5 Youngest Cast Members To Join Saturday Night Live, Ranked

The Season 52 premiere of "Saturday Night Live" introduced new cast member Grace Reiter, a 25-year-old comedian best known for her roles in those "American High" shorts that constantly go viral on YouTube and TikTok. 

Reiter's first big sketch of the season paired her up with Jane Wickline, another young cast member who broke out on social media, and it promised good years ahead for the show's two youngest Gen Z cast members. But while Reiter is the first "SNL" cast member to be born in the 2000s, she's nowhere near the youngest comedian to have joined the show. 

"SNL" has always sought to appeal to young viewers, which means it often brings in cast members who look like they should still be in high school. Below are the five youngest-ever performers in the show's history. One of them, in fact, was so young in their debut season that you can't help but wonder if it was even legal for him to be working so late. 

For most of the show's history, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was the show's youngest-ever female cast member, joining the show at just 21 years and 8 months old. Abby Elliott beat her record in 2008, however, when she joined the cast in November 2008 at 21 years and 4 months. 

Much like Louis-Dreyfus before her (who only stuck around for three challenging seasons), Elliott didn't exactly thrive on "SNL." She was let go after her fourth season, and she'd later describe the experience on the show as nerve-wracking. "Every week was a new week, and your happiness would depend on whether you got something on air or not," she told People. "And if three weeks went by without a sketch, you'd think, 'Uh-oh, am I going to be fired?' There was always that looming threat of getting fired. That was the worst that could happen."

Elliott's firing from "SNL" was an odd one; she told People that she'd asked showrunner Lorne Michaels to let her leave after her fourth season, after which she changed her mind — only for Lorne to cut her loose anyway. It all worked out for Elliot, however, as she's just finished up her five-season run on the critically-acclaimed FX series "The Bear." She said about her "SNL" experience, "Sketch comedy wasn't going to be it for me. It's not why I started and it's not how I wanted to end."

Described in many of his early "Weekend Update" appearances as the show's "resident young person," Pete Davidson was only 20 years and 10 months old when he joined the show. In an interview with the Breakfast Club podcast in 2025, Davidson admitted he'd felt some resentment from the other cast members on account of his youth and inexperience.

"You got to remember, everyone there did Second City, improv, worked so hard," Davidson said. "I'm not saying I didn't work hard, but I was only doing comedy for three, four years. ... And a lot of what people liked about me was, 'Oh, this was a kid from Staten Island that's just talking s***.'" 

Davidson's run on "SNL" always felt tied to his youth; he struggled with mental health issues and a chaotic dating life, contributing to a level of media scrutiny around him that the older cast members didn't often have to deal with. His time on the show was still a clear-cut success, however: He stayed on as a cast member for eight seasons and returned to host less than two years later. Considering how disastrously the tenure of the next young cast member on this list went, Davidson didn't do half bad. 

Long before he played Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. joined "SNL" in 1985; at the time, he was 20 years and 5 months old. While Downey Jr. is undoubtedly a talented actor, his experience at 30 Rock taught him a lot about his limitations. "I learned so much in that year about what I wasn't," he said in the 2025 docuseries "Beyond Saturday Night." Downey Jr. has accepted that he wasn't a good cast member, and the critics certainly agree with him. In 2015, Rolling Stone published a ranking of every single "SNL" cast member, and Downey Jr. was ranked dead last in 145th place. 

In a 2016 interview with Howard Stern, Downey Jr. said he still thoroughly appreciated his time on the show, even if it wasn't exactly acclaimed. "I look back on it as it was great training. And I adore Lorne Michaels," he said. "You can't underestimate the contribution he's made to our culture."

Although Downey Jr. has never returned to host the show, he said he'd be happy to do it. Whereas cast members have to fight for screentime, he pointed out, as a host he'd be the center of attention. He told Stern that hosting "SNL" sounds to him like "probably the most exciting week that you can have on Earth."

Joining the show at just 19 years and 8 months old, Eddie Murphy is perhaps the best-case scenario for a teenage "SNL" star. Ranked #2 in Rolling Stone's list of best-ever cast members, Murphy dominated the show from 1980 to 1984. He was such a strong performer that he even hosted an episode in December 1982 — while still a cast member — when that week's host, Nick Nolte, became unexpectedly ill shortly before air. 

Murphy hosted the show a second time in 2019, with his long-awaited episode turning out to be the ratings high of Season 45. Murphy returned for the 50th anniversary special in 2025, stealing the show in the episode's "Black Jeopardy" sketch. His performance, in which he impersonated fellow "SNL" alum Tracy Morgan, provoked comedian Conan O'Brien to declare Murphy the "most talented" performer in the show's history. 

"He became Tracy Morgan," O'Brien said on his podcast, "Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend." He described watching from the audience as Murphy locked into his role right before the sketch began, and also praised Murphy for his performance in the later "Scared Straight" sketch. "He was mesmerizing to watch," O'Brien said. "I'm stunned by him. I really am."

After becoming a teenage icon with his starring roles in "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," and "Weird Science," Anthony Michael Hall joined "SNL" at just 17 and a half years old. Giving a minor a job where he regularly works past midnight is, surprisingly, legal in the entertainment industry, although Hall recalled feeling a bit overwhelmed by the famously exhausting gig.

"It's a grueling job," he told People in 2026. "It's a really high-pressure, high-stakes, intense kind of environment." Making things harder for Hall was the fact that Season 11 was so difficult for "SNL." It's often declared by critics to be the worst-ever season of the show, largely due to its behind-the-scenes turmoil and inexperienced cast members. Hall was fired after one season, making him not only the youngest actor to join the show, but also the youngest actor to leave it. 

"When I look back I have some memories of it being difficult, I think, for a lot of the writers to figure out how to write for this kid," Hall said in "Behind Saturday Night." "I think it was a big challenge."