Will Forte was nearly fired by Lorne Michaels when Michaels renewed the contracts of all of the other series regulars and proceeded to not only not renew Forte along with them, but take two separate three-week reviews before he did re-sign Forte. When he told Forte he was going to remain with the show, Michaels also said that Forte had "too much of a writers' mindset" and needed to make a change in sketches to "take authorship of the character" he was playing. Forte took the advice to heart and became one of the show's stars; when he left SNL several years later, it was under cordial terms that were a complete contrast to his near-firing: Michaels and the rest of the cast wanted him to return, but Forte had decided he should leave the show on a high note while he was still young enough to pursue other projects he was interested in.