Heidi Gardner (Shrinking / SNL / Hustle) • Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein #314

Look at hell. There's only films to be buried with.

Hello, and welcome to films to be buried with. My name is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian, an actor, a writer, a director, a code and I love film. As John Green once said, the marks humans leave are too often scars. Have you seen Midsummer? That shit fucked me up? Bro fair enough, John, it was pretty intense. Actually, every week I invite a special guest over. I tell them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their life through the

Come along.

I'll be playing the legendary Red Rocks Venue in Denver on the twentieth of September. I'll be playing The Fox the Air in Atlanta, September twenty first, I'll be in New Orleans October fourth, Fort Laulsdale October fifth, Baltimore October eighteenth, Seattle again on November one, and Bellingham November two. Get

So Heidi Gardner.

Heidi Gardner is a brilliant comedic actor. She's a regular on SNL and she stares on the show I co created with Bill Lawrence called Shrinking. She's in season one and season two, which is coming soon in October. You've seen her in all your favorite sketches. You've seen her in all your favorite sitcoms. She's fucking brilliant. I was so happy to get to hang out with everyone zoom a few weeks ago. I think you're really going to

It?

Is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by an actor, a writer, an improviser, a sketcho, an essenella, a girls five ever?

And is it Caker and Michael Chaya.

A Kimmy spitter, a Meet Papa, a Kansas City lady.

And the star of Shrinking and a boop? Here she is?

Can you believe she's real? I sure can I'm looking at her. Welcome to the show. It's the brilliant Indy Gardener.

Hello, Oh hello, Hid Gardner. How are you?

I'm good.

Sometimes it takes someone else reminding you of the really cool things you've done to be like, oh, my gosh, that's really cool.

I was part of all those really neat things.

Yeah, it's a very it's a very cool. I was looking at all the all the things you've been on. It's like, oh, you've been on all the best sort of sitcoms of the last You've done all the very good stuff.

Like that's a really good list. I mean, thank you.

I can't speak for Shrinking, but the rest of them, I mean, I fucking love him. So I know you from Shrinking. Yes, season two is coming out soon. I've seen all of it, you have, Yeah, and it's fucking brilliant and you're brilliant in it, and I'm very excited for the world to see it.

Thank you.

I feel very proud of it. I think it's good stuff.

It's really good stuff.

It's really good stuff.

It's really good stuff, and it's always Yeah. Obviously, you know, I get people come up to me the most about SNL, but I want to say people are starting to come up to me the most about Shrinking, Like people love that show.

Nice. Nice, You're very goodn't it?

And you're you're You're right, You're there right from the start, You're five minutes in the show. Obviously we can't talk about anything that happens in season two sadly, but can I ask you or are you sick of talking about it? I'm so fascinated by SNL and how it all works, and I've now seen it. I had, you know, I was a fan of everything, but I came to a live recording which I've never seen before, and it really it was so exciting, and it was, and it really surprised me how small it is.

Like it's fucking small.

It's like a small it's like doing an Edinburgh fringe play live to millions of people. Like it's a fucking rushed chaos. Somehow it all works. And you've had one day of rehearsing I guess or however, and you're doing that repeatedly weekly and you don't know, like you're one of the kind of main people I think, but you also don't know if you're going to be in it every week, and sometimes you're in it loads and sometimes you're not in it, and what's your mental game?

How do you cope with all that?

So I think that's a pretty hardcore way of living and fun, I'm sure, but I'll say no, yeah, tell me, Yeah.

It has been you know.

I wish I could say that, you know, I just walked in and adapted and no fear and all those things. But it's taken every year that I've been there to get my mental state to the right place. And in the last two years, I've definitely felt the most comfortable

Years to get used to SNL.

I'm not there yet, But how long have you been on it? How many years have you.

Done I'll be going into my eighth season.

Wow, yeah, wow, yeah yeah Jesus so yeah.

But you just you just start to trust the process us more and be you know, everything was like I was holding on to it so tight, and everything was like so fragile and it could break and who knows if they'd ask me back and all these things, and like, you know, obviously it's not.

