Sophia Michaels
When “Saturday Night Live” declined to pick up Taran Killam’s contract for a seventh season, there was very little communication. “I don’t know fully. I don’t know the other side of it,” he told Uproxx in 2016 when discussing why his contract was not renewed. “I was never given a reason why, really,” Killam said, adding that he had planned on that year being his last on “SNL.” Before being dropped, Killam had worked with producers to coordinate other projects including his Showtime series and directing the movie Killing Gunther” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I honestly don’t know what happened on the other side, but I do know we had expressed I have work on this film,” Killam said.
A month after Killam and Jay Pharaoh were fired from the show, “SNL” honcho Lorne Michaels spoke about the decision. He praised the actors and painted them as casualties of a business decision. “Change is the lifeblood of the show,” Michaels told USA Today in September 2016. “And you have to keep bringing new people in.”
By 2018, Killam opened up more about his last days on “SNL” and how Michaels had become more difficult to work with. “When Seth Meyers left the show, the dynamic changed quite a bit,” the “Single Parents” actor said on the “I Was There Too” podcast (via Vulture). Killam also revealed how Michaels had instructed writers to go easy on Donald Trump, which was a point of contention.
