Early life
Gardner was born and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. [5] She has an older brother, Justin. [6]
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". [7] 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. [8] 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". [6] 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 haircutting. [8]
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. [9] Before moving, she saved $600 over one summer. [10] A friend encouraged her to attend a performance at The Groundlings theater, where she became inspired to become an actress. [9] 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. [8]
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. [8] During that time, she became a voice actress, [11] regularly appearing on animated series including Bratz , SuperMansion , and Mike Tyson Mysteries . [12] In 2017, she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) along with Luke Null and Chris Redd for its forty-third season. [10]
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. [8] 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. [13] In 2019, Gardner made her stage debut in Michael Frayn's Noises Off at The Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. [14]
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. [15] Vulture magazine described the moment as breaking in "spectacularly charming fashion". [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
- Recurring characters on Saturday Night Live [23]
- 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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