“`html
Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim Reflect on SNL’s Demanding Work Culture
After departing from “Saturday Night Live” before Season 51, Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim recently shared candid insights into the work culture at the iconic late-night sketch show.
While hosting Gardner on her “Thanks Dad” podcast, Nwodim explained that the “SNL” cast spends a significant amount of “intimate” time together during writing and rehearsals, which can either foster camaraderie or breed tension within the group.
“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 rapid,” 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.”
Gardner added that she was grateful for the friendship she and Nwodim built while on the show and was thankful that egos didn’t often hinder their collaboration.
“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,” Gardner 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 to.”
