Heidi Gardner Explains Why She Broke During that 'Beavis and Butthead' Sketch on 'SNL'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | April 16, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | April 16, 2024 |

The best sketch in a show of great ones on last weekend’s Ryan Gosling hosted SNL was one involving Beavis and Butthead characters played by Gosling and Mikey Day. It’s always fun to see cast members break (as long as it is done only sporadically), but there was something about the way that Heidi Gardner broke during that sketch that elevated it to another level.

Specifically, it looked as though when Heidi Gardner looked back at Gosling’s Beavis and, especially, Day’s Butthead, she was seeing them in make-up for the first time. It’s as though she was so surprised by what she was seeing that she couldn’t hold back her laughter.

Interestingly, as Vulture found out in an interview with Gardner, it wasn’t the first time she’d seen them in makeup. They were in make-up during rehearsal, and she lost it then, too!

“This makes me feel almost even worse and unprofessional. When I looked and saw Mikey in the dress rehearsal, I lost it. I was shocked. I’m thinking about it right now and laughing. I recovered and tried to tell myself in between dress and the live show, ‘You can’t laugh like that again.’ I was trying to imagine seeing him in my head so I was prepared for it, but I just couldn’t prepare for what I saw. I really tried. I even saw Mikey out of the corner of my eye seconds before I went live. I saw the red shorts. I knew I couldn’t look over there again. Mikey even told me later that he was bending down and hiding himself so I wouldn’t see him.”

Gardner was relieved after the sketch ended that her break had not incurred any wrath. “The anxiety set in and I was like, ‘Oh my God, was that okay?’ I had some friends in my dressing room, and they were like, ‘Of course, it was okay.’ So many other writers and cast members came up and said, ‘Good job.’ I’m like, ‘What? I actually didn’t do my job.’”

Gardner added that the sketch was one that Mikey Day and writer Streeter Seidell had been pitching for years. “It was their white whale.” She also gave props to the extras in the audience who, unlike her, managed to maintain their composure.

Source: Vulture