Emmy-winner Kenan Thompson is SNL’s longest-running cast member but he’s eyeing a primetime role that could see him exiting the late-night sketch comedy series.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the comedian and actor will star in the single-camera comedy Saving Larry for NBC, from SNL creator Lorne Michaels and writer Jackie Clarke, executive producer of Superstore. The new series centers on a father who is left to parent his kids after the death of his wife with his father-in-law hovering over him.
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Thompson recently told Deadline that he’d happily stay on Saturday Night Live “forever,” but should Saving Larry go to series, he likely would exit the show—at least as a full-time cast member, the report said.
“I think about leaving and I fear it,” Thompson told The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast in June. “This is such a special place, you want to do your part here, but you also want to make room for people that are coming behind you. This was the first year I really started feeling like, ‘OK, I could push out of it now.’ Chris Redd is super-duper strong, and I really look forward to his potential on the show. That was the first time I thought, ‘Maybe I should give this dude more room.’ If that’s the case, then it might be time to move on.”
Fun Fact: Thompson and Kel Mitchell were the first Black stars of a Nickelodeon primetime sitcom when Kenan & Kel made its debut in the summer of 1996.
Since then, Thompson, a married father of two, has been a part of the SNL cast for 16 seasons. He just won a Music and Lyrics Emmy for SNL‘s “Come Back Barack,” and this year bagged his first acting Emmy nod for his work on the series.
He will executive produce Saving Larry with Clarke and Michaels. Clarke will pen the script.
The fate of Thompson’s SNL future will most likely remain a mystery until a final decision comes closer to May when NBC makes its series order decisions.
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