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Saturday Night Live has just scored its most Emmy nominations ever, with a couple of caveats.

The NBC show and its various spinoffs around its 50th anniversary landed 31 nominations. Its previous best ever haul was in 2017 with 22 nominations.

This included seven for Saturday Night Live’s 50th including Bowen Yang in Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, as well as 12 nominations for SNL50: The Anniversary Special and six for SNL50: The Anniversary Special. It also scored two for Questlove’s Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music and three for SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night Live as well as one for an immersive special.

It will go head-to-head, once again, against Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in the Outstanding Scripted Variety Series category, which has its own special voting rules given the number of nominees.

In 2015, the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special, also known as SNL40, picked up...

Before he was a Ghostbusterand an Oscar-nominee, Bill Murray was a cast member on Saturday Night Live, where he entertained late-night audiences from 1977 to 1980. Now, the Golden Globe-winning Lost in Translation star, who attended the 50th anniversary of SNL on Feb. 16, is reflecting on what the experience was like.

Per Entertainment Weekly, Murray appeared on SiriusXM’s Sway in the Morning with host Sway Calloway and talked about what the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live meant to him. “It was surprisingly emotional. I wept three times in the show. It really got to me,” Murray said.

When Calloway asked what he wept for, Murray started off by telling a joke, “Oh, there were sketches that were dying,” he said. “No, I’m kidding.”

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Bill Murray starred with Gene Hackman in the 2001 Wes Anderson...

Over four decades later, veteran actor and Ghostbusters star Bill Murray has addressed the literary treatment of his late friend and collaborator John Belushi by Bob Woodward, calling the latter's work "completely inaccurate." The legendary comedian, actor, and musician Belushi was one of the original Saturday Night Live cast members and died in 1982, aged 33, from an overdose of cocaine and heroin.

Murray aired his opinion of Woodward's 1984 biography Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. "If he did this to Belushi, what he did to Nixon is probably soiled for me too. I can't take it," he said. "You could have two sources and everything like that, but the two sources that he had, if he had them for the Wired book, were so far outside the inner circle that it was criminal, cruel."

RelatedErnie Hudson Reflects on Harold Ramis'...

Saturday Night Live actor Bowen Yang was accused by an extra who's worked on the NBC series of getting Shane Gillis fired back in 2019. However, Yang has spoken out on the allegation to note how that's not the case.

Six years ago, Yang and Gillis had both been hired to join SNL as new performers. Problematic jokes Gillis had made about Asians on his comedy podcast resurfaced soon after his casting was announced, boosting a social media movement for SNL to cut ties with the risqué comedian. The SNL team ultimately acquiesced by firing Gillis, though the bridges have been rebuilt, with Gillis having since appeared on the show as guest host. Ahead of his second guest-hosting stint on March 1, comic and SNL extra Michelle Best posted a comment on an Instagram video shared by NBC to "acknowledge" that Yang was allegedly responsible for Gillis' firing.

Related'Don't Negotiate With Terrorists':...

New York's hottest club is Saturday Night Live, but only if you've hosted it at least five times. That gets you entry to SNL's exclusive "Five-Timers Club". Now that Saturday Night Live has celebrated 50 years of laughs, we're taking a look at one of its most consistent yet difficult to attain inside jokes/accolades, The Five-Timers Club. Besides the obvious honor of being a late-night regular, what does this comedic membership entail? And what other entertainment icons have made the cut?

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Saturday Night LiveTV-14ComedyNewsMusicRelease DateOctober 11, 1975NetworkNBCShowrunnerLorne MichaelsCastSee All

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Adam McKay Self / Various

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Al Roker Self / Margaret Jo McCullin / Various

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Directors  Dave Wilson, Don Roy King, Liz Patrick, Andy Warhol, Linda Lee Cadwell, Matthew Meshekoff,...

Can a joke be considered in poor taste if you – well, mostly your spouse – are going through a massive public legal battle? That's the position that Ryan Reynolds found himself in during a headline-making moment during Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary special. Reynolds' wife, Blake Lively, is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Justin Baldoni over It Ends With Us, but that didn't stop the couple from being all smiles in the audience at SNL50. While that has been met with its own criticism, it was a joke obviously referencing the legal fight that has garnered the most attention. As it turns out, the joke was (unsurprisingly) all Reynolds' idea.

During an appearance on the Fifi, Fev & Nick podcast, Chris "Wally" Feresten, also known as SNL's Cue Card Wally, revealed that Reynolds changed the original line they rehearsed for the moment. In the sketch that aired, Tina Fey asked the actor,...