Good to be tight in comedy.

And when I finally just started to be like, I think the producers like me, I think the rest of the cast likes me. And then if I could just accept that maybe some.

Of the world does. Like all I'm.

Trying to do really is just like entertain them. Like let's let's just like take the pressure off and that has fun.

It that's great and you're you you from my brief interactions with the cast, it does seem like a pretty well, I could be complete, right.

It seems like a good vibe.

It seems like you you will get on and supportive of each other, because I've always had versions of the S and L cast that are competitive and jealous and stuff, and I imagine that's difficult as well.

Yeah, and I think.

You also take that also takes time. It's like we all have an ego. We're all a little bit selfish. We all think we're genies is with our writing and performing, and we want to do our thing and show it. Yeah, and guess what everyone else you work with is also that good and they need the screen time too, and the host does as well, and so does the musical guest.

And so does we get update.

There's only an ity bit bit of time and you can't take it all up every week. So just accepting that and has also felt good. It's like and also, I remember this probably will sound like I'm just trying to like give myself.

A pep talk.

But sometimes sometimes your favorite cast members, like when you don't see them for a little while and then they pop in, it's like it's like a Christmas present.

You're just like, oh my god, this sketch.

This one thing like that was so good and they killed it and like you get that like little taste. It's like before we had so much social media that we could look up anything at any time. It's like, oh, I just got a hit of that person and that

Yeah.

And also this has been something too. It's like, you know, you were just saying you come to the show. I have like lots of friends and family who of course want to come see a show, and if they're not in tickets, they're in your dressing room.

And you know, my first couple of years, if you're.

Not in the show, and then it's like all your loved ones are in your dressing room and you're kind of like, you don't know, like should I just sit in here? Should I admit I'm not in it? Like it was very uncomfortable. But the last year, especially last year, I've got my two friends Anna and Matt who come to like every single show. They kind of just run my dressing room for me, like they welcome everybody.

And then I start to look around and I'm like, Okay, hey, this is cool.

You work at SNL, some of your best friends are here, family's visiting, or just like somebody else's random family who's friendly to you.

Everyone loves you.

You can just sit in here and watch the show with people that you were safe and loved by, and it's okay.

Yeah, and it is just cool. It's like it's it's a cool place to be for sure.

Yeah.

The other two questions I want to ask you one is like every week, are you like, fuck, I got to come up with something new? Or do you have Do you find it easier the more you do it?

Like?

Is it do you have a sort of system? Is there any way you do you do a thing that helps you generate stuff? Or is it random? Every time?

It's kind of random going into this season lately, I mean I say this, it's been a day and a half.

But I was just like hungry as shit.

And sometimes now where I've just been there longer and anxiety is not like coursing through my veins all the time, and I can trust that if I don't have an idea, a writer will have one. And it's okay. I don't have to try that hard. I can work hard, but I just don't have to force things. But I have been like, man, I'm mad that like those two years when I found like production wise, I was on fire that like no one actually liked.

It, But yeah, that's how it goes.

And what about do you get nervous?

Like do you have a I'm always interested in people's like rituals before a shay. Do you have a thing you have to do every time? Or do you just do you get nervous to get used to it?

Oh?

Yeah, I definitely get nervous.

But being the like midwesterner people pleaser, I get the same feeling that I got the first time I ever performed in any sort of comedy show, which was like in a growlings class. I was in writing lab where we had to perform a monologue, and I remember being backstage my job. I was a hairstylist. I was about to walk out onto a stage in the dark and lights would be up on just me doing a character who was also like a young girl, and I was like in my twenties, and I had this moment that was like.

What did you just do?

Like you are you really think you're gonna walk out there and do a monologue Like I don't know if we even remember it. Heidi, and then they announced me whatever my character's name was, and I was like, well, they paid.

So you have to go.

Actually, I don't even think they paid money for that. It was like a student show. It's free, but there's people in this.

There have to go.

And so that's what I think with SNL. I'm like, you have to go.

