The 51st season of Saturday Night Live saw a fair number of cast shake-ups, including the departures of major talents Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim, who left the show after eight and seven seasons, respectively. But one featured player has emerged amidst the chaos, positioning themselves as a potential anchor for a new era of SNL. And no, it’s not Marcello Hernández; it’s Ashley Padilla.
Padilla joined Saturday Night Live in September 2024, ahead of the show’s 50th season. Though she had a bit of a breakout moment as Joann from Joann Fabrics in a Weekend Update bit, she mostly put in solid work in supporting roles alongside fellow newly hired featured players Emil Wakim—who was let go after one season—and Jane Wickline. But now, just four episodes into season 51, Padilla has become one of SNL’s most reliable presences, playing major roles in multiple sketches each night.
Comedically, Padilla is a lot like SNL alum and Emmy nominee Vanessa Bayer. Both are experts at playing seemingly regular women and middle-aged-mom roles—who can forget Bayer feeding her “hungry guys” in SNL’s Totino’s commercial?—and both also excel at imbuing these apparently innocuous people (wives, girlfriends, principals, office workers) with a clandestine zany streak. Padilla’s not a wacky, gonzo comedian like Sarah Sherman, nor is she an expert impressionist like Chloe Fineman. But she does fit a specific, necessary niche. Her dry sensibility also recalls Jane Curtin, SNL’s first female Weekend Update anchor—who often played the straight woman in sketches, but had razor-sharp timing. Padilla’s everywoman exterior conceals the beating heart of a freak.
To see this in action, look no further than Padilla’s first big moment this season: when she anchored the “Parent Teacher Conference” sketch during the Bad Bunny–hosted premiere on October 4. Padilla milked major laughs as an awkward principal who was desperately attracted to Bad Bunny’s single father. She had a brief but memorable turn as Amy Klobuchar during the cold open of Amy Poehler’s episode on October 11, which earned a shout-out from Klobuchar on X, and followed that up with a starring role as an office worker who accidentally let one rip in “Surprise,” from Sabrina Carpenter’s October 18 episode. Even when fumbling a line about laughing out of her butt, Padilla was funny enough that costars like Fineman and featured player Ben Marshall were visibly struggling not to break character.
Clearly, the show’s writing staff feels similarly. After the first three episodes of season 51, SNL superfan and data analyst Mike Murray—who runs the X account @thesnlnetwork—ranked Padilla, based on her screen time and the number of sketches in which she appeared, as number three on his SNL power list, placing her just after Sherman and Weekend Update cohost Colin Jost. According to Murray, Padilla logged the most screen time of any cast member during Carpenter’s episode, logging 13 minutes and 45 seconds on air—which Murray claims is a higher single episode total than the career highs of Nwodim, Gardner, Fineman, or Melissa Villaseñor.
Perhaps Padilla is rising so quickly due to a talent vacuum on the show. Before season 51, SNL lost two of its biggest female stars in Gardner and Nwodim; of its 17 current cast members, only two full repertory players are women—Sherman and Fineman. As it stands, women make up less than 30% of SNL’s cast. And given the lack of female talent, all five of SNL’s women have been given more to do.
Especially Padilla. On the November 1 episode hosted by Miles Teller, Padilla once again popped in multiple sketches and had another breakout moment with her Weekend Update bit “Two People Who Just Hooked Up Discuss The Government Shutdown.” The extended riff cast Padilla and frequent scene partner Andrew Dismukes as newly besotted lovers, highlighting her brand of naturalistic, grounded comedy peppered with unexpectedly broad line readings.
Like many SNL alums, Padilla was a member of the main stage company at LA’s Groundlings theater, a west-coast improv hub, before getting cast on the sketch program. Unlike many SNL alums, Padilla also worked as the assistant to the late, great Diane Keaton. Now she’s making a name for herself on NBC—and courting some seriously famous fans. Ariana Grande commented “i love her sm” on SNL’s Instagram video of the “Parent Teacher Conference.” (That means “so much,” for the uninitiated.) Grande also follows Padilla on Instagram.
Padilla has also started to capture the affection of the internet more broadly, which is easier said than done. Fan pages have begun popping up for Padilla on X. Comedian Gianmarco Soresi posted “ashley padilla is incredible” for his almost 200k followers. The masses also seem to ship Dimsukes and Padilla as scene partners, and possibly more: “The writers love to pair them together and you know what I’m not mad about it at all” wrote X user @covcy in a post with four photos of the pair in scenes together.
It’s still early in season 51, and on SNL, anything can happen. But at least one thing seems clear: JoAnn of JoAnn’s fabric is off to a strong start.
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