Pete Davidson became a regular fixture of Saturday Night Live with an eight-year long run on the show, becoming the series’ youngest cast member at the age of 20 and an instant hit thanks to his “Weekend Update” appearances, among other sketches. However, his return for the show’s 50th anniversary celebration had fans talking for a reason other than his comedic talents – the reducing number of his trademark collection of tattoos.

Davidson, who is currently starring as one of the many big-name voices in the animated hit movie Dog Man, has become well-known as a walking scrapbook of inked designs with around 200 tattoos adorning his body. Almost all the actor’s pieces of body art have some kind of personal significance to either his life or his career, but while appearing on SNL50 many fans noticed that he is not as tatted up as he used to be.

During a...

Saturday Night Live recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary, with (almost) every notable name in the show's history and Hollywood as a whole coming together for the event. The long-running show brought back many of its iconic sketches for the occasion, with Black Jeopardy being one of them. Eddie Murphy, Tracy Morgan, and Leslie Jones returned to the stage for the fake quiz show, but it was Oscar-winner Tom Hanks' appearance that became the most talked about – and perhaps not in the way he would have liked.

Hanks appeared as a contestant on the fictional Black version of Jeopardy, a sketch the series has made famous over the years. In the skit, he plays a satirical version of a Trump voter – a role he played in a previous episode. But a specific incident during the segment is drawing backlash on right-wing social media. The host, played by longtime star Kenan Thompson,...

Tom Hanks stepped back onto the Saturday Night Live stage just days after staging a “walk out” at the weekend’s Homecoming Concert. While the actor and his wife, Rita Wilson, appeared to be disgruntled at there being no awards getting handed out at the event, it was, of course, all part of the show. This meant that it was not a surprise to see Hanks back on the show for its 50th anniversary special, where he introduced a special montage of sketches that have aged as well as a Hollywood star without a good surgeon.

Hanks joined a segment dedicated to what SNL executives and cast members have termed “canceled characters.” The legendary actor, who is part of the show’s “five-timers” club, delivered a fitting monologue to introduce the rogue’s gallery of controversial, offensive, and generally just problematic faces to have graced screen as part of SNL’s line up.

The stars really did come out for the 50th anniversary special for Saturday Night Live. Introducing Adam Sandler, who performed an incredible SNL50 tribute song, was none other than the legendary Jack Nicholson.

When the camera cut to Nicholson, the applause rained down. The actor kept it simple, saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, Adam Sandler!" From there, Sandler gave a shout-out to Jack and began his song, singing, "Everyone in this room has something in common. All of our lives were changed by the show."

Sandler is known for his songs and mashups, and this one was perfect for the occasion. He sang about the cast, funny moments (including those behind the scenes), the crew, Lorne Michaels, and paid a very heartfelt tribute to fellow SNL vet and friend, the late Chris Farley, who passed away in 1997, and Norm Macdonald, who died in 2021. You can watch the entire performance, and Jack's introduction,...

Eddie Murphy's impression of Tracy Morgan on Saturday Night Live stole the show in a recent sketch celebrating the show's 50th anniversary. Murphy did his Morgan impression during the show's 'Black Jeopardy' sketch.

Murphy was joined for the SNL skit by fellow Black comedians, with Kenan Thompson playing host Darnell Hayes (aka Alex Treblack), and the other contestants being Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan himself. During 'Black Jeopardy', Murphy did a hilarious impression of Morgan -- while Morgan stood right beside him and played a man named Darius. From his very introduction, Murphy was fully in-character as Tracy, calling out "Big Dog gonna make some big money!" in an over-the-top impression that had the rest of the cast struggling to keep a straight face.

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A deleted scene from the Cobra Kai finale reveals...

Quick LinksThe "Original" 'Saturday Night Live'One 'SNL's Failure and Another's Success

Live from New York, it's Saturday Night! Speaking of that iconic opening line, have you ever wondered why it's phrased that way? Why does it say just "Saturday Night" and not "Saturday Night Live?" Having two "lives" might be redundant, but isn't Saturday Night Live the name of the show? It is now, but that wasn't always the case.

Casual viewers may not know that the original name of the series was actually NBC's Saturday Night. That's why the opener is phrased that way. Even though it was always live, it didn't add that word to the title until Season 3. Believe it or not, this was because there was already a series titled Saturday Night Live on the air when the then-nbc's Saturday Night debuted in 1975. This "other" SNL was Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell,...

Saturday Night Live's biggest stars are everywhere these days: from the hallowed halls of Studio 8H, all the way to the beachy shores of Malibu, California. And in honor of the historic 50th anniversary of the longstanding comedy sketch series, everyone is getting in on the action of celebrating and honoring its many iconic moments. Including Volkswagen, which reunited Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and Fred Armisen as "The Californians" in a commercial for their latest car.

