Jim Carrey is heading to Saturday Night Live. The Dumb and Dumber actor has been tapped to portray former Vice President Joe Biden on season 46 of the long-running sketch comedy series. Jason Sudeikis had previously played the role back when he was a cast member. The news was confirmed by series creator Lorne Michaels recently.
Lorne Micheals, who serves as an executive producer of Saturday Night Live, recently sat down for an interview to discuss the upcoming season, which will kick off just ahead of the upcoming election. Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee, who is running against Republican incumbent Donald Trump. During the interview, Michaels revealed Carrey will be joining the cast to play Biden. Here’s what Michaels had to say.
“There was some interest on his part. And then we responded, obviously, positively. But it came down to discussions about what the take was. He and Colin Jost had a bunch of talks. He and I as well.”
Though never an official cast member, Jim Carrey has hosted SNL several times over the years. Carrey is also no stranger to sketch comedy, as part of In Living Color early in his career. Some of Carrey’s recent roles include his Showtime series Kidding, as well as Sonic the Hedgehog.
Alec Baldwin is expected to be back as Trump in the upcoming season, with Maya Rudolph also likely returning as Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate. While a chunk of last season consisted of home-produced shows, Lorne Michaels confirmed that SNL will return with in-studio shows that will have a limited audience. Michaels had this to say about it.
“We need the audience, obviously. With comedy, when you don’t hear the response, it’s just different. With the kind of comedy we do, which quite often is broad, timing gets thrown off without an audience. And for me, what is most important is when you’re absolutely certain of some piece on Wednesday, and then the dress-rehearsal audience sees it on Saturday and tells you you’re wrong…”
“I think us coming back and accomplishing the show will lead to, I hate to use the word normalcy, but it’s a thing that is part of our lives coming back, in whatever form it ends up coming back. So the physical problems of doing it, number of people who can be in the studio, number of people who can be in the control room, how you separate the band so that they’re not in any jeopardy, all of those are part of the meetings we’ve been having.”
It has not yet been revealed just how limited the crowds will be in the studio but it is expected to be small, as most late-night talk shows are still proceeding with no audience. The entire core cast will be back for the upcoming season. The series has also added three new cast members including Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson and Andrew Dismukes. Saturday Night Live is set to premiere on October 3. This news was first reported by Vulture.
