Heidi Gardner

Heidi Lynn Gardner is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live for eight seasons from season 43 in 2017 until her departure after season 50 in 2025. She was promoted to repertory status on the show in 2019.

Early life

Heidi Gardner was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. She has an older brother, Justin.
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 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 had left the show, and Gardner talked about being grateful for now being one of the senior cast members, and has enjoyed being "passed the ball more."
During her eight-year tenure on Saturday Night Live, Gardner broke character during her seventh season on the show, while playing a NewsNation host named Bobbi Moore in a Beavis and Butt-Head-themed sketch. Vulture magazine described the moment as breaking in "spectacularly charming fashion".
Gardner departed the show in 2025, after the conclusion of the show's 50th season.

Recurring characters on ''Saturday Night Live''

Angel, a troubled 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
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, who comes to Weekend Update to complain about her job, although it's unclear what she actually does
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 writer Zeb Wells, whom she met while she was a member of the Groundlings.
As of 2024, Gardner resided in Leawood, Kansas, in a mid-century modern house she purchased in 2021.

Performances and works

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2014	Dibs!	Erica
2018	Life of the Party	Leonor
2018	Making Babies	Meg
2019	Otherhood	Erin
2022	Hustle	Kat Merrick
2022	Puss in Boots: The Last Wish	Last Baker	Voice role
2023	Leo	Eli's mom	Voice role
2026			Post-production
			Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2017, 2019	Mike Tyson Mysteries	Old Woman, Jennifer	2 episodes
2017–2025	Saturday Night Live	Various	Seasons 43–50
2019	The Other Two	Mona	Episode: "Chase Turns Fourteen"
2019	Veep	Amanda White	Episode: "Discovery Weekend"
2019	Alien News Desk	Tuva Van Void	12 episodes
2019	American Dad!	Various voices	Episode: "Lost Boys"
2019	Superstore	Colleen	Episode: "Forced Hire"
2020	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt	Jenny	Special: "Kimmy vs the Reverend"
2021	Close Enough	Becca	Episode: "Houseguest From Hell"
2021	Crank Yankers	Herself	Episode: "Chelsea Peretti, Heidi Gardner & J.B. Smoove"
2022	Is It Cake?	Herself	Episode: "Toying Around"
2022	Girls5eva	Cara	Episode: "Album Mode"
2022	That Damn Michael Che		Episode: "Higher Power"
2023–2024	Shrinking	Grace	10 episodes
2025	You	Kim Kramer	Episode: "#JoeGoldberg"

Stage

Web

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2015	Adult Wednesday	Hairdresser	Episode: "The Haircut"
2015	Bratz	Yasmin	8 episodes
2015–19	SuperMansion	Cooch, Various voices	46 episodes
2016	CollegeHumor Originals	Patient	Episode: "Why Are My Nipples Pixelated?"

Audio

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2020	Heads Will Roll	Various voices	10 episodes
2021	Batman: The Audio Adventures	Harley Quinn, Miss Tuesday

Writing credits