Lorne Michaels says Tina Fey could take over 'Saturday Night Live' role
Lorne Michaels has some ideas about who could be his Saturday evening live successor.
“That could easily be done Tina Feybut you know, there's a lot of people out there now,” Michaels, 79, said Entertainment tonight in an interview published on Tuesday, January 16, which suggested there are several candidates who could take charge.
Still, Michaels noted that Fey, 53, would be someone he could trust with the NBC sketch series, as she is “brilliant” and “amazing” at everything she does. “She is a very important person in my life,” he added.
Michaels co-created SNL in 1975, where he was a writer, producer and executive producer for more than 40 years, with a five-year hiatus in the 1980s. Fey, meanwhile, joined the show as a writer in 1997 before being promoted to head writer two years later. In 2000, she joined the cast during season 26 as co-anchor for the “Weekend Update” segment, alongside Jimmy Fallon and later Amy Poehler.
Stop living from New York! Saturday Night Live has launched the careers of many of today's most popular comedians, including Will Ferrell, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey and Adam Sandler. In fact, since its premiere in 1975, the NBC sketch comedy series has become a launching pad for popular talk shows, movies, sitcoms and game shows. […]
Fey eventually left the series in 2006 to write and star in NBC's 30 Rock, that the SNL office and was also executive produced by Michaels.
Since her departure, Michaels and Fey have continued their working relationship. Michaels has produced a handful of Fey projects, including 2004 Mean girlsthe 2024 Mean girls movie musical and Mean girls on Broadway.
While you're talking to ANDMichaels confirmed that despite considering who might take his place in the future, he will stick with it Saturday evening live at least until the show's 50th anniversary, which takes place in February 2025.
“I will definitely be there, and certainly until then,” he explained. “And sometime before then we'll figure out what to do.”
This isn't the first time Michaels has spoken out about possibly stepping down from his role at SNL. In 2021, he said CBS mornings that he was “committed to doing [SNL] until the 50th anniversary,” something he would like to “continue.”
“I feel like this is a really good time to leave,” he continued. “But here's the thing: I don't want the show to ever be bad. I care too much. It has been my life's work. So I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that things continue to go well.”
In addition to Fey, Michaels is known to have put shares in former stocks SNL alumni over the years, who often speak highly of him. In September 2023, Fallon, who was part of the cast from 1998 to 2004, claimed that Michaels saved his career at NBC by convincing the network to hire him as Conan O'Brien's Late Night successor. When Pete Davidson left the show in 2022, thanking Michaels for “always believing” in him, and noting that he owed the TV producer “his life.”
“I think [the impact of SNL really, for the first time, really hit me on the 40th anniversary,” Michaels told CBS Mornings in 2021. “Just seeing all the generations of the show — you can’t put anyone in the cast that you don’t have complete faith in. You may not know how it’ll turn out, but you want that decision to have been pure of heart.”