Copyright Parade
It turns out even the funniest people in the world can struggle to keep up at Saturday Night Live. Former cast members Ego Nwodim and Heidi Gardner recently got candid about the pressures of working on the long-running NBC sketch show. During a recent episode of Nwodim’s podcast, Thanks Dad, the two comedians reflected on their time at SNL, opening up about how challenging the fast-paced, high-pressure environment could be — even for seasoned performers. The duo left SNL right before the 51st season started, with Gardner’s departure announced on Aug. 28, and Nwodim’s on Sept. 12. Nwodim admitted on the podcast that the cast spent a lot of time together between writing and rehearsals, which has brought people together but also sometimes caused some resentment. “To have to share such an intimate space together for hours on end on Saturdays and Thursdays and Fridays, whenever we were rehearsing, yeah, it made [me and Gardner] close quick,” Nwodim explained. “But it doesn’t have to work that way. It could also not make you close. It can make you not like each other. It can make you feel whatever mutually, ‘I’m sharing a space with this person.’ But I’m so grateful we got so close.” The two shared a dressing room during their time on the show. Gardner was hired as a cast member in 2017 before the start of SNL‘s 43rd season, while Nwodim joined a year later. Gardner then responded that she was so grateful for their friendship and glad that they were able to become great friends without egos or competitions getting in the way “I’m so honored that we worked so hard there, and then we also worked on our friendship so hard, which wasn’t hard, by the way,” the 42-year-old comedian said. “I just mean we’re human, so we have egos, we want things for ourselves, we want to succeed. There weren’t a lot of times we were able to succeed the way we wanted at the exact same time.” Later in the episode, Nwodim revealed that it was challenging to feel like the cast is “winning together,” which made the show “not the easiest place to work.” But, she added that “in a place where it can get so competitive and you can become so self-involved, if you can leave and be still remarkably lovely and such a light and still pouring into other people like you, I think you succeeded.” According to TODAY, they reported in late August that Gardner’s contract was not renewed after eight seasons, but she has landed a new project after her exit. Meanwhile, Nwodim left the show due to wanting to pursue more projects in film and television. Since leaving, the 37-year-old actress attended the Calvin Klein fashion show during New York Fashion Week in September and filmed a commercial with the fitness brand solidcore. The duo’s exit was a part of a huge cast shakeup after the end of SNL‘s 50th season. Cast members Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim also did not return for Season 51, as well as writers John Higgins, Rosebud Baker, Auguste White, Celeste Yim and Steven Castillo. Prior to the show’s premiere earlier this month, SNL hired Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska to join the cast. Marshall was originally part of the comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy, which made occasional cameos throughout the show’s 47th through 50th seasons.
