Ashley Padilla Hits 100 SNL Sketches in 28 Episodes

Time Magazine crowns Ashley Padilla SNL's latest breakout as she logs more screen time than any cast member and reaches 100 sketches in just 28 episodes.

Time Magazine has named Ashley Padilla to its 2026 TIME100 Next list, calling her SNL's latest breakout star just two seasons after her debut in the show's 50th season. According to Time, Padilla logged more screen time than any other cast member in season 51 and reached the 100-sketch milestone in only 28 episodes. This season she was promoted from featured player to repertory cast member, and opened her third season on September 26 with a headline-making impression of White House aide Natalie Harp. "I'm just always motivated to top myself every week," Time quotes her saying.

Time reports that Padilla's willingness to sit in silence has itself become a phenomenon: after her performance in the 'Surprise' sketch with Sabrina Carpenter—playing a woman treating a workplace fart as an existential catastrophe—the New York Times published a piece dubbing her extended silences 'the Padilla Pause.' Time says she deployed the technique again in 'Mom Confession,' as a mother slowly admitting she regrets voting for Trump. She tells Time the timing is delicate and that she has both cut a silence short and held one too long. 'It's vulnerable to sit in that dead air,' she says, 'and I love it.'

Time details Padilla's path: a Bay Area kid raised by a single mother, a Sephora worker and wedding makeup artist who dropped out of community college after a week, then spent 10 years with Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings, where she had to write her own material. Her viral sketches grew from that muscle—Time notes 'Haircut' with Glen Powell came from her own shaved-head misadventure, and 'Kathy' with Jack Black adapts a Groundlings character she calls her favorite. A showcase called 'Party of Three' landed in Netflix Is a Joke in 2024, and four days after learning she was cast, she moved to New York.

SNL's 52nd season is underway, and Bleeding Cool reports Padilla joined host Dakota Johnson for the promos ahead of this weekend's episode with musical guest Turnstile, going all-in to sell Johnson's film 'Verity' and explaining why her mom warned her against watching SNL. Bleeding Cool lists Padilla among the season's main players alongside Kenan Thompson, Colin Jost, and Michael Che. Time adds that beyond Studio 8H, she shot the romcom 'The Catch' with Emma Stone and Chris Pine during hiatus and is developing a female-driven horror comedy with Barry Jenkins' company Pastel.