The air-headed, valley girl-inflection-toting bottled blondes from the popular soap opera parody sketch star in the ad for the new Volkswagen ID Buzz, an electric take on their own California icon, the old Vw bus, which debuted on Thursday. And, frankly, it's giving nostalgia vibes in an extremely earth-conscious way, which is like, totally Californian of them. We can see why Karina (Wiig) and her lover Devin (Hader) are too impressed by her...

A star-studded crowd gathered to celebrate the legacy of the iconic comedy and musical series Saturday Night Live. As part of the 50th anniversary of the show, SNL50: The Homecoming Concert saw many familiar faces from the last 50 years of the series' history both watching and performing at the event, which was hosted by Jimmy Fallon. As the night kicked off, however, no one expected to see Oscar-winner Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson storm out of the auditorium after Fallon explained that the night would not include any awards presentations. Fallon said:

“Apparently, there’s been some confusion. This is just a concert. We’re not giving out any awards tonight. So, I just want to make sure that everyone knows that.”

At that point, Hanks and his wife stood up out of their seats and stomped up the central aisle and out of the venue. Of course,...

Tina Fey, the former head writer and cast member of NBC's Saturday Night Live, has revealed that she's part of the writing team behind SNL50, the 50th anniversary special that will air this Sunday on NBC. Even though Fey's experience on the show speaks for itself, returning as a staff writer meant that she had to clean the rust off of her comedy writing skills. However, a visit from a very special SNL icon made everything better.

Fey was a guest on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon alongside her former SNL co-star, dear friend and collaborator, Amy Poehler (via Entertainment Weekly). The conversation turned to what's brewing for SNL50, and Fey revealed that she's part of a team of staff writers for the special: "I know a little bit about what's taking shape because I am working on it as a staff writer, which I'm pretty excited about,...

Jesse Eisenberg is a one-time Saturday Night Live host, once serving in that role for a guest hosting gig in 2011. He has not hosted the sketch comedy series since, but that could be in part due to the experience not going so well for the actor.

During a new interview for Today with Jenna & Friends, Eisenberg discussed his SNL experience. He revealed that he's still haunted by how it went, despite how he was told that it was the "best episode they ever did." For the former Lex Luthor actor, he went into SNL extremely excited, as creating comedy for the legendary show was something he had dreamed about. He also presumed that it was up to him to write the sketches he'd appear in, and he started slipping written skits to cast members leading up to the show. Eisenberg said he was told by someone at SNL that this was encouraged,...

With the 50th Anniversary of Saturday Night Live looming on the horizon, many of the show's former stars and guest hosts have opened up about their experiences on the series. While stories from writers about letting polarizing figures like Donald Trump host have taken center stage, a new anecdote has emerged from a 2013 host. Jesse Eisenberg, known for roles like Lex Luthor and Mark Zuckerberg, opened up about hosting the long-running sketch comedy series, and sadly, he doesn't look back fondly on the experience.

During a recent appearance on the newly revamped fourth hour of Today, Jenna & Friends (via Variety), he expressed regret about his lifelong dream being far more sour than sweet:

"I only have bad memories because I did such a dumb thing. My dream when I was 17 was to write for ‘SNL.’ I made a packet and everything and I got an agent. And then, when I got asked to host,...

Saturday Night Live is celebrating its 50th year on television this year, and with this milestone comes a plethora of new insights and anecdotes regarding the show's storied history – some of which are collected in a new book, which reveals that former SNL writer and star Tim Robinson had a pretty strong reaction when Lorne Michaels invited Donald Trump to host an episode during his first presidential election campaign.

Before becoming President of the United States, Donald Trump was a mainstay on NBC, with his competition series The Apprentice serving as a pivotal part of the primetime lineup. Shortly after announcing his run for president, the network dumped Trump as host of the series due to derogatory comments he made about Mexican immigrants, but that didn't squash his involvement with NBC. Instead, to the shock and awe of many, Lorne Michaels invited Trump to host an episode of the long-running sketch series.

It's hard to believe, but this year, Saturday Night Live turns 50 years old. Created by Lorne Michaels, the show premiered on Oct. 11, 1975 and while it didn't go quite as smoothly, it certainly became a cultural phenomenon. Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, George Coe, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Michael O'Donoghue, Gilda Radner, and host George Carlin were the first to appear on the legendary show. And now, as its 50th anniversary special approaches, NBC has released a partial list of major A-list actors, musicians, and celebrities who will appear.

