'Saturday Night Live' casts Jim Carrey as Joe Biden

Saturday Night Live will return to business as usual for its Oct. 3 premiere, with new episodes filmed in front of a limited New York audience and Jim Carrey joining as a guest star to portray presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels revealed that and more in a Vulture interview, confirming as well that Maya Rudolph and Alec Baldwin will reprise their roles as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, respectively. The plan is to release five(!) consecutive new shows leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

“There was some interest on his part," Michaels said of Carrey. "And then we responded, obviously, positively. But it came down to discussions about what the take was. He and Colin Jost had a bunch of talks. He and I as well. He will give the part energy and strength, and … Hopefully it’s funny.”

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Michaels also provided more insight on how SNL will incorporate an audience while continuing to provide safety measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus. But he insisted that the audience is an integral part of SNL, particularly in how its response informs which sketches will hit or miss and make it into the final performance.

"The physical problems of doing it — number of people who can be in the studio, number of people who can be in the control room, how you separate the band so that they’re not in any jeopardy — all of those are part of the meetings we’ve been having,” he said.

Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson, and Andrew Dismukes will join the cast this season as featured players, with Anna Drezen promoted to head writer. No hosts for Season 46 have yet been announced.

Saturday Night Live returns Oct. 3.

h/t Vulture