Ego Nwodim was not among the cast members cut from Saturday Night Live by Lorne Michaels at the end of the show’s 50th season. But she knew it was time for her to leave anyway.
The 37-year-old comedian was asked on the Death, Sex, and Money podcast why she decided to leave the show after seven seasons. “My mom says go where there’s peace,” Nwodim revealed.
Nwodim and former cast member Heidi Gardner spoke about how SNL was “not the easiest place to work” on Nwodim’s Thanks Dad podcast this past week. While she didn’t elaborate on those “challenges” Tuesday, Nwodim said that leaving the show “created the space” she needed.
“I’ve done so much on this show and there’s just so much more that I would like to do beyond the show. And I think I needed to create the space for those opportunities,” she said. “I believe in divinity and so I just think it was time,” she continued. “I really think there’s an art to knowing when to leave a party… Putting my own statement out,” in which she’d explained her exit that way, Nwodim said she thought, “‘Yes, I always wanted a reason to say something like this.’”
Nwodim announced her exit to the show just days after she was confirmed as a returning cast member for Season 51. The show’s cast had undergone a mass makeover, after Michaels reportedly axed Gardner, who had been with the show for eight seasons. While Gardner has never commented on the nature of her exit, reports say she was not asked to return.
Other firings included Emil Wakim, who had just one season under his belt, and Devon Walker and Michael Longfellow, who each had three. Walker called the show “toxic as hell” in his exit announcement remarks.
Gardner and Nwodim had similar thoughts last week, when they discussed their time on the show for the first time since they were confirmed not to return.
“It’s so easy to be caught up with your own stuff at SNL, and what you’re getting on and what you’re not getting on, and how you’re succeeding and how you wish you were doing better, or how I want what that person has,” Nwodim said. She also called the show “a place where it can get so competitive and you can become so self involved.”
Gardner added, “I am so honored that we worked so hard there,” but “we’re humans, so we have egos, we want things for ourselves, we want to succeed, and there weren’t a lot of times when we were able to succeed in the way we wanted at the exact same time.”
The post ‘SNL’ Star Opens Up About Why She Decided to Leave appeared first on The Daily Beast.
