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When Were Robert Downey Jr. and Anthony Michael Hall on SNL? All About Season 11 Cast
When Lorne Michaels returned to SNL for the 1985-86 season, he brought along some budding stars.
Season 11 of Saturday Night Live marked a time of transition for the show.
The season marked the return of original producer Lorne Michaels after a five-year absence. Seeking to revamp the show, Michaels brought in an entirely new cast that included up-and-coming actors Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, as well as the Academy Award-nominated Randy Quaid.
On November 9, 1985, the season premiere was hosted by Madonna and musical guest Simple Minds. The ratings and critical reception that would follow ultimately necessitated another revamp by Michaels the following season, but there were highlights that emerged over the 18 episodes.
New addition Jon Lovitz, with signature characters like the overacting Master Thespian and pathological liar Tommy Flanagan, was an instant hit. Likewise, the versatile Nora Dunn and new "Weekend Update" anchor Dennis Miller proved adept at making audiences laugh. As a result, Dunn, Miller, Lovitz, Al Franken, and A. Whitney Brown were the only cast members to be brought back for another season.
Magicians Penn and Teller, equally adept at escapist illusions, card tricks, and comedy, began a streak of popular guest appearances on the show that season, which also saw the debut of longtime band leader G.E. Smith.
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Returning Season 11 cast members
Don Novello
There weren’t many returnees from previous seasons, but Don Novello, age 42 during Season 11, returned to the show on which he been a writer and recurring guest performer on Seasons 3 through 5. Novello also brought his beloved character, Father Guido Sarducci, already a favorite of longtime SNL viewers. The cigarette-puffing Italian priest was a rare series icon whose origins predated SNL, with Novello first portraying the character on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In in the early '70s and later on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1975.
Al Franken
An SNL writer and occasional performer during Michaels’ original run on the show, Al Franken and frequent comedic partner Tom Davis returned with their boss as producers and writers for Season 11. Franken did double, and sometimes triple, duty as a featured player that season, honing his skills in front of the camera, where he would be more of a regular on the show in the coming years. He would go on to create the seminal title character in the running skit “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley.”
New Season 11 cast members
Joan Cusack
In the not-so-distant future, Joan Cusack would net a pair of Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress (1988's Working Girl and 1997's In & Out). At the time she signed up for SNL at the age of 23, however, Cusack had not yet broken out. Her casting as a repertory player might have been a bit of a surprise at the time, but she was clearly honing her comedic talents during her time in Studio 8H, as seen in memorable impersonations of the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and Jane Fonda.
Robert Downey Jr.
Robert Downey Jr.'s Hollywood journey has been full of twists and turns. But fans may not remember that at just 20 years old, fresh off a breakthrough turn in the teen comedy Weird Science, Downey was cast on SNL. During his year-long run on the show, Downey delivered impressions of popular figures, including Elvis Presley and George Michael.
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Anthony Michael Hall
At just 17 years of age at the time he debuted, then the youngest-ever repertory player in SNL history, Anthony Michael Hall was already a showbiz veteran. He had risen to fame as a teen actor on movies like National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science. During his one season on SNL, Hall parodied a number of real-life personalities as well as fictional ones. One of his standouts: Fred Jones, a Bronx hustler and brother to Damon Wayan’s Ned Jones, in a pair of skits over the course of the season.
“I have loved the show since the '70s when I was a little kid. I would have to ask my mother to stay up late to watch it, it was like a ritual,” Hall told Parade Magazine in June 2024. “So the fact that I was a part of it is still incredible to me. Honesty, I feel very blessed to have been a part of it.”
Randy Quaid
The elder statesman of the new group, by age and acting credits, if not in terms of live comedy experience, Randy Quaid was 35 when he was cast on SNL. The older brother of Dennis Quaid starred alongside Hall in Vacation, and had an acting career that stretched back more than a decade. Quaid even had an Academy Award nomination for his supporting turn in the 1973 naval drama, The Last Detail. During his one season on SNL, Quaid performed a number of memorable roles, including his impersonation of then-president Ronald Reagan and as a floating head in the Twilight Zone parody called, “Limits of the Imagination.”
Jon Lovitz
Even among all the Hollywood names in the Season 11 cast, one of the clear breakout stars turned out to be a 28-year-old alum from the sketch comedy group, The Groundlings. The Los Angeles-born Jon Lovitz was a natural, creating the character Master Thespian, a bombastic actor in love with the craft and himself, and Tommy Flanagan, the pathological liar whose catchphrase, “That’s the Ticket,” was repeated at office water coolers across the country on Monday mornings. He would star on the show through Season 15, return to host in 1997 amid a successful movie career, and appear in various cameos over the years.
“The next thing you know, everybody’s imitating it,” Lovitz, recounting the sudden success of his lying Flanagan character, told authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales for the book, Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. “It was just unreal, because I’d been working as a messenger. And then I finally started working and I got a movie and a series, then I got Saturday Night Live. I mean, I was broke, and then by the end of the year I got a deal to do a movie for half a million dollars. So that was just an amazing time for me.”
Nora Dunn
Another pillar of future SNL seasons, Nora Dunn debuted in Season 11 as an unheralded 32-year-old comedienne from Chicago — at least to general audiences. For comedy circuit insiders, however, it was apparent from her time at the Second City improv ensemble that she was destined for stardom. Dunn would debut one of her signature characters, Pat Stevens, a put-upon TV interviewer, in her first season.
“When we started on the show, Lorne Michaels said, ‘This is going to be in your obituary, so do a good job,’ and he was right,” Dunn told L.A.’s KTLA TV in 2019.
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Dennis Miller
Blessed with an acerbic delivery that made him perfect for satirizing pop culture and politics, Dennis Miller had just turned 32 when he succeeded Christopher Guest on SNL’s "Weekend Update" segment and he’d be almost 40 by the time he left the role after Season 16. Michaels had seen the rising standup comic and Star Search finalist at an L.A. club and encouraged him to audition; the rest is SNL history.
Danitra Vance
Danitra Vance, then 31, only performed on SNL for one season, but she will forever have a place in the show's history, having been the first Black woman in the show's regular cast. In her short time on SNL, the classically trained stage actress delivered some memorable moments, including her recurring character Cabrini Green Jackson. Vance died in 1994 at age 40, four years after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Terry Sweeney
First hired as an SNL writer, Terry Sweeney, then 35, stepped in front of the camera for Season 11. He would make history as the first openly gay cast-member in the show’s history, notable at a time when the AIDS crisis sparked a surge in homophobia in the country.
"I knew it could cost me my job and I would never have this chance again, but what was that in the face of all the agony that my fellow queer people were going through?" Sweeney told Out Magazine in 2022. "I thought it was an important time to be very public about coming out of the closet."
He credits Michaels and then-NBC President Brandon Tartikoff for supporting him going public as a queer man.
Damon Wayans
A 25-year-old standup comic from New York with a memorable cameo in Beverly Hills Cop under his belt, Damon Wayans started as a featured player on Season 11. He left midway through the season, though he was later invited to return for a standup routine in the finale.
A. Whitney Brown
A writer and featured player on the show, A. Whitney Brown would stay with SNL through 1991, due in no small part to his trademark cutting commentary segment on "Weekend Update" called, “The Big Picture,” which was launched during Season 11.
Where can I watch full episodes of SNL?
Full-length episodes of every SNL season are available streaming now on Peacock.
The streaming network gives fans access to past seasons of the ground-breaking sketch comedy show, which will celebrate its milestone 50th anniversary with an NBC special in February. There will also be a four-part docuseries, SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, coming to Peacock on January 16.
