Ego Nwodim Is Just Getting Started

On a warm Thursday night in New York City, Ego Nwodim and I sit down for dinner at a posh restaurant within walking distance of 30 Rock. It’s just a few days before the Saturday Night Live season 50 finale, hosted by Scarlett Johansson, and nothing in the show is locked in yet, she says. We’ve got just under an hour before she has to rush back to Studio 8H.

We settle in, scanning our menus in a rushed silence—”I’m a bad multitasker,” Nwodim says—when our server arrives. Nwodim, 37, orders a tequila cocktail with a very French name she doesn’t attempt to pronounce. Indulging in the opportunity for small talk, his professionalism masking any indication that he recognizes he’s speaking to SNL royalty, the server says he doesn’t speak French, but “sometimes I just say it with hella confidence at a table.”

Without missing a beat, Nwodim asks if he’s from the Bay Area. “You keep saying ‘hella,’” she says. (Rereading our conversation the next day, I discover that the server only said “hella” the one time—Nwodim is just that quick.) A small suburb near the Bay, he confirms, telling us the name of the town. She nods and answers with, of all things, the town’s area code.

“Yo, that’s impressive though,” says the server with genuine surprise.

Nwodim—who is from Baltimore and has not lived in the Bay Area—plays it off. “I know area codes,” she says with a shrug. “It’s the weird, useless skill I have.”

From the jump, I’m struck by how observant Nwodim is. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, as the best comedians are often hyperaware, riffing on things most of us would classify as mundane. Some of her most side-splitting sketches are built on the backs of these observations. Take Mid-Day News, for example, a sketch about four newscasters—two white, two Black—who begin keeping score of suspects’ races in a wacky and inappropriate (but hilarious) game.

“It’s my brainchild,” says Nwodim of the sketch, which appeared for a second time during season 50. “I remember thinking, ‘I can’t be the only one who reads news this way, or hears news this way.’”

Since her debut on season 44 of SNL, Nwodim has always had an electric presence. But it’s only in the past couple years that it truly feels as though she’s been unleashed, embracing the absurd and delivering some of the most memorable characters to have ever graced the SNL stage: Lisa from Temecula, Monica from Amazon, Black Ariel, Rich Auntie With No Kids, and, most recently, Miss Eggy, her standup comedian alter ego who was so engaging, the audience actually cursed on live TV. “Lorne’s gonna be mad at y’all,” Miss Eggy told the audience during the bit.

Aside from her tenure on SNL, Nwodim has also spent the past few years beefing up her resumé: Since 2024, she’s hosted a podcast called Thanks, Dad; she starred alongside Steph Curry and Adam Pally in the Peacock series Mr. Throwback; and just earlier this month, she hosted Vogue’s 2025 Met Gala Livestream alongside Teyana Taylor and La La Anthony. Also on her to-do list? More physical comedy, perhaps some drama, and a little directing too.

“Whatever I’m doing in five years, I’m going to be passionate about it,” Nwodim says when I ask about her future. “It’s really important to me that I’m enjoying this one precious life.”

However, as the finale approaches, capping Nwodim’s seventh season on SNL, she underscores that she’s just happy to be a part of the legendary institution. “I work with some of the funniest, most hardworking people on the planet, and we share this special bond as a result,” says Nwodim. “I’m like, ‘Everyone tune in and enjoy. We just want to make you laugh and have fun with our friends.’”

Keep reading for our full conversation, and tune into the SNL finale tonight on NBC.

Glamour: So you’re now kind of a senior member of the cast. Does that feel strange?

Ego Nwodim: Absolutely. You know what’s crazy, is one day you look up and you’re a senior and you don’t even realize it’s happened. And then you’re like, “Oh, shit, should I be taking someone under my wing?”

I’ve always felt like a baby in that space because SNL itself is just such a machine and it’s 50 years old. So what does it mean to feel like a senior when so many veterans come through week to week, especially in a season like the 50th? You still feel so small in that space. But then, yeah, you realize, “Wait, no, I’ve been here for a while.”

You’re like, “I can show people around.”

Not even. Honestly, I was saying to somebody, “It’s interesting with the cast. There is no orientation. You just, start.” There are departments where I’m still like, “I don’t know where that is.”

When you started, did someone take you under their wing?

No, I don’t think anyone took me under. At some point, though, Cecily Strong—she was one of the first people to teach me the importance of really resting and taking advantage of my hiatus weeks. She took me on vacation. We went to Cabo my first season.

Melissa Villasenor, Kate McKinnon, Heidi Gardener, Aidy Bryant, Cecily Strong, and Ego Nwodim on season 44 of Saturday Night Live.

