Heidi Gardner opens up about breaking her cool in SNL: ‘I thought I'd get fired'

Heidi Gardener reflected on her SNL character breaking, a reaction which went viral over the weekend. 

Barbie actor Ryan Gosling hosted SNL for the third time this April. However, there is one sketch that became the most-watched episode on the channel.  

In the sketch where Heidi Gardner starred as Bobbi Moore of NewsNation and broke character for 30 seconds after turning around centred around a serious discussion on AI.

However, things go off the rails when Mikey and Ryan show up, bearing a striking resemblance to characters butt-head and Beavis.  

Now appearing in Today With Hoda & Jenna, the actress shared that she was afraid to laugh all these years because she thought she’d get ‘fired’. 

She revealed, “I just had it in my head [that] I couldn’t do it. I think you get this big job on SNL and you want to do your job at the best of your ability, I think maybe I thought I’d get fired.” 

Joining the comedy series in 2017, the 40-year-old comedian reflected on her techniques to prevent cracking up during sketches and noted “Biting your lip” or a well-timed “yawn”. However, despite all this, Heidi struggled to keep her serious demeanour when she saw the 44-year-old actor in his cartoon costume.  

She explained, ”A friend of mine [was] like, you know when you spike the camera?, it’s like, ‘Mikey spiked you, Heidi’. He spiked me!”, she said bursting into giggles. 

“He didn’t look fully human to me. He looks like a kangaroo”, she recalled humouring the hosts.