SNL50: The Anniversary Special will feature a who's who of major celebrities, per Variety. They include Sir Paul McCartney, Tom Hanks, Kim Kardashian, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Scarlett Johansson, Dave Chappelle, Miley Cyrus, Paul Simon, Robert De Niro, Sabrina Carpenter, Pedro Pascal, Bad Bunny, Quinta Brunson, Peyton Manning, Woody Harrelson, Adam Driver, Ayo Edebiri, and John Mulaney. More stars will be announced soon.

For the last several decades, Saturday Night Live has been faced with questions of its future. While so many people claim not to watch or call it unfunny, everyone still talks about it and sketches still go viral. Some feel the show has run its course, the sketches need work, or members of the cast need to go. Nothing ever comes of it because Saturday Night Live is engrained as part of the fabric of late-night television that no one really ever expects to end. But there’s one point in time when Saturday Night Live almost did get canceled, and arguably should have been. The show was hanging by a thread, and instead of a complete cast shake-up saving the show, it led to a year that has become known as the “weird season.”

This was in 1985 during season 11, a bizarre season that the new Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night...

Hosting Saturday Night Live is no easy gig no matter how experienced you are in comedy or performing in front of a live audience. Some hosts just fall flat, and one popular comedian admitted that he was kind of "horrible" in most sketches.

Not every Saturday Night Live host can be Donald Glover or Melissa McCarthy, a natural from the second the lights go on. Most hosts are good to Ok or don't do much to disrupt the audience. But there have been a handful of absolute duds over the 50-year history of Saturday Night Live.

Comedian Dane Cook isn't exactly on the level of, say, Steven Seagal. However, Cook would be the first to admit that his initial turn as Saturday Night Live didn't go so smoothly.

"I got to feel like I was horrible in a couple of things," Cook said to hosts Dana Carvey and David Spade...

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has now won an astonishing 101 Emmy Awards, breaking its own massive record from the 1976 ceremony through 2024. As it now heads into a 50th season in a few weeks, the variety series took six trophies at Saturday’s Creative Arts Emmys and has three more nominations at Sunday’s event. It also has two more opportunities at next week’s Primetime event (Bowen Yang for supporting actor and Variety Scripted Series). The next closest show in second place is “Game of Thrones” with 59 overall.

At Saturday’s ceremony, it triumphed for hairstyling, makeup, production design and lighting design. Technically, it was technical direction category that was the 100th victory. Liz Patrick then won the 101st Emmy for Best Variety Series Directing.

Over the past 15 years, “SNL” guest actor winners have included Jimmy Fallon, Eddie Murphy, Justin Timberlake and Dave Chappelle. Best Comedy Guest Actress winners have included Tina Fey,...

Less than a year after rebounding from having its half-decade winning streak broken by “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” “Saturday Night Live” is in the hunt for yet another Best Variety Series Directing Emmy. On its record 24th such nomination, the NBC sketch program faces three old talk show rivals, none of which have ever beaten it despite trying at least three times each.

This technically marks the first instance of less than five variety series competing for the same directing Emmy, with the last similar case involving both series and specials having occurred in 1993 before the two formats were afforded separate categories. After 2022, this is also the second time in 10 years that there are no new nominees in the mix.

In order to judge whether “Saturday Night Live” can be stopped from clinching its lucky 13th directing win, let’s take a closer look at each nominee. Be sure...

Liz Patrick, who took over directing Saturday Night Live two years ago, won her first primetime Emmy on Sunday.

She won a Creative Arts Emmy for the episode co-hosted by Steve Martin and Martin Short. She beat Last Week Tonight’s Paul Pennolino, Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s Andy Fisher, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s Jim Hoskinson and The Problem with Jon Stewart’s Andre Allen.

Patrick was nominated last year for the Billie Eilish-hosted episode but lost out to A Black Lady Sketch Show’s Bridget Stokes.

She has also previously won a number of daytime Emmys for her work on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Patrick took over from Don Roy King in January 2022. King, who is thought to have directed more hours of live U.S. network television than anyone else, had been the director of the long-running NBC series since 2006 and won 11 Emmys with 16 nominations.

Patrick...

Following its surprise 2022 Emmy win for Best Variety Series Directing, “A Black Lady Sketch Show” is out of the running for the same prize this year, leaving an opportunity for “Saturday Night Live” to bounce back and achieve its 12th victory in the category. It does, however, face several formidable challengers, including “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” the host of which once starred on “The Daily Show,” which notably halted a “Saturday Night Live” success streak in 2015.

“Saturday Night Live” is the only former winner in this directing lineup, while “The Problem with Jon Stewart” stands as the only new nominee. The three other returning contenders are “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which have now amassed a collective total of 18 mentions in this category.