There are people do it right, You've got you've got a threatening coach in your head.

Yes, that's pretty good.

That's nice, And I'm sure you've talked about this a lot, but it's interesting. How do you get from hairstylistic like what we like secretly I'm talking funny?

Did you always want to do this or was it late?

Like, No, I was funny.

I knew I was funny and my group of friends and I knew that I knew a lot about pop culture and movies and I was just always the one quoting everything and I was really good at print calls.

But there was no path, no journey.

Somehow, though I did end up in LA doing hair and makeup.

Well on shows on TV shows.

It started that way, but then I was like, was only getting credit and not making money yet I wasn't in the union, so I was like, I kind of need to pay rent. So I started working at a salon and I went to go see a show at the ground LANs because a friend of mine I had made a new friend, and they were in the Groundlings and I had heard of it. I knew what the Groundlings was, and I was like, that is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

After the show, I told my friend.

I was like, this is awesome because now when my family from Missouri comes in town, I always have something for people to do. Go see the Groundlings. And she was like, also, I think you should take a class. And I was like what, And then I told my older brother and some other loved ones like that. She said that, and my brother said, I have been waiting for you to say that, like our whole life.

I'll pay for the class.

That's beautiful.

I love that. Yeah, that's so nice. I forgot to tell you something, and now I feel bad about it. I should have told you Eli when we were the headphones and stuff. No, fuck, you just say you've died dead dead dead dead Okay okay, yeah, okay, okay, how did you die?

I died at Banister Mall in Kansas City, which was torn down but has to be rebuilt.

So I may die in it.

Okay, is thriving, beautiful, two level mall, lots of escalators. And I have shopped so hard at the mall, at all my favorite stores, getting everything I could ever want, dream girl clothes and accessories and everything that I don't shop till I drop because I feel like that would be a painful death, and maybe a younger version of

What does Marry Go Around?

So they sell like like stuff like Kelly Kabowski would wear.

On, say by the Bell, just cool girl.

And I just fall asleep and Marry Go Around and it's like some unknown cause that has taken me, but you know we find her peacefully.

No, it was cover moent oxide poisoning. Okay, So do you do you coverment oxide poisoning?

In Mary? Do you worry about death?

Oh?

Yes, like probably in life's best moments where I'm like, oh I don't want to die now because things are going good or I'm happier, like I.

Like this person or things like that. You know, I guess being.

Totally vulnerable because I guess it's hard to just think about death.

I want to say to you, like.

No, I don't, but yeah I do. And it is a hard, harsh reality. I lost a cat this year, and that is really thank you, my cat, Marshall, and he was with me for eighteen years, gave me eighteen years.

And that's really good. Yeah, that's really really good.

You're just not here anymore.

But I can still feel him, and I know exactly what he would feel like, just in the.

Crook of my arm right now. So I think about the death of my catalot.

I'm so sorry. That's really sad. What do you think happens when you die? Do you think there's enough to life?

You know? I wasn't raised religious, and I'm spiritual in the way of like I will try anything if you tell me Caro or angelic, Heleen or anything that might feel good.

I guess I can't.

It's like I haven't gotten enough knowledge to really make a case for that afterlife. I find that hard to believe, and I don't believe in ghosts, but I want to keep going, so I'm going to have to justify something for myself.

Okay, well, I got good news for you. There's a heaven and you're welcome there, and it's filled with your favorite thing. What's your favorite thing?

I mean cats?

Okay, man, it's cat heaven. There's fucking cats everywhere.

It's so great, big cats, little cats. Yes, yes, cat, it's a cat heaven. And all the cats so excited to see you. They're all lovely cats. They want to They're all up, cuddles everything. They're really good cats.

Love it.

But they won't know about your life because they, you know, inquisitive, curious. It's famously curious cats, and they want to know about your life through film. And the first thing they ask you is, what's the first film you remember seeing? Hidergardener?

Space Balls?

Fucking hell? What a great great opener. That's why you're funny. Yeah, do you see that at the cinema on the telly?

I guess on the telly.

