Bowen Yang is lamenting losing his friend Heidi Gardner amid the recent wave of cast cuts ahead of Saturday Night Live season 51.
The SNL star, 34, addressed the abrupt departures from the show in the Tuesday episode of his podcast Las Culturistas, which he hosts with Matt Rogers.
During the podcast, Yang praised Gardner as a cornerstone of the SNL team. “You are one of the greats. You will go down in history,” he said of the comedian, who first joined the sketch series in 2017 before later transitioning into a cast member as well.
Yang himself joined SNL as a writer in 2018 before being promoted to the cast the following year. In his tribute to Gardner, he further lauded her rare ability to craft sketches solo as well—a risky move on a show where collaborative writing is the norm.
“Anytime you saw just Gardner on a sketch, you knew you were in good hands,” he said, adding that she often wrote material for her fellow cast members.
He recalled Gardner’s generosity during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when she sent daily check-in texts to lift the spirits of isolated castmates, calling her “a true anchor” on that show and “truly a beautiful person.”
Yang also acknowledged the other departures, including Please Don’t Destroy’s John Higgins and newer players Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, and Emil Wakim, but said he is still “thrilled to go back” for another season.
“I will miss the people who are not coming back very, very much,” he said of the departing cast.
