After Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim exited Saturday Night Live ahead of the show’s 51st season, the pair has reunited to reminisce on their friendship and time on the NBC sketch comedy series.
Gardner recently stopped by Nwodim’s Thanks Dad podcast, where the former SNL castmembers recalled how they bonded instantly after Nwodim joined the show in 2018, a year after Gardner, and they shared a dressing room.
“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 us close quick,” Nwodim said. “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.”
Gardner added, “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. 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 during their conversation, Gardner recalled a specific SNL episode that “was beautiful to watch” with Nwodim. She was referring to her friend’s viral “Miss Eggy” segment during the April 5, 2025, episode hosted by Jack Black.
“That Jack Black week, it was everything to me because it was my hero. I could’ve never imagined a week like that, and I got to do so much in the show. And so you kind of feel selfish in that way,” she shared before getting emotional. “And then I can honestly say my best friend had the moment of the year, you know? I’m just being really vulnerable. There’s a part of me, if I think about it, I’m like, but wait, I should want that for me, but you had it, and it was fucking awesome.”
Gardner continued, “And I got to go out there and watch it and to have you have it with my favorite person in the world and you’re my favorite person in the world, it’s like, what is my life, this is so beautiful, and we wanted it. We knew how special that was, and I knew how important it was to you and the people who… everyone loves you.”
Nwodim shared a similar sentiment, noting that there were “so many times being like, why can’t we be able to be winning together at the same time, so it could feel like a full celebration and not one of us mourning or frustrated and one of us like on cloud nine.”
She also mentioned that SNL was “not the easiest place to work”, but went on to praise Gardner as being “such a light in what can be such a challenging place.”
“The sketches, they come, they go, they’re really fun,” Nwodim said. “They can be hard, they can be things you’re not into, whatever. But I’m like, if you can leave — 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.”
While Gardner has yet to address her departure from SNL ahead of the season 51 premiere in October, Nwodim had announced her exit on Instagram in September.
“The hardest part of a great party is knowing when to say goodnight,” she wrote at the time. “But after seven unforgettable seasons, I have decided to leave SNL. I am immensely grateful to Lorne for the opportunity, to my castmates, the writers, and the crew for their brilliance, support and friendship. Week after week on that stage taught me more than I could have ever imagined, and I will carry those memories (and that laughter) with me always.”
