SNL finale will be Hader's last show

LOVING HADER: This weekend’s season finale of Saturday Live, with Ben Affleck hosting and Kanye West the musical guest, will be the final show for the brilliant cast member Bill Hader, who’s decided to take his leave after eight years. The news follows close on the heels of NBC’s announcement that head writer Seth Meyers will leave SNL next year in order to take over for Jimmy Fallon on Late Night. "It was a hard decision, but it has to happen at some point," Hader told the N.Y. Times. "It got to a point where I said, 'Maybe it’s just time to go.'" Lorne Michaels sees Hader as sharing certain comedic qualities with Dan Aykroyd. "In terms of intelligence and talent, he was in that same tradition," said SNL's executive producer. "He was so completely committed to the art of it and enough a student of it that there's something strikingly original. He didn't explode onto the air, but gradually he found his voice, and that became a huge thing." Hader plans to move his family to L.A., where he and his writer/director wife Maggie Carey (the upcoming comedy The To Do List) will continue their careers and become bona fide Californians. Speaking of which, check out this dress rehearsal of last weekend’s episode of The Californians in which Hader guest host Kristen Wiig fail to keep it together. (5/14a)