In order to determine how reasonably “Saturday Night Live” can be expected to kick off a new winning streak,...

When you have Steve Martin and Martin Short together hosting “Saturday Night Live,” it’s kind of hard to pass up an opportunity to do a “Father of the Bride” sketch — so the long-running NBC show didn’t. But according to director Liz Patrick, that homage went through a whole lot of changes. You can watch it in the video above.

Patrick, who is nominated for her first solo Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series for her work on the duo-hosted episode, took over directing duties from Don Roy King for Season 48, after previously working alongside him on the show.

And though Patrick admits she was “a little” nervous about working with some of her personal comedy heroes for the episode, she was excited more than anything else. The real hurdle came in the technical execution of it.

“Originally it was like, ‘Oh, we almost want to...

A version of this story about “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Comedy/Variety/Reality/Nonfiction issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

When the Television Academy shuffled the variety categories this year, it moved “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” from the variety talk category, where it had won seven years in a row, to the new scripted variety category where it would be facing off against another juggernaut in “Saturday Night Live,” the most nominated and winningest show in Emmy history.

But for “Last Week Tonight” director Paul Pennolino, the move was nothing new: In the Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series, he’d been going up against (and losing to) “SNL” director Don Roy King, an idol of his, for years.

“I knew I was racing against Usain Bolt,” he said with a laugh. “There was no way I was going to win,...

Saturday Night Live was one of many late-night shows interrupted by the writers and actors strikes, with the last three episodes of Season 48 scrapped altogether in May.

But for director Liz Patrick, who took over from Don Roy King midway through Season 47, she’s looking forward to getting back to Studio 8H.

“It was hard that we missed the last three episodes. But I also understand why and we want everyone to get what they deserve,” she said on a panel for Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees. “Whenever our season starts, we’re looking forward to getting back in there, getting our feet in the ground and getting moving.”

Season 48 was a “year of transition” for the long-running NBC show, according to creator and exec producer Lorne Michaels. Stars such as Pete Davidson and Kate McKinnon departed, along with Cecily Strong midway through.

However, that also gave more opportunities...

The 75th annual Directors Guild Awards have been handed out at the Beverly Hilton, and the night’s big award brought a bit of a surprise as Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once, beat out Steven Spielberg for the top prize.

The DGA is a strong predictor of Oscar success historically, missing the eventual Best Director winner only eight times in 74 years. Last year, the guild awarded Jane Campion its top film prize for The Power of the Dog, which marked a big step on her path to winning Best Director at the Oscars.

After two consecutive years awarding female directors its top prize (Jane Campion and Chloé Zhao) and watching them go on to take the corresponding Oscar, the Director’s Guild of America nominated a slate of men this year. Despite strong work from Sarah Polley for Women Talking and Gina Prince-Bythewood for...

The Directors Guild of America has unveiled the television and documentary nominations for its 75th anniversary DGA Awards, which will be handed out next month.

The helmers vying for Dramatic Series are Jason Bateman (Ozark), Vince Gilligan (Better Call Saul), Sam Levinson (Euphoria), Aoife McArdle (Severance) and Ben Stiller (also Severance). Up for Comedy Series are Tim Burton (Wednesday), Bill Hader (Barry), Amy Sherman-Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Christopher Storer (The Bear) and Mike White (The White Lotus).

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Last year’s Dramatic Series winner, Succession, didn’t air any episodes in 2022 and therefore isn’t eligible, and the defending Comedy Series champ, Hacks,...

For the past five years, “Saturday Night Live” has been on a winning streak. The most nominated program in the history of the Emmy Awards — the series has 315 bids for its 47 seasons — has taken the title of Best Variety Sketch Series since 2017. But at the Creative Arts Emmys this past weekend, the series stumbled, not winning a single trophy out of its below-the-line nominations. Does that signal that the legendary sketch program might be headed for its first loss in recent memory? If so, that’d be good news for the only other nominee, “A Black Lady Sketch Show.”

The writing may have already been on the wall since July when Emmy nominations were announced, when “SNL’s” total number of bids shrunk year-over-year from 21 to just 10, which includes its Short Form bid for “Stories From The Show.” Notably, the Emmy magnet went from 11 acting nominations last year to just three this time around,...

Saturday Night Live has won the Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series for the last five years and ten times since 2010.

But its winning streak was broken by HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show after Bridget Stokes won in the category at tonight’s Creative Arts Emmy awards.

Creative Arts Emmys 2022 Photos: Chip & Joanna Gaines, ‘Queer Eye’ & ‘Selling Sunset’ Stars Plus RuPaul, Simone Boseman & More

The win could be a sign of things to come as A Black Lady Sketch Show is up against regular winner SNL in the main variety category at the Primetime Emmys next week. Could an upset be on the cards?

