'Saturday Night Live' Sets Jim Carrey To Play Joe Biden, Adds Three New Featured Players

Saturday Night Live is returning on October 3 to kick off the late night sketch comedy show's 46th season. Thankfully, the entire cast will be back in the studio, no longer producing episodes remotely from their homes. In fact, there will even be a limited audience to make sure that the live comedy doesn't play awkwardly without anyone to laugh and clap and hoot and holler. But the biggest news about SNL's return is that Jim Carrey will be guest starring as former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden.

NBC announced the news of Jim Carrey playing Joe Biden on Saturday Night Live in an official press release. It's not mentioned whether Carrey is also hosting the season premiere on October 3 or not, but his involvement as a guest star will be a huge ratings draw. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed that Jason Sudeikis isn't coming back to play Joe Biden. The crowd loves him, he was willing to do it, and he's good at it. Carrey is quite a chameleon when it comes to comedy, so I have no doubt he can pull it off, but I'm a little tied of SNL stunt casting all these political figures when they have a cast that's supposed to be doing these kinds of things.

Lorne Michaels also confirmed to Deadline the return of Maya Rudolph as Biden's running mate and former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and Alec Baldwin will still be playing Donald Trump, even though it's something he doesn't really like to do (and plenty of audience members don't really like it anymore either).Saturday Night Live is coming back in a big way after their summer hiatus and three-episode run of sketches produced at home. The show will have five episodes back-to-back in every single weekend in October, including Halloween. I don't remember the last time the show did so many consecutive episodes, but that's really going to burn them out towards the end of that run. The hosts for these episodes haven't been announced yet, but that news will surely be coming in the weeks ahead.

Recently, it was confirmed that every single regular and featured cast member from SNL's previous season would be returning. There had been some speculation about whether or not breakout star Kate McKinnon or fellow cast members like Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant and Kenan Thompson would be returning, but they've all agreed to spend at least one more season on the show.

On top of all the returning cast members, we'll also see three new featured cast members: Punkie Johnson, Lauren Holt and Andrew Dismukes. We've got a breakdown of each of them below.

First up, we have Punkie Johnson, a stand-up comedian and writer who has worked on shows like Space Force, Corporate, and Adam Ruins Everything. Johnson recently landed the coveted spot as a New Face at the Just for Laughs Festival in 2019 (you can watch one of her bits from there in the video above), and she also regularly performs at the historic Comedy Store in Hollywood.

Next, we have Lauren Holt, seen above as the driver in this online comedy sketch "Party in the Car" from 2018. Holt is a seasoned improvisational and sketch comedy performer who is part of several teams at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre, including being a founding member of a musical improv troupe called The Pick-Up, so maybe we'll see her flex those musical muscles on SNL. Holt also played Barb in Stranger Things: The Musical at The Hudson Theater, and she appeared in Lady Gaga's music video "Til It Happens To You."

Finally, SNL dug into their writers room to find Andrew Dismukes, seen above in a stand-up set from 2016. He's been writing for the show since the 43rd season, and he's also a stand-up comedian who was named one of the New Faces at the Just for Laughs Festival in 2017. Dismukes has also performed at major comedy festivals like Comedy Central's Colossal ClusterFest and the New York Comedy Festival.

These three comedians will be joining Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman as featured players. Former featured player Ego Nwodim was recently promoted to be a regular cast member, and if Yang and Fineman come back for season 47, then they'll get upgraded too. But let's see how this season goes first before we even think about that.