SNL adds Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson, and Andrew Dismukes to its roster of featured players

By William Hughes  |  September 16, 2020 | 10:53pm
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SNL adds Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson, and Andrew Dismukes to its roster of featured players
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Lauren Holt (Screenshot: YouTube), Punkie Johnson (Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for Clusterfest/Getty Images), Andrew Dismukes (FilmMagic/FilmMagic/Getty Images) Image: A.V. Club

It’s that time once again, folks: The hour has come ’round for Saturday Night Live to announce the new crop of performers it’ll let be in sketches any time the show’s various famous friends aren’t around to gobble up all the meatiest parts. Today, the NBC series announced that actress Lauren Holt, stand-up Punkie Johnson, and series writer Andrew Dismukes have all been added to the Not Ready For Primetime, Or To Play Any Major Elected Figure, Ever, Players.

According to Variety, Holt is a former Upright Citizens Brigade performer whose credits include the web series The Filth; Johnson is a writer who popped up for an episode in this year’s recent Space Force; and Dismukes has been a writer on Saturday Night Live on 2017. All three have been set as “Featured Player” status on the sketch series.

The news comes as SNL steps up plans to bring its performers back into the studio, rather than the remote episodes it filmed earlier this year. The castings also comes in the wake of last year’s debacle with Shane Gillis, when the stand-up comic (hired alongside Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang) was discovered to have used racial slurs in an online video shortly after his hiring was announced—and then quickly rescinded.

 
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