Heidi Gardner is saying goodbye to Saturday Night Live after eight seasons on the cast.
Entertainment Weekly has learned Gardner will not be part of the show’s 51st season when it premiere in October. Vulture was first to report the news.
News of her departure comes amid a big cast shakeup at SNL. Castmates Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, and featured player Emil Wakim all announced this week that they would also not be part of the upcoming season. Writers Celeste Yim and Rosebud Baker have also exited the show.
Will Heath/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
Michael Che and Heidi Gardner on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Gardner joined the SNL cast for season 43 in 2017. Although during her first several seasons she had to jockey for screen time alongside fan-favorite show staples like Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, and Cecily Strong, she steadily made a name for herself and rose to the occasion when the time came to fill her famous costars’ shoes when they stepped away.
A standout in sketches as both a solid utility player and a wacky lead character, Gardner delivered equally memorable “Weekend Update” caricatures, including Angel, a.k.a. Every Boxer’s Girlfriend From Every Movie About Boxing Ever; teen film critic Bailey Gismert; Goop employee Baskin Johns; and a character known as Your Co-worker Who Is Extremely Busy Doing Seemingly Nothing.
Gardner made headlines in April 2024 when the generally unflappable actress hilariously broke character repeatedly in a sketch with pal Mikey Day and host Ryan Gosling both wearing full prosthetics to play live-action versions of Beavis and Butt-Head.
NBC
Heidi Gardner on breaking during Beavis and Butt-Head sketch on ‘SNL’
“I was trying to imagine seeing [Day] in my head so I was prepared for it, but I just couldn’t prepare for what I saw. I really tried,” Gardner said of losing it on camera. “I even saw Mikey out of the corner of my eye seconds before I went live. I saw the red shorts. I knew I couldn’t look over there again. Mikey even told me later that he was bending down and hiding himself so I wouldn’t see him.”
One of her personal achievements came when the Kansas City Chiefs superfan convinced show boss Lorne Michaels to get NFL star Travis Kelce to host a 2023 episode. “Lorne was like, ‘Well, he has to win the Super Bowl.’ I was like, ‘That is so much pressure to ask. And then he won the Super Bowl,” Gardner recalled.
In addition to her work on SNL, Gardner had a standout role on Apple TV+’s Shrinking and has appeared on episodes of You, Superstore, Veep, The Other Two, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, as well as in Adam Sandler’s Hustle.
Saturday Night Live season 51 premieres Oct. 4 at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
