episode, hosted by Glen Powell (08:36). A midseason slump halted his momentum, averaging just 41 seconds from episodes 8-11. His sole appearance in Connor Storrie’s “Ice Skating” sketch showed some dramatic acting chops in his longest appearance of the season (04:38) and three supporting roles with Jack Black gave Brennan a late-season pop (05:07). His end-of-season total surpasses the rookie totals of last season’s rookies Jane Wickline (48:09) and Emil Wakim (52:35).
Kam Patterson – 00:43:48 (3.5%)
Patterson’s rookie season was all about “Weekend Update,” where he made six appearances for a total of 18:14, accounting for nearly 42% of his total season screen time. He debuted at the desk in the Bad Bunny-hosted premiere as himself (02:20), returned for the Christmas episode as Michael Che’s nephew (02:45), kicked off the new year with a Michael Irvin impression (02:26), and went on a three-consecutive-episode run in the spring with “Update” appearances as Professor Snape (03:09), half of a duo with Marcello Hernández as “Two Kids at the Back of the Bus” (04:13), and as himself (03:21).
His longest appearance away from “Update” came in the ensemble of the Sebastian Maniscalco “Bachelor Party” sketch with Glen Powell, but oddly he spent about 35% of his live sketch screen time in classroom ensembles (06:42 across five sketches).
Can’t get enough SNL stats? Join us for an in-depth discussion of this season’s screen time totals, power rankings, and more on the Saturday Night Network’s By The Numbers podcast, streaming live at the top of this post Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET.
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