It was on the.

Telly, and I remember my parents showing it to me. And my parents divorced when I was like five and a half six is when it finally ended. And this was just a movie that I remember seeing with my two parents when they were still together and my older brother, Justin, my younger brother hadn't come along yet.

Is there three of you together, three of us all together? Okay?

And Justin's the one he was waiting for you to find comedy?

Okay? Yeah, love it.

And the scene where the alien pops out of the stomach and sings, hello, my baby, Hello, my godl And that was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

In my life, you know, laughed so much.

And then for years after that, I was aware kind of of Star Wars, but I thought Star Wars was ripping Spaceballs, like because I saw space Balls first, So it.

Was just that's great.

I was very confused they took out all the jokes and I think, yeah, I don't going to know this.

H that's very funny.

What about crying? Are you a crier? What's the film that made you cry the most?

Okay? So Steele Magnolias.

When Jesus Maeln Sally Field loses shelby her daughter Julia Roberts, it has to decide to take her off life support. I mean that's probably the first time I knew life support was a thing. Yeah, so that's just sad and anyone would cry.

Yeah.

But and the dendem to this point.

Is, I mean, I don't know how long I believe this long enough to win steel Magnolias came out, so I was at least six, and maybe I was naive during the divorce or something like that.

I thought when you die in a movie, you.

Died like in a dream. Like when people say if you dine in a dream, you're dead.

You die in a movie. Yeah.

I thought people didn't want to live, they chose to die. So like, especially if you were shot in a movie. I didn't under stand that with special effects. I'm like, they're gone and steal mygnoyas. I remember really confusing me because I was like, she didn't get shot like this. I think she had diabetes, which my grandpa had and then it leads to like kidney fail.

So I was like, she went through all of this on camera.

Pretty woman, okay, because I knew that, and I knew that I loved her. And then I remember saying to my brother, like he brought up Julia Roberts and I was like suck, She's.

Gone you like goddress And he was like, no, she's very much alive.

And then he had to explained to me, like, you don't choose to take your own life in a movie.

So just to understand the logic of it, it wasn't that Julia roberts had diabetes in Kidney Fair or whatever. It was that Julia roberts the actor, decided it's time for me to go, So I'll do this part where I die, and I will die, yes, but.

I will say double whammy because I was in it with the movie and I was experiencing the drama of the movie and what was happening there, and then I.

Had the real estay. Julia Robertson just died.

And yeah, so people getting shot, they're like, do you want to part in this film?

Yeah, you get.

Shot, I'm going to die, but I get to be in this western Yeah, segod bye to your family and then we'll see you on set. That's how you thought films.

But like I knew that, like that Alien and Spaceballs, didn't. I knew that wasn't real. Like I knew that didn't.

Actually like that, but yeah, interesting, all right, what about being scared.

Do you like being scared? What's the film that scared you the most?

Yes, I do like being scared, and you're just catching me on the.

Tail end of I watched Long Legs last night, and I like being scared. But I did have I just had Long Legs dreams the entire.

Night, and yeah, so love that.

The first time I remember being scared was we would go to Blockbuster, Justin and I.

Our grandma, our mammo is what we called it. She would take us to Blockbuster.

We would rent two videos, and the first one would be one that we would watch together at like the appropriate time for younger me, like seven o'clock. I'm supposed to go to bed at nine, and then he would watch he's six years older, his more late night movie. But we both slept in the living room, and so I would just like open my eyes and watch what was ever was going on?

So mind you.

Very early I had seen Clockwork Orange, and I just don't think. I won't even say that that movie was scary to me because it was just too much.

I didn't know what was going on. My brain little brain didn't absorb.

But I was always excited for what his second pick was even if it was a scary movie like Waxworks or whatever.

I didn't care.

He had done Nightmare on Elm Street, and I just thought Freddy Krueger was a badass.

And free Keith.

There was one movie that I was like, please don't make this the nine o'clock pick, and that was hell Eraser, and I promised myself to not open my eyes, and I opened my eyes while he was watching it. And still to this day, pin head like someone who chooses. I don't know if Penn had made the choice, but

I'm with you.

