Saturday Night Live's Heidi Gardner Thought She'd Be Fired for Breaking Character During Beavis and Butt-Head Sketch

Heidi Gardner talks about the now-beloved Beavis and Butt-Head sketch from SNL.

By Jamie Jirak

At the end of April, The Fall Guy star Ryan Gosling hosted Saturday Night Live, and it instantly became a fan-favorite of the season. In fact, the episodes earned the sketch series its highest rating in years. Gosling did many memorable sketches ranging from "Papyrus 2" to a reprisal of the infamous UFO sketch with Kate McKinnon. However, one of the biggest standouts of the episode was extremely unexpected. The episode kicked off what seemed to be a sketch focusing on the debate around artificial intelligence, but it ended up showing Gosling in the crowd dressed as Beavis and Mikey Day as Butt-Head. The sketch was such a hit that the duo reprised the roles at The Fall Guy premiere. One of the funniest moments of the sketch was when cast member Heidi Gardner couldn't stop laughing. While breaking has always happened throughout SNL's history, Gardner admitted she was worried it would get her fired. 

"I just had it in my head [that] I couldn't do it," she explained on Today with Hoda and Jenna (via EW). "I think you get this big job on SNL and you want to do your job at the best of your ability – I think maybe I thought I'd get fired." Gardner went on to reveal that she typically has ways to stop herself from breaking, including "biting her lip" or yawning. However, she just couldn't keep it together around Gosling or Day. It didn't help that Day was staring directly at her.

"A friend of mine [was] like – you know when you spike the camera? – it's like, 'Mikey spiked you, Heidi,'" she recalled. "He spiked me! It's like his eyes just go... He didn't look fully human to me. He looks like a kangaroo." 

"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," she added in an interview with Vulture. "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."

What Is The Fall Guy About?

You can read Universal's description of The Fall Guy here: "He's a stuntman, and like everyone in the stunt community, he gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows and dropped from the highest of heights, all for our entertainment. And now, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, this working-class hero has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right?" 

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"From real life stunt man and director David Leitch, the blockbuster director of Bullet Train, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and the producer of John Wick, Nobody and Violent Night, comes his most personal film yet. A new hilarious, hard-driving, all-star apex-action thriller and love letter to action movies and the hard-working and under-appreciated crew of people who make them: The Fall Guy." 

The Fall Guy is now playing in theaters. 

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