A Black Lady Sketch Show also beat out Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the category.

Creative Arts Emmys: Deadline’s Complete Coverage

It comes after SNL’s Don Roy King,...

Each August typically brings with it news of changes in the cast at “Saturday Night Live.” This month instead brings a development related to one of the more prominent people behind the scenes of the NBC show.

Lindsay Shookus, one of the top producers at “SNL” who has played a strong role in booking guests and dealing with talent issues, is leaving the program. In a post on Instagram Friday, Shookus revealed her intent to depart.

“After 20 seasons at ‘Saturday Night Live’ (and 415 live shows — I counted!), I have decided to trade in the wild late night life and move on from the show,” she said in her post. “When I started in 2002, I was a baby from Buffalo, N.Y., who didn’t know anything about the business, except that I so badly wanted to be somehow part of it. I found my place at ‘SNL’ and I’ve...

Don Roy King, director of “Saturday Night Live” for more than 15 years, didn’t just work the show from behind the scenes, but he also guided an important landmark in the show’s history, passing the baton to Liz Patrick

Patrick took over in 2021, but not before observing King in his element.

No stranger to directing live television — she can count “Ellen” and “MTV Movie Awards” among her credits — this gig brought all her experience in music, sketches and handling last-minute changes together. Patrick worked closely with King, moving the show into a new era.

Here, the directors share how they pulled off the transition.

What was your relationship to the show coming in?

Liz Patrick: I’ve been a fan of the show since I was a kid. I used to try to stay up late and get my mom to let me watch it. But my brother is five years older,...

As of the 2021 ceremonies, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has now won 92 Emmy Awards, breaking its own record of 84 from 2020. The variety series took seven trophies last September at the Creative Arts Emmys and one more for Best Variety Sketch Series at the Primetime event. The next closest show in second place is “Game of Thrones” with 59 overall.

Will the 47th season of “SNL” push the program up to 100 all-time victories? The series has nine nominations for the 2022 ceremonies:

Best Variety Sketch Series

Best Comedy Supporting Actress – Kate McKinnon

Best Comedy Supporting Actor – Bowen Yang

Best Comedy Guest Actor – Jerrod Carmichael

Best Variety Series Directing

Best Music Direction

Best Production Design

Best Sound Mixing

Best Variety Series Writing

Two victories in 2021 were in the comedy guest categories, the second ones for both Dave Chappelle and Maya Rudolph hosting “SNL.” Chappelle was triumphant as Best Comedy Guest Actor. Over the past 13 years,...

“I had the 16 best years of my career at the remarkable production tornado that is ‘Saturday Night Live,'” reveals director Don Roy King. He just received his 16th and last Primetime Emmy nomination after retiring from his long run helming “SNL” this past December. He has won the directing award 11 times in his career.

Liz Patrick co-directed with King those final 2021 episodes for NBC and then took over as solo director in early January. They are nominated together for the Best Variety Series Directing category, with the episode hosted by pop/rock superstar Billie Eilish as the submission.

SEEEmmy nominee profile: Jerrod Carmichael (‘Saturday Night Live’) could be first openly gay Black comedy acting champ

For our recent webchat he adds, “Someone magically found Liz, who was able to slide in very smoothly, very quickly, very congenially to take over, and the transition was smooth.” Patrick says, “The transition has been great.

Apparently the next best thing to being Emmy nominated is being Emmy snubbed. At least, that seemed to be the case on Tuesday morning, when publicists quickly switched gears after their clients failed to get an Emmy nomination — and instead started pitching them to be included in the roundup of this year’s biggest “snubs.”

It’s a further sign of just how important the awards industrial complex has become in Hollywood. If you aren’t nominated, the next best thing is to have fans and the press agonizing about the fact that you should have been nominated. And sometimes it finally works: Look at how years of “Better Call Saul” star Rhea Seehorn being on the “snub” list got to the point that many of us in the media — myself included — started threatening to burn this whole town down if Seehorn didn’t get a nod. She finally did this year,...

Exclusive: Twenties actors Sheria Irving and Sophina Brown have boarded FX’s limited series Kindred as series regulars. They join an ensemble led by newcomer Mallori Johnson, which also includes Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy and David Alexander Kaplan, as previously announced.

The series adapted for the screen by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen) is based on Octavia E. Butler’s acclaimed 1979 sci-fi novel of the same name. It follows Dana (Johnson), a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles, ready to claim a future that, for once, feels all her own. But, before she can get settled into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time to a 19th century plantation with which she and her family are surprisingly and intimately linked. An interracial romance threads through her past and present,...