That's a great answer. Yeah, that's so. The thing that scared you wasn't the look of him with pins in his head. Is the fact that he tries to have pins.

It is dead.

Yeah, yeah, I'm forgetting like the origin, but I do feel like the Cenobytes have a bit of control over their look, whereas I don't. I don't think Freddy had control over.

No, he didn't choose to get burned. Yeah.

No, the cenobytes want this because pleasure is pain.

Yeah yeah, yeah, that's very good and it has never come up on this podcast. So I'm gonna give you ten points. Jesus Christ, what is the film that you love? People don't like it, particularly critics, but you love it unconditionally. What is that film? Nothing but Trouble with Dan at Kroid Yes and.

John Candy, Chevy Chase, Demi Moore.

I've seen nothing wrong with that good ship.

You know, universally panned.

I probably watch it spies.

No, they're not spies, like you know. The setup is odd.

Chevy Chase is a banker, and Demi Moore is I don't know something with a home loan. I mean, I just watched it recently because it's definitely a one or two times a year watch for me. And still the first fifteen minutes until they get to like Trancel Vanya or whatever it is, where every all the shit goes down, the plot is so hard to follow.

I'm just like, this is too complicated.

Just get to when dan Akrod has like the penis nose, and but I can say, like, yeah, this this is like a bad movie. Like dan Akroyd's like that, you know, one of those babies in the Junkyard. But I keep showing it to people and introducing it to people. I have the vhs in my dressing room at work. I watch it. I like, I like it.

I just like that.

And do you think you like it because of seeing it when you were little or something? Does it does it feel like home or something?

Yeah?

It definitely feels like home and it but it's like I now as an adult, I appreciate, like the special effects, like the I'm gonna I almost said, like how the house is like a Ruth Vader Ginsburg trap, But that's not it's rude.

That is the second thing she was famous for. Yeah, the traps that she would set.

I know what you mean.

You mean like they're so mass trap Yeah, the go big Yeah, yes, like all of that.

I'm just like the set design, this is incredible.

Excuse me, but you you just come up with a sketch for your next season wreath traps?

Yeah? Nice answer.

What about a film that you used to love but you've seen recently and you do not like it anymore?

Hocus Pocus?

And I think people are like maybe more Gaga for Hocus Pocus now even from before or it's just been beloved, but it's definitely kind of found its second wind and like the last year of appreciation.

And I went back and I was like, I'm not laughing.

I'm not wanting to be one of these witches. I'm not wanting to be the kid. I'm not wanting to be the cat. I'm just not into it.

Interesting.

Interesting, Yeah, yeah, but I think that that film is probably nothing but trouble to other people, you know what I mean. Yeah, I think there are people that feel that way for it. Tell me this, what is the film that means the most to you? Not necessarily the film itself is good, but because the experience you had around seeing it will always make it special to you.

Okay, that film is kids?

Fuck it? Oh go ahead, Okay, So just.

To set this up, once my parents got divorced, my mom was like super into indie film. So even when I was little, I was allowed to see things like The Crying Game like it. She was open to a lot of things and just knew that, like my brother and I were so into movies. But in ninety four, it's just a little bit of a lead up. Interview with a Vampire was coming out, and I was like, this is everything Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunce, Antonio Bandarris, and Rice novel.

This is the coolest, and she would not let me see it.

Like it took maybe two months of it being like the last weekend it was in the theater. I had to write her like a special card. I remember I got high. I don't know what the mindset was here, but we're studying Egypt in school and I spelled in hieroglyphics. Can I please go see an interview with a vampire? And that's what broke her and I got to go see interview with vampire. So this is just to say, like, you know, she did have some boundaries. So after that

I don't.

I'm silent, I don't get candy. I'm just like, why is this happening? What is going on? Like did I win the lottery? We watch kids. I'm definitely too young for it. I'm not as kids as those kids. I'm in shock and we're walking out. I'm still in shock. And I remember just looking over to her about to be like, so, explain this to me, and she just said to me. I looked at her and she said do you want to be like that? And I was like no, and she was like good, And it was like it was her.

