Lorne Michaels thinks it would be a "really good time" to leave 'Saturday Night Live' after the show's 50th anniversary.
The 77-year-old programme co-creator is committed to the sketch series until it reaches the milestone in 2024 and though he thinks it would probably be the right time to walk away, he still "cares too deeply" about it.
He said: “You know, I think I’m committed to doing this show until its 50th anniversary, which is in three years.
“I’d like to see that through, and I have a feeling that’d be a really good time to leave. But … I won’t want the show ever to be bad. I care too deeply about it. It’s been my life’s work. So I’m going to do everything I can to see it carry on.”
But the executive producer admitted "of course" 'SNL' could exist without him.
He added on 'CBS Mornings': “I have a sense of where we’re headed with that, you know.”
However, Lorne - who previously stepped away from the programme for five years in the early 1980s - declined to say who could replace him on the show.
He said: "I’m not going to go on about it — it’s three years away.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Lorne insisted he doesn't think any topic is "out of bounds" for comedy, if it can be tackled in the right way.
He said: “I think it’s up to the writer or the performer to figure out how to do it.
"There are lots of things that, when you hear the idea, sounds awful. But if they can do, I don’t think anything’s out of bounds, is what I’m saying, if there’s enough talent to figure out how to get it across.”
Lorne's new comments echoed what he previously hinted at over a year ago.
He said in October 2020: “My plan — and I’m not sure that I’ll see it through — but my plan is to be here for the 50th … and then by that point, I really deserve to wander off.”
