Heidi Gardner

Heidi Lynn Gardner (born July 27, 1983) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She has been a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' since season 43 in 2017, when she debuted as a featured player. She was promoted to repertory status on the show in 2019.

Early life, family, and education

Gardner was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. She has an older brother, Justin.

Heidi Gardner worked part-time at the Tivoli Theater in Kansas City as a child, where she did everything "from selling tickets to making popcorn". She later credited the theater as "setting the tone in her life". She was not interested in acting as a teenager, only performing on stage as a flautist for the school band and doing comedy sketches in school talent shows. She graduated from the all-girls Catholic high school Notre Dame de Sion in southern Kansas City in 2001. In her senior year, her classmates voted her "most likely to be a cast member of ''Saturday Night Live''".

After graduation, Gardner followed in a friend's footsteps and enrolled at the University of Kansas for two years before transferring to the University of Missouri for a semester. At the time, she was uninterested in school and often skipped classes, but discovered a fondness for cutting hair.

Career

At age 21, Gardner dropped out of college and left Kansas City for Los Angeles, where she worked at a hair salon for nine years. Before moving, she saved $600 over one summer. A friend encouraged her to attend a performance at The Groundlings theater, where she became inspired to become an actress. Lacking acting experience, Gardner enrolled in community workshops to learn the basics of improvisation. Once she was comfortable performing, Gardner auditioned for the Groundlings basic class and was accepted.

In 2014, Gardner joined the Sunday Company and a year later after a promotion to the Main Company, she quit her job as a hairstylist to focus on acting. During that time, she became a voice actress, regularly appearing on animated series including ''Bratz'', ''SuperMansion'', and ''Mike Tyson Mysteries''. In 2017, she joined the cast of ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') along with Luke Null and Chris Redd for its forty-third season, as featured players.

After her first year on ''SNL'', Gardner was hired to play Leonor in the Ben Falcone-directed film '' Life of the Party'', alongside Melissa McCarthy, Falcone's wife. On August 28, 2019, ''TVLine'' reported that Gardner would have a guest role on the NBC comedy series '' Superstore,'' playing Dina Fox's nemesis Colleen who is transferred to Store 1217 after Cloud 9's Bel-Ridge location is shut down. In 2019, Gardner made her stage debut in Michael Frayn's ''Noises Off'' at The Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. That same year, she and ''SNL'' castmate Redd were promoted to Repertory Status for SNL's 45th season.

By the time of season 47, which was her fifth season on ''SNL'', she still felt like "the new kid", because by that point, outside of Leslie Jones, most of the senior cast members from her first season were still there. This was due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic preventing those senior cast members from leaving the show earlier. By the time season 47 had concluded, and season 48 was underway, several senior cast members (such as Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, and Cecily Strong - who left midway through season 48) had left the show, and Gardner (who, by that point, was in her sixth season) talked about being grateful for now being one of the senior cast members, and has enjoyed being "passed the ball more."

Gardner, who had never broken character in seven seasons on ''SNL'', cracked while playing NewsNation host Bobbi Moore in a ''Beavis and Butt-Head''-centered sketch on April 13, 2024. ''Vulture'' magazine described the moment as breaking in "spectacularly charming fashion".

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; Recurring characters on ''Saturday Night Live''

* Angel (Every Boxer's Girlfriend from Every Movie About Boxing Ever), a distressed woman who tries to give "Weekend Update's Good News Report" but inevitably derails into melodramatic rants about her boyfriend's dangerous boxing career
* Bailey Gismert, a teen film critic who gives awkward reviews
* Brie Bacardi, one half of a shallow couple always on the brink of an argument, who runs a relationship-themed Instagram account with her boyfriend Nico Slobkin ( Mikey Day)
* Baskin Johns, a woman who works for Goop and gets worried that she will be fired by Gwyneth Paltrow
* Mandy, a cousin of a celebrity who shames their movie careers
* Sandy, a joyful cook on a baking reality competition show who is qualified and skilled but often gets passed over as a winner for more poorly-constructed and eccentric cakes
* Tamra, an intern who pitches Instagram captions for Mattel's Barbie account
* Deidre, one half of a couple who describes their vacation to their friends, naïvely misinterpreting poor experiences as prestigious culture
* Crystal (Your Co-Worker Who is Extremely Busy Doing Seemingly Nothing), who comes to Weekend Update to complain about her job, although it's unclear what she actually does

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Personal life

Gardner is a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals. From 2010 to 2023, she was married to Marvel Comics creator Zeb Wells, whom she met while she was a member of the Groundlings.

When she is not in New York City, working on ''Saturday Night Live'', she resides in Leawood, Kansas (south of Kansas City) in a mid-century modern home she purchased in 2021.

Filmography

Film

Television

Web

Audio

Stage

Writing credits

Web

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardner, Heidi
1983 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American comedians
Actresses from Kansas City, Missouri
American film actresses
American impressionists (entertainers)
American sketch comedians
American television actresses
American voice actresses
American women comedians
Comedians from Kansas City, Missouri
University of Kansas alumni