Mr. Hader’s contract at “Saturday Night Live” expired in spring 2012, but he was persuaded to stay on for an additional season. In February he told Mr. Michaels that he was ready to move on, he said. “I’d heard stories that you get very emotional in those conversations,” he added, “and I’ve had other people tell me, ‘Oh, I cried.’ I didn’t, but I did think I was about to faint.”

Mr. Hader said his decision was motivated partly by seeing friends like Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig leave last season, and partly by a desire to move his family to Los Angeles. His wife, Maggie Carey, is getting busier with her filmmaking career, which includes the forthcoming comedy “The To Do List” (which she wrote and directed, and in which Mr. Hader appears). Meanwhile Mr. Hader said he had worked on three live-action features and four animated films during the current season of “SNL” alone.

Whoever remains with “Saturday Night Live,” Mr. Hader said it would be in good hands, as newer cast members like Taran Killam, Vanessa Bayer and Kate McKinnon come into their own.

“There’s a new sensibility happening,” Mr. Hader said, “and if it isn’t totally apparent on the show yet, I see it on Wednesdays at the table reads.”

At those sessions this year, Mr. Hader said, “I found myself looking up and watching the new people do their sketches. I like watching Kate McKinnon do something — there’s a joy in seeing a new move from somebody and going, ‘Oh, she can do that.’ ”

Specific plans for his final episode have not yet been worked out, but he and Mr. Michaels said audiences should not expect a send-off like the emotional one that Ms. Wiig received last year, when she was serenaded by Mick Jagger and the “SNL” cast.