Like scared, Yeah, that's great.

Her moment like taking me to see kids?

Had she seen it? Had she seen it? Did she know what?

So?

She was probably even like was this the right lesson? But I mean I got to walk into school that Monday, like feeling really fucking cool.

That's great.

Yeah, sucking out And I guess it worked, right, You didn't you didn't start being people that were skateboards and yeah I sex, Yeah, I.

Didn't do that, didn't do drugs, I did none of those things. If it worked.

Thank you, Larry clak Well.

Wow, given that you which I really liked, you were like, I don't want to be these people. I don't want to be the witches. I don't want to be the kid. What is the film you most relate to?

Oh, Mermaids.

I fucking love Mermaids.

That never get made today. I just like always say that just.

A simple story, simple like in quotes, just about a woman and her kids and moving and dating and that's it.

Some other people. Yeah, but yeahs incredible.

Yeah who are you? And that the kid?

Yeah, I would say it's like probably when I saw it, I was in between the age of Christina Ricci and one on a writer, and I like was not on swim team or a really good little swimmer like Christina Ricci, and I wasn't like potentially gonna like hook up with the guy from sixteen Candles, like, but I did have a mom, who was beautiful and dating and was you know, just intercepting her life and knowing what was going on and seeing her work really hard for me and my

Been, you know, on my mom's ride.

You know, like that could be irresponsible, But I'm like it was pretty exciting too.

That's fucking great. Well, great answer. I'm giving you twenty points for that. What's the sexiest film you've ever seen? Nidygardna?

Okay, well I kind of did this from that brain too, is that okay? Do you want?

Like I remember and there's like little levels of this, But Dick Tracy, I thought it was really sexy because you know, I knew Warren Baby and Madonna were together or maybe that kind of led to it. And you know, even when she's in that black dress, she's like basically naked and there's like heat between them.

But the kid in the movie, Charlie.

Chorismo, And I can say this because at the time, I was age appropriate. I was in the same age as him. I remember like, oh, I want to kiss that boy that like felt different. Yeah, and then I think William Worth's Scythe in that movie as flat Top, which is one of the bad guys who looks everyone else would say is like deformed, disfigured.

Just looked like a cool badass.

It was like he had like a look that was just confident even though he looked different. And like, I think that started me even being like this is obvious to say, but like attracted to the joker or like it was just like ooh, these like bad guys there was something wrong with their mouth or their head or yeah.

It's actually have you ended up with people with strange heads?

M No, never a strange head or a strange smile, trying to think anything strange.

Yeah, but that's my type.

It's about time you with someone with a strange head.

Yeah.

I feel like you've wasted.

There's a sub category troubling is worrying why dones? Okay, you found a rousing that you weren't sure you should.

There's a callback and people aren't gonna like it. But in nothing but trouble Yeah, there's a scene where the scene is headed by Daniel Baldwin and some other party growers driving down the highway going really fast partying and they get pulled over taken to Transylvania. But I think when they have to like put all of their substances on the judge's desk, like you can tell like there's.

Like needles and coke and and like.

I said that like earlier, like all the girls are like dressed like Kelly Kapowski and Daniel Balden got his hair slipped back, and you just I just remember knowing they're going to do drugs and like have sex and like that's sexy. And then they end up going through this like roller coaster called like the bone Crusher and like getting stripped of their skin and they just come out bone. So they didn't get to do what I was fining.

But I was like, ooh, was this before you saw kids or to kid? Yes, so you saw so basically every trouble was trouble for you because then you were like, yeah, I'm going to do I'm going to have sex with square heads and do drugs, and then you saw kids and you were like, I'm never having sex with anyone, and I'm never doing drugs and no, thank you.

It seems like I was getting turned on by things that also had like a level of prosthetics or something.

And then when I saw kids that looked like me, I was like.

You are you are on SNL when everyone has prosthetics all the time.

