He’s said it before, and he’ll almost certainly say it again. Seth Meyers does not think that Lorne Michaels will be stepping down from Saturday Night Live anytime soon.
That’s despite the fact that Michaels himself has said that he’s considering leaving SNL following the NBC sketch show’s 50th anniversary next year.
Meyers reiterated his stance during a guest appearance on Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast, out today. Birbiglia asked Meyers point-blank whether he’d be taking over for Michaels at some point, “or is it Tina [Fey] and then you?”
“I really don’t… I think this is a false narrative that Lorne is going anywhere,” said Meyers. “I think it made sense for Lorne who’s, yeah, got a flare for the dramatic to say, ‘I think I’ll be done at 50.’ Yeah. But now, it’s not like Lorne’s got something else he wants to do more than this.”
“So you think it’s Kenan [Thompson],” joked Birbiglia, which Meyers then confirmed with a laugh.
Joking or not, Thompson deserves to be in the conversation alongside frequently named potential successors such as Fey and Meyers, as Thompson joined SNL in 2003 and holds the record as the longest-tenured cast member in the show’s history.
Though Saturday Night Live premiered in October 1975, the 50th anniversary show will take place in February 2025.
Michaels turned heads in 2021 when told CBS Mornings that the show’s 50th anniversary would “be a really good time to leave.” He’s since said that he hasn’t made up his mind either way.
In February, Meyers told THR that he wished FanDuel had odds for whether Michaels would still be calling the shots at SNL on the show’s 55th anniversary.
“I would bet the house that Lorne will still be running that place in five years. That is the most appropriate outcome that makes the most sense to me,” said Meyers, who says he’s nonetheless flattered by rumors that he’s in the mix to take over SNL down the line.