The Power Of The Dog (L to R): Ari Wegner (Director Of Photography), Jane Campion in The Power Of The Dog. Cr. Kirsty Griffin/Netflix © 2021

The winners of the Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement Awards for 2021 were announced tonight during the 74th Annual DGA Awards at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. Jane Campion won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for The Power of the Dog.

Judd Apatow hosted the ceremony before an audience of more than 800 guests. Presenters included (in alphabetical order): Pamela Adlon, Stephanie Beatriz, Kathryn Bigelow, LeVar Burton, Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Julie Delpy, Ernest Dickerson, Kirsten Dunst, Andrew Garfield, Leila George, Louis J. Horvitz, Ken Jeong, Natasha Lyonne, Michael Mann, Rita Moreno, Christopher Nolan, Jesse Plemons, Martin Scorsese, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong, and Chloé Zhao.

Outstanding Directorial Achievement In Theatrical Feature Film

Jane Campion

The Power of the Dog...

The Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards returned in full force on Saturday night, with an in-person fête held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The annual awards ceremony, where the DGA recognizes the best film and television directorial efforts of the prior year, had to be held virtually in 2021, as the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were still in full effect.

But this year’s ceremony looked much more like festivities of old. Director Judd Apatow was tapped for hosting duty, having previously had the honor in 2018 and 2020, and more than 800 people were on hand to celebrate the entertainment mediums they cherished.

On the television side, winners were unsurprising, but not undeserved, and most importantly settled the “Succession” direction question. More on that later.

Among the big three TV prizes — for directing in comedy, drama, and limited series, respectively — the DGA voting body both confirmed and clarified a...

The Power of the Dog helmer Jane Campion won the marquee Theatrical Feature Film prize at the 74th annual DGA Awards, which were handed tonight at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Check out the winners list below.

The win solidifies her as the front-runner for Best Director at the Academy Awards on March 27. Campion won an Original Screenplay Oscar for 1993’s The Piano and was up for Best Director that year.

DGA Awards 2022: Deadline’s Full Coverage

The DGAs are an important bellwether in the Oscar race: Only seven times since the marquee Theatrical Feature Film award’s inception in 1949 has the winner differed from the eventual Oscar winner for Directing. Last year was no exception as Nomadland‘s Chloé Zhao took the DGA’s top film prize en route to her historic Oscar win for Best Director. But in 2020, Sam Mendes won the DGA Award before the Oscar went to Bong Joon-ho.

This weekend is a big one for Oscar watchers, with two awards ceremonies that often predict key categories. Sunday marks the biggest night of the year in British film, with the BAFTAs, whose winners often mirror those of the Oscars, taking place. But first, the biggest names in directing came out for the Directors Guild of America Awards. Judd Apatow returned to host the DGAs, which honor outstanding achievement in directing film, television, and commercials.

The feature film nominees at the DGAs were almost identical to the Best Director nominees at the Oscars, with winner Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) competing against Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”), and Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”. The only difference is that the DGAs swapped in Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”) for Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).

On the television side, “Succession” and “Ted Lasso” have absolutely dominated the nominations. “Ted Lasso...

Jane Campion has been named the best feature-film director of 2021 by the Directors Guild of America for “The Power of the Dog.” She is the second consecutive female director to win after Chloe Zhao’s victory last year for “Nomadland,” and the third overall after Zhao and Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), who won in 2010 and was also on hand for the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

“I’m here because I care about women having voices,” Campion said in her acceptance speech. She had been the prohibitive favorite going into the DGA Awards, just as she is in the Best Director category at the Academy Awards — and the fact that she won even at the end of a marathon DGA ceremony during which one person after another had paid homage to her fellow nominee Steven Spielberg suggests that the rest of awards season will be smooth sailing for her.

The 74th Directors Guild of America Awards took place on Saturday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. Pt with Judd Apatow hosting the in-person, non-televised ceremony. (Read our minute-by-minute live blog.) These kudos honored the best helmers of the year in movies and television, as voted on by more than 18,000 members of the directing guild. Scroll down for the 2022 DGA Awards winners list in three film and eight TV categories.

The all-important feature film category is one of the most telling bellwethers for the Best Director Oscar. The guild and the academy have only disagreed eight times over the past seven decades, including in 2019 when Sam Mendes (“1917”) won the DGA but Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”) claimed the Oscar. Will this year’s winner follow the path of so many prior champs? Reminder: four of the guild’s nominees also reaped Oscar bids: Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Steven Spielberg...