NBC/Getty Images

Just you two?

It was me, her, a couple of her friends. One of her friends has now become one of my best, closest friends ever. Her thing was she really took her hiatuses seriously. She made that time to recharge.

I came in here like, “Go, go, go.” And you go hard, you work and you hustle and you grind. That’s how you get an opportunity like SNL. But then once you’re there, it’s important that you find those places and times to slow down and recharge and be a human again and see friends and make sure your life is well rounded.

Is there anybody this season, or even in past seasons, that you’ve tried to look out for in the same way? Have you taken anyone on vacation?

When Marcello Hernandez came in, we bonded. He’s just so smart and such a hard worker. He works incredibly hard, and he’s really, really, really, really smart. I love that. I always saw that in him, and his desire to succeed. I felt like we spoke the same language in that regard. And we have been on vacation together. Well, I went to Miami for Fourth of July and got to spend it with him on the boat. We had a fun time.

Didn’t one of you post a photo together with the caption, “Mi esposa”?

It was him, yeah. And then I said, mi hermanito, my little brother. I love him, I love him so much.

Instagram/@eggyboom

He’s definitely made an impression.

An undeniable impression, and it makes me really happy to see. I try to be very welcoming of new cast and writers, and sometimes I’m so consumed with what I’m doing and what I’m trying to achieve I have not even thought to look up.

But now, I have this awareness, especially now that Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, and Cecily Strong are not there. I’m like, “Oh, Heidi Gardner and I are the senior women on this cast.” And so, I think both of us try to check in on the newer people, see how they’re doing. It’s a tough show. It’s grueling. The hours are crazy. It’s unlike anything else, and it takes so much getting used to and it takes time.

You’re always great, but I feel like you really shone this season. Miss Eggy really took me over the edge. I’m sure you’ve heard that.

It makes me very happy. There is no time that someone compliments me and I’m like, “Enough.” I love to hear that our work resonated with somebody. That is one of the most electric feelings, like, “Oh, I had fun doing that, and people are enjoying watching it.” And the audience was so alive, obviously. They were alert.

I watched it on Peacock the next day, so the cursing was censored. I just assumed it was one person that cursed, and then I heard the live audio where the whole audience said “Shiiiit.”

They all knew.

Did you have any idea they would respond like that?

I mean, no, I never swear. But I assure you no, because someone would have gotten ahead of it and been like, “Hey guys, you can’t have that in the script.” No one flagged it.

Really?

Think about it. When has the audience ever responded verbally in unison to a sketch?

I guess if there was no prompt.

There’s never been a prompt for the audience. The expectation is that they’re just going to watch this performance.

I rarely watch myself back, but I did watch that back because I didn’t even remember this part. The first prompt I had to my audience was, “Because Miss Eggy don’t what? That’s right. Play.” And the whole joke is that [the audience] knows Miss Eggy, this kind of corny standup. But no, they don’t know her. That’s the first time my character’s ever been on the show. She’s not a real standup. Miss Eggy’s not a real person. It was supposed to be silent, and then I say, “That’s right.”

Right, the silence is the joke.

So if you watch, the audience said, “Play.” I was like, “Wait, how’d y’all know?” That was also in the moment. I remember being like, “Are the cue cards facing the audience some way, where they’re reading them all along?”

But the audience cannot read the cue cards. They just knew, and they were so cued in and enjoying the Miss Eggy performance. They were really her crowd at a comic club.

Did you guys actually get in trouble?

I asked Lorne [Michaels] very casually if we got fined, and he was like, “I don’t think so.” And then I was like, I’m not going to push. No further questions.

I have to say, when you came out with the handbag, I was like, “This is going to be good.”

The handbag was an, “if you know, you know,” because that’s such a nod to the Queens of Comedy and Def Comedy Jam comedians, because some of them would do that and come out with their purse. I mean, we thought about cutting it.

Really?

We were like, “Fuck, Lorne’s going to say, why is she carrying a purse?” Lorne does like for things to make sense. But he didn’t ask.

Is Miss Eggy going to be making an appearance in the finale?

We don’t know. We don’t know what the show is going to be. We have no idea because it’s, what’s today? Thursday.

Today is Thursday, yeah.

We do not know what the show is going to be. We know things that are being floated. We know things we’re going to try, but we don’t know.

That’s crazy. I can’t imagine working on that tight of a schedule, with so much up in the air. I’m a person who has to have things locked in.

I like order as well. But honestly, the way I got the job… Again, this is nearly seven years ago. I waited and waited and waited, and I was living on my friend’s couch because there was a roach in my apartment and I moved out. I’m not kidding, I’m not being hyperbolic. I moved out.

