By Zoe Papadakis | Wednesday, 29 October 2025 01:03 PM EDT
Former “Saturday Night Live” castmates Ego Nwodim and Heidi Gardner have shared their experiences working on the NBC comedy sketch series, describing it as “not the easiest place to work.”
The two reunited on Nwodim’s “Thanks Dad” podcast on Tuesday, discussing their time at SNL, their friendship, and the competitive environment of the high-pressure show.
Nwodim, who left the show in September after seven seasons, said, “The sketches, they come, they go, they’re really fun. 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.”
She described Gardner as “such a light in what can be such a challenging place.”
Gardner, who left the show in August after eight seasons, echoed the sentiment. “I am 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,” she said. “I just mean … we’re humans, so we have egos, we want things for ourselves, we want to succeed, and there weren’t a lot of times when we were able to succeed in the way we wanted at the exact same time.”
Gardner also reflected on watching Nwodim’s “Miss Eggy” moment on “Weekend Update” go viral. “It was beautiful to watch you succeed so much, and that’s why I think back, it’s so recent, but that Jack Black week, it was everything to me because it was my hero,” she said. “I could’ve never imagined a week like that, and I got to do so much in the show.”
When Nwodim announced her exit in September, she called the decision to leave bittersweet. “The hardest part of a great party is knowing when to say goodnight. But after seven unforgettable seasons, I have decided to leave ‘SNL,'” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “I am immensely grateful to Lorne for the opportunity, to my castmates, the writers and the crew for their brilliance, support and friendship.”
Both Nwodim and Gardner expressed pride in their work on “SNL” and gratitude for the lessons learned during their tenure.