Awards fans, mark your calendars for Saturday, March 12 as that’s when the 74th Directors Guild of America Awards will take place in Hollywood. Judd Apatow hosts the non-televised ceremony, which will honor the best in film and TV for the 2021 calendar year. According to Gold Derby’s DGA Awards predictions, some of the night’s big winners will include Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Lost Daughter”). Scroll down to see the 2022 Directors Guild Awards predictions listed in order of their racetrack odds, with projected winners in gold.

Our DGA Awards odds are based on the combined forecasts of 1,400 Gold Derby readers, including Experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, Editors who cover awards year-round for this website, Top 24 Users who did the best predicting last year’s winners, All-Star Users who had the best prediction scores over the last two years, and...

Waystar Royco has prevailed!

The Directors Guild of America announced the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television, Commercials, and Documentary for 2021, with HBO’s “Succession” sweeping the Television Dramatic Series category.

Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso,” HBO Max’s “Hacks,” and “The White Lotus” all received nods for TV Comedy Series. Barry Jenkins’ critically acclaimed Amazon Prime Video limited series “The Underground Railroad” is in competition with “Mare of Easttown” and Hulu’s twice-nominated “Dopesick” for the Movies for Television and Limited Series category.

Last year, “Homeland” and “The Flight Attendant” won for Drama Series and Comedy Series, respectively, and “The Queen’s Gambit” secured the award for Limited Series and TV movie.

The DGA Awards are voted on by over 18,000 members of the guild. The 2022 nominees include TV series broadcast between March 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021. Voting for the awards occurred between December 15, 2021, and January 21, 2022.

The 74th Annual DGA Awards will take place Saturday,...

On Wednesday, January 26, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) announced its 2022 nominations for television, commercials and documentaries. Winners of the 74th annual DGA Awards will be rewarded on March 12, 2022 in a ceremony that also honors motion pictures (those noms will be announced on Jan. 27). Read on for the complete list of 2022 Directors Guild Awards nominations for TV, which includes a nice mix of freshman series (like “Hacks” and “The White Lotus”) and established fare (like “Succession” and “Ted Lasso”).

SEEReminder: Here’s who won last year’s DGA Awards

This year’s drama series line-up is filled out by a single show: “Succession.” That’s right, the HBO family drama earned all five spots in the category, an historic first for the guild. As for the comedy series nominees, Apple’s “Ted Lasso” earned three spots while HBO Max’s “Hacks” and HBO’s “The White Lotus” scored one apiece.

The Directors Guild of America has announced its nominations in its television categories, with “Succession” sweeping the drama-series category by landing all five nominations for different episodes.

The last time a single series swept all the nominations in the category was 1983, when “Hill Street Blues” took every slot in a category that at the time only consisted of three nominations. No program, drama or comedy, has ever swept all five nominations in a DGA Awards series category.

In the comedy series category, “Ted Lasso” took three of the five slots, with “Hacks” and “The White Lotus” taking the remaining two.

In the category devoted for TV movies and limited series, the nominees were Barry Jenkins for “The Underground Railroad,” Barry Levinson and Danny Strong for separate episodes of “Dopesick,” Hiro Murai for “Station Eleven” and Craig Zobel for “Mare of Easttown.”

Other nominees include Bo Burnham for his special “Bo...

Saturday Night Live is ringing in the new year with a freshman pair.

The NBC late-night comedy variety show returns on January 15 with West Side Story star Ariana DeBose making her SNL debut as host with Live Life Fast pop star Roddy Ricch set as musical guest.

DeBose will be well known to creator Lorne Michaels as she plays Emma in Apple’s Michaels-exec produced comedy series Schmigadoon!

It will be the first show of 2022 for SNL and comes after the show rallied impressively for its Covid-hit final episode of 2021, a show that featured only Kenan Thompson and Michael Che from its regular cast as well as special guests Tina Fey and Tom Hanks.

Deadline understands that the plan for the January 15 show is to be back with a full cast and crew as well as studio audience, but obviously given the spread of the Omicron Covid variant, a decision...

Saturday Night Live supervising producer Ken Aymong, who has retired after 36 years on the show, was acknowledged during the curtain call at the end of the Season 47 premiere. Colin Jost held a cue card that read “We’ll miss you, Ken!” as the camera showed a close-up of the sign in a clearly planned tribute to the SNL veteran.

Aymong has been a fixture at SNL, which he joined as an associate producer in 1985, rising to a supervising producer two years later. In addition to the mothership series, he also worked on the SNL clip specials, most recently the Saturday Night Live Election Special 2020.

A top lieutenant to SNL boss Lorne Michaels, Aymong has shared in seven of the SNL‘s Emmys, most recently its fifth consecutive Variety Sketch Series trophy last month. He is the second longtime senior SNL staffer who retired after last season, along with Emmy-winning director Don Roy King.