Every day I’d be like, “Today, you’re going to get the call. One way or the other, you’ll get released or you’ll get the job at SNL.” It was Wednesday when I found out. Thursday, I flew to New York. Friday, I went in to get my ID, and Monday work started. The way I got the job is very much a window into what my experience here would be like: “Hey girl, you’re going to need to adjust to not knowing what tomorrow holds and rolling with the punches and stepping up.”

I will say, when that happened, my sister and several people in my life were like, “I’ve never seen someone act so quickly and decisively.” They’re like, “Don’t forget that’s in you. Channel that.” When I’ve had to make other hard decisions they’re like, “This is the girl we watched blow up her life.”

Would you do it again? Blow up your life?

Yeah, because I’m scared of roaches.

I mean, New York City is not exactly roach free.

That’s what everyone says to me. And guess what? I do not see them. I live in the skies. I live in a building that is post-war, on purpose. I had all this criteria for the kind of building I was going to move into because I was like, “I can’t see a roach. I’ll have a panic attack.” I heard there are roaches in New York, but they don’t live in my apartment.

Would you rather a rat or a roach?

I’d rather you kill me.

I want to talk about some of your other sketches from this season. “Mid-Day News” is a recurring segment—how did that come to be?

The original aired on the second episode of my second season. But the original original “Mid-Day News,” I wrote at UCB right before I got SNL. It’s my brainchild.

I used to read a lot of AOL.com because I had a day job that was at a desk—lots of AOL.com on company time. And I’d read the craziest headlines. One was so insane, it was something about a woman attacking her man at a nail salon, or throwing acetone on him. I’d read these stories and be like, “I need to see a picture of this woman. What’s her story, what’s she look like? Was she one of us, or was she one of them?”

I remember thinking, “I can’t be the only one who reads news this way or hears news this way.” When there’s been any sort of crime, I’m like, “Okay, now tell us about the suspect. Please God, do not let it be one of us because that would be bad press. We do not need bad press right now, as a collective.” I was like, “This is a feeling I want to put into a sketch.”

In this most recent iteration, I put a lot of Baltimore streets and towns in it. So, a little nod to my hometown. That’s one of the skits I’m most proud of.

You studied biology at USC. Do you ever use your degree in comedy? I’m genuinely curious.

No.

And then post-grad you decided on comedy?

There’s a sketch, Parents with Daniel Kaluuya, about a kid who has African parents, and he is telling those African parents he wants to be a creative. That [outrageous reaction] is certainly exaggerated. My mom was supportive. But all Nigerians, and I think a lot of first-generation kids, have the experience of like, “We want you to be a doctor.”

I knew that I wanted to be a performer, and I wanted to act. I was a consumer of comedy in many ways, like I grew up watching Martin, and my brother was a huge Seinfeld fan. The Jamie Foxx Show was a favorite of mine.

While I was a consumer of comedy, I don’t think I understood that that was like—and we’re going to use a metaphor here—a specialty. So it’s like someone saying, “I want to be a doctor,” but it’s like, “What kind of doctor?” It’s like, “Oh shit, there’s kinds of doctors?” That’s what I felt like about acting. It makes sense that I ended up in comedy, because I’ve always been silly and goofy.

Once, after hanging out, a friend said, “I didn’t realize how goofy you are.” And I’m like, “But we do comedy together.” I actually think people don’t realize how goofy I am. The closest I think I’ve come to being my full silly self is, I will say, Miss Eggy.

Is there anything about SNL, working on SNL that you wish more people knew about?

I really want to take advantage of this moment. I wish people realized, the writers’ room is pretty diverse. It could stand to be more—it can always stand to be more reflective of the world—but it’s pretty diverse. I wish people knew that people were writing from their own perspective in that writers’ room. It’s not just one white guy that went to Harvard. I just need to say that. I really need to get that off my chest.

That’s always what people are saying in the comments for some reason.

It’s really like, “Oh, one white guy went to Harvard…”

They think Colin Jost is writing the whole show.

Like, Colin Jost wrote “Two Bitches vs. a Gorilla?” No, he didn’t. We’re trying to be silly. It’s a silly show.

Ego Nwodim and Quinta Brunson in “Two Bitches vs. a Gorilla.”

NBC/Getty Images

This is how I want to put it: “Honey, Weekend Update is not the real news. Okay? It’s Saturday Night Live. It’s a comedy show. We are all aiming to be silly there and make each other and you laugh.”

