Mischief managed.
Former “SNL” star Heidi Gardner had her ultimate “I’ve made it” moment when she was seated next to “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe on the set of their new show, “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.”
“My first day of shooting, our chairs were next to each other,” she exclusively told Page Six.
“And I’m still in a text chain with all my high school friends. I remember texting them, ‘I’ve made it!’”
The “Shrinking” actress said her supportive friends replied, “We think that there are a few other things where you’ve made it, as well.”
The mockumentary comedy series follows Reggie Dinkins (Tracy Morgan), a disgraced former football player trying to make a comeback as oddball filmmaker Arthur Tobin (Radcliffe) makes a documentary about him.
Gardner plays Tisha Basmati, the glamorous wife of Reggie’s rival, Jerry Basmati (Craig Robinson).
“Tracy [Morgan] he had come to ‘SNL’ a couple times when I was there,” Gardner recalled to Page Six, adding that it was “early on” in her time there, and she didn’t talk to him much because she felt “intimidated” and “starstruck.”
Meeting the “30 Rock” star for “Reggie Dinkins,” she said, she found him to be “funny immediately, but earnest and sweet and supportive.”
When people meet her, the comedian thinks she’s sometimes a “letdown” because “I’m a little more shy sometimes, or it takes a little bit for the funny to come.”
Gardner was on “SNL” for eight seasons, from 2017 to 2025, as the longest-tenured female cast member before her surprising exit.
Her “SNL” days prepared her for “Reggie Dinkins” because, as part of Tisha’s look, she was decked out in gemstones, leopard print, and “22 inch long” hair extensions, she told Page Six.
“Sometimes I would just look in the mirror and laugh at myself,” she said.
“I’m now very used to seeing myself look insane or ridiculous, which can be a bad thing too,” she added. The comedian recalled how the “SNL” hair department encouraged her to try different looks, like “you can pull off jet black hair,” but when she was going through old photos, “I was like, ‘these look terrible!’”
Gardner said that she especially had fun filming a scene on “Reggie Dinkins” where Tisha sings an awful off-key rendition of the national anthem at a kids’ football game.
“I’m not sure that they told all the kids that were there that day that it was going to be a bad singer.”
She told Page Six that all the teen background actors “fell to the ground” with laughter.
“As someone who is kind of intimidated by teenagers and wants them to think I’m cool, there was something so delightful about making so many children laugh. even if it was for the wrong reasons.”
“The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” airs its Season 1 finale on Monday, April 13 at 8 p.m on NBC and streaming on Peacock.
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