One season on Saturday Night Live was enough to thrust Aristotle Athari into the Hollywood pipeline. The comic has been in several projects since he left SNL in 2022 following Season 47. Add one more to the Athari employment sheet: he’s been added to the cast of the upcoming movie Best Friends Forever.
The horror/comedy film scheduled for a late 2026, early 2027 release also stars SNL alum Bobby Moynihan. It’s directed by Liz Manashil. According to Variety, the movie is a “horror comedy [which] follows the bachelorette party reunion of five high school friends as they become exposed to toxic positivity-turned-supernatural and begin to turn against each other. The film explores the things we don’t say and all the things we don’t show, as women, to our friends.”
Athari appeared in M3GAN 2.0 in 2025, and Molli and Max in the Future in 2023. His professional roots are steeped in his standup-comedy career. Prior to his addition to the cast of SNL, Athari was part of a sketch/improv group called Goatface. He was cast in a small role in Silicon Valley on HBO.
In Season 47, Athari was part of the rookie class that included James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman. He was the only one of those three who was not asked back after the featured player first season. Both Johnon and Sherman remain on SNL as of the end of Season 51.
Athari was noted as being the second middle eastern American to be cast on SNL, after Nasim Pedrad.