We read cue cards because we have to, not because Lorne will be mad, but because the sketches are changing down to the last second. For example, the very first “Lisa from Temecula,” the writers didn’t even get an opportunity to tell me a quarter of the sketch was cut in the middle.

There’s a moment where I am pausing because I’m like, it’s supposed to be someone else’s line, and I know this kind of from memory because we’ve run it so many times, right? But wrong. They cut a whole chunk. And because it’s live, they didn’t get a chance to run and tell you, and the next line is yours. So it’s a moment where I go, “What, what, what?” It’s because I’m like, it’s quiet. That must mean I thought it was someone else’s line, but it must have been mine, and I played it off.

We read the cue cards, but not because we don’t know how to memorize our lines. If you see me reading a cue card in a movie, and that’s not the character, then come for me.

Any news about returning for the next season?

We don’t know. We don’t know anything.

Is there anything that’s on your career bucket list? Movies? Maybe a drama?

I want to do it all. That’s the truth. I want to do more comedies. I want to do physical comedies in the stuff that I do.

I would love to do drama as well. I have an appreciation for that. I really want to be in a heist movie. One of my favorite movies, unironically, is The Town. Ask me anything about it. And I would love to direct at some point. I want to create my own stuff. When I say I want to do it all, I mean truly all. I’m curious about so many things.

Tell me a little bit about maintaining a personal life on a show that’s this rigorous.

It’s really hard to maintain a well-rounded life while on the show. That’s just simply what it is. Something is getting sacrificed while you’re on the show. It’s your sleep. It’s the amount of time you can spend with loved ones, with friends. How many weddings have all of us collectively missed over the last 50 years? I missed my brother’s wedding my first season. I FaceTimed him, and I was like, “You guys look amazing. I’m not going to cry.” I wept.

It’s challenging, but we do it because we love the work we get to do.

You’ve talked being on Hinge in past interviews. Are you dating? Do you have time to date?

I’m not on Hinge. That’s what I’ll say.

What do you do to relax?

I journal, I meditate. I pray, I go to church.

I’ve read that more and more young people are going to church in 2025. But in New York, I don’t hear a lot about people that are really into their faith, or at least outwardly so.

I feel no shame about my faith. It’s such an important part of who I am. I think the best parts of me are a function of my faith and what I feel is my connection to God, honestly. If you see anything you like in me, it’s God, frankly.

I was going to church when I lived in LA pretty regularly. I wasn’t going in New York because I work until 1:00 AM on Sunday morning. Waking up to go to church was a challenge here. But I’m back. We’re back, baby.

My therapist is not Christian at all. I don’t even think she would identify as a person of faith, but she even advised me to go back. She’s like, “I think you need to carve out some time for some other stuff. You spend so much time on work, you spend so much time in a certain type of environment. It might be nice to try to balance that out by spending time in a different kind of environment around people who are showing up for a different kind of thing.”

When was the moment that you knew that you made it?

I don’t know if I feel like I’ve made it, girl.

You’re seven seasons in at SNL. What do you mean?

But it doesn’t feel like…I don’t know. I have so many things I still want to accomplish and achieve, and I often feel so far from them. I had someone once say, “You have career dysmorphia.”

It’s called ambition.

Thank you. Where were you when they said that? I don’t know if I feel like I’ve made it—I think I’ve made headway.

Are you a fashion girly? You look super cute today.

I am into fashion. The pants are Loewe. The shoes are Prada, little ballet flats. Tonight we have a writers’ party, which is every year at the end of the season. And I will say, Miss Eggy is making an appearance at the writers’ party.

And she’s brought her Chloé bag?

She’s got a Chloé bag, which was a birthday gift from Lorne a few years back. I’ve run this bag into the ground.

It was a birthday gift from Lorne? That’s so sweet.

Yes, he’s the best. He’s good for birthday gifts and flowers. That man, that’s a man. Take note.

Really quick, tell me about the Met Gala and hosting the Vogue livestream.

I love Vogue; they were amazing to me. Christopher John Rogers is incredible. And that piece, that outfit he made for me, was incredible.

Ego Nwodim wears custom Christopher John Rogers a the 2025 Met Gala.

John Shearer

The red carpet was fun, I got to see Al Roker, Zuri Hall. I was hosting with Teyana [Taylor], and we had a good time. We had a great time. I think we treated everyone with respect. The only regret is that…what’s my only regret? You didn’t ask me about my regrets, but—

You don’t have to have a regret.

I don’t have any regrets! We treated everyone with respect. Teyana and I had a good time. And our interviews with everyone were exactly the same level of respect and kindness.

Stop reading the comments. They’re always wrong.

You’re right. I would do it all again the same exact way. Period.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.