Yeah, And you think I'd be horny all the time and I'm.

Just professionally, Yeah, I think you'd be just kissing everyone and every single sketch with these flat heads square heads come and you love it there, Jesus, after party must be a mess. What is objectively the greatest film of all time?

Parenthood?

What an excellent answer. You're getting forty points for that, thank you? What a brilliant film. Tell me why that is the greatest film. I'm not saying you're wrong.

Yeah, I would say find me a better cast, like just as far as an ensemble goes. And I've seen it so much that I also like a movie where either the younger you are when you see it or the older you are, like who your favorite person is and who two the most like changes throughout the course. So like I see it when I'm a kid, and it's like, well, Steve Martin's the funniest person in the world. And when he does Cowboy Gil, I wish that was

Like just everyone nails in that movie. Diane West.

Yeah, I just the older I get, I just relate to people more and more and it's funny.

And also I just think like, how did they pull this off?

Like every there's not a story in that movie, a storyline that doesn't get wrapped up in a bow, whether it's satisfying or not, or makes you cry or is tragic or just life like Uncle Larry does disappear again and the grandparents have to raise Cool.

And that was something where I was like.

Oh, yeah, there's moments of that feel familiar even as a kid, you know, like, yeah.

It's fantastic, it's fantastic, parent It's so beautiful, and it does have an awful lot going on in it. I haven't watched the TV show, but I hear it's wonderful, and you think there's probably a season's worth of storylines in that one film. But it doesn't feel totally rush to episodic of God damn, that's good. And it's the people that write city Slickers, I believe right, and city Slickers. I think it is one of the great I think so too in it in the same feeling similar way. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Thank you me too.

You're very good at.

This, Hidigardner, what's the what's the film you could or have watched the most over and over again.

If it's not nothing but trouble.

It's not. It's Boomerang. Love boom right, I love Boomerang.

Yeah.

That was one of those lucky ones that, yes, we would rent it all the time from Blockbuster at the grocery store, but we almost didn't need to because our local television stations Channel forty one and sixty two played it just as much. And then when I was at friends' houses who had cable and had HBO. It was also like Boomerang was booming on HBO, like it was just on. And I felt every time like if I was religious, God was looking down and being like, I'm giving you this movie and.

I'm giving you another.

I'm giving you Boo.

Same thing with an ensemble, just you know, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, David Allen Greer, Johnny Witherspoon with like the mushroom belt, so many quotable lines, and that was just what my childhood was, was quoting. And it also taught me. There's a scene in the beginning just where Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, and David Allen Greer are out to lunch

Yeah, I love that film. And is that Robin Gibbons Was that her first film?

Yes? Yes?

And then Just When You're a young girl aspiring to be like a beautiful woman Robin Gibbons, halle Berry, just anyone that Eddie Murphy was on a date with in that movie. There's like, yeah, a beautiful woman who's like walking a dog like it was just everything with Grace Jones like eye candy, funny and eye candy.

That's what I cared about.

Yeah, that's a help movie. Did you have you ever met Eddie Murphy?

Is he ever? Yes? How did that go?

And So I had a Boomerang poster in my office at SNL since my first season there, and I think he hosted my third season, and so I was really nervous because I was like, he's gonna come in my office, He's going to see the boomerang poster and he's gonna think I hung enough fast.

But he was very sweet about it.

That's nice. That's nice.

You have to be genuine with your places, you know. When we when we had when Bill Lawrence and I had our meeting with Jason Segel to talk about shrinking. We run the zoom and I had a poster of his Muppets movie behind me, and I'd forgotten because it's just always there. And then suddenly Bill was like, by the way, this isn't fake.

That is.

Yeah, yeah, tell me this. Let's not be too negative. What's the worst film you've ever seen?

Cloud Atlas?

Now, come on listen in defense of Cloud Atlas. M hm, it's taking some massive swigs. Talk about it's swinging.

It is.

It is a film of someone swinging wildly over and over big swigs.

