After 11 years on SNL, “Portlandia” creator-star Fred Armisen says he won’t be back for the show’s upcoming 39th season.
“It was really just strange, in that it felt very natural. It felt like a very healthy good time to do it. I was really enjoying and it just felt—it’s almost hard to define. Bill [Hader] was leaving, and Kristen and Andy had left,” he tells Splitsider. “It just felt like I was very happy, maybe this is like a good time to do it. And then the other thing that really was eclipsing it was Portlandia. Portlandia started to pull me away more and more, schedule-wise, and I just felt like it'd be nice to focus on it a little more and go into the fall a bit more with shooting. So it was because of that. And also it was just a feeling.”
Armisen never made an announcement of his departure (as other castmembers have), but seemed to hint at it in a star-studded Ian Rubbish sketch he performed with “Portlandia” co-creator Carrie Brownstein on SNL’s May 18 season finale (above).
IFC recently renewed the Lorne Michaels-produced “Portlandia” for two more seasons.
Find Splitsider’s exclusive on the matter here.
