Ego Nwodim is reflecting on her Saturday Night Live tenure.
During an appearance on Sherri Shepherd’s daytime talk show Sherri, the host pointed out that it’s “tough not seeing any Black women in the cast” of SNL following Nwodim’s departure. She then asked her if she felt “the weight of all of that representation when you were on the show?”
“I don’t know that I would call it weight,” she responded. “I felt honored to be the seventh Black woman in that cast. I hope that there will be more Black women. Punkie Johnson came on the show after me. Who knows who else they’ll find as they explore and seek out other talents?”
SNL underwent a major cast exodus this summer, which included Nwodim announcing she was leaving the show.
“The hardest part of a great party is knowing when to say goodnight,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “But after seven unforgettable seasons, I have decided to leave SNL. I am immensely grateful to Lorne for the opportunity, to my castmates, the writers, and the crew for their brilliance, support and friendship.”
Following her exit, Shepherd pointed out that there are no Black women in the cast on her daytime talk show. She noted, “[Nwodim] was their only Black female castmember, so now there are no Black women on SNL. So what do I say to SNL? Y’all gotta hurry up and you gotta find somebody, this is a break glass in case of an emergency. It is an emergency.”
Of her experience on the late night series, Nwodim said that she “believe[s] I represented a myriad of characters. Some people didn’t always catch that nuance, but I do feel like I got the chance to represent and that was really important to me and I felt honored to get to be in that position.”
“I felt honored to represent for us,” she said in conversation with Shepherd. Of why season 51 was her time to leave SNL, Nwodim explained that “it felt like the time to make space for something else for me.”
“It’s like being in a marriage. I’ve never done it before, but that show was my longest relationship ever. Seven years,” she said. “I’m not a commitment phobe, but I heard when you’re married, you get the seven-year itch. And it’s like, I wanna date other people, I wanna see some other privates.”
Nwodim recently caught up with Heidi Gardner, who also left SNL ahead of season 51, on her podcast where they reflected on their friendship and years working together on the series.
“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 quick,” Nwodim said. “But it doesn’t have to work that way. It could also not make you close… But I’m so grateful we got so close.”
Gardner continued, “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. 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 at the exact same time.”
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