Yes, And I appreciate this, and I'll actually take more of the heat on this because every so often there's a type of movie or being someone who loves movies for like going deep, crying, taking chances, prosthetics.

We've talked, you know, there's poetics, all of that stuff.

There is a certain type and I don't even think I'm well spoken enough to get this point across what I'm gonna try. There's a certain type of intelligent film that's dealing with certain themes that goes so far over my head from the script to the performance that I just start rejecting it and all the people around me that are into it, and I do think this is a me problem. But Cloud Atlas is one of those.

Everybody's doing too much. Everyone's getting off on themselves.

Everybody's everybody, even with the audience is also getting off on it too.

I'm just like, I cannot submit to this film.

I just did. I just did.

Yeah, me problem, that's that is you. But it is a very strange film, and good luck to it. I wish it will.

Yeah. What's the film that made you laugh the most? You're very funny? What makes you laugh the most?

Waiting for Gutman?

Fucking great? Of course it is Coase it.

Is, Yeah, and another one, you know. I just went to a screening of it this summer.

Seeing that movie.

Hundreds of times, I love. And this was my realization from seeing it one hundred and tenth time. I was so obsessed with so many certain lines and parts in that movie when I was thirteen years old that like coasted me through even all my twenties of my waiting

How fucking sloppy she is.

And imagining a woman just like telling all these secrets about her husband while just being like sloppy with Chinese food was killing me. And I had so many other of those little moments that I was like, oh my god, now I'm gonna go back through my adult face. So waiting for Goffman.

Yeah. Fuck, I loved that. I love that. Hid got it.

You have been absolutely brilliant as expected, Thank you and a joy to hang out with. However, when you were they recently, I don't know if you know this, but they rebuilt the mall in Kansas City. It's called the the Banister All. They rebuilt it, and you were so excited you went there all the time.

You went. You went shopping hard.

You shopped so hard that the play shut down and you didn't even notice, and you were like, fucking know, it's it's getting dark in here. And all the lights went out and you were like oh, and you checked the door and you were locked in. You were like, well,

Yeah?

Really, I'm really annoyed there's no rides here. I'm like, this is bullshit. But then I see a dead body in it. I'm like, is that hider gardener from shrinking?

Oh my god.

And because of the carbon monoxide, you've like expanded. You're absolutely freaking massive. Actually you in a way you'd fancy yourself because you've now got quite a distended head. And and I I said to the shop for people that work at mergrounds, like, can you help me? We have to chop you up, chop you up, chop up. Carbon monoxides coming out, and I'm like, hold your breath and we get all the pieces of your body in the coffee. We stuff it in. It's jammed in there. There's no room.

There's no room.

There's enough room that we could slip one DVD into the side for you to take across to the other side. And on the other side, it's movie night every night. What are you taking to show the cats in heaven when it is your movie night? Hid the Gardener go.

I want to laugh.

I want to watch Jack Black for the rest of my afterlife. It's saving sober Man.

Oh wow, excellent choice, wonderful idea. People in heaven are going to love you, the cats are going to love you. This is all lovely. I'm very happy for you and your future death. Please will you tell everyone what you would like them to listen or look out for with yourself?

Hawd your garden? It involved oh.

My gosh, shrinking shrinking.

In October season two.

Yes, SNL is coming out in an unreleased date but soon.

Okay, cool Excity.

I got to be a judge on a very cool and heartwarming show called Second Chance Stage that comes out in Thanksgiving. And most of you will think that we don't need it, but if we could all just collectively root for the Chiefs this season, it makes me really happy when they win Super.

Bowls's that's really nice. I get that, do you? Is the Second Chance? Second Chance shy Down? What was it called? Second Chance Sunday?

Second Chance Stage? And it's about people.

It's a competition talent show about people who are taking a second chance in life, who got kind of held back or stopped from their dreams and are now being really open and vulnerable and doing it for later in life, really.

Crying, you're ready, I'm crying ready, And I hope that you're the main judge of it. I hope it's really vulnerable and you're just like that is shit, Yeah, guy, Chase.

I was very scared of being the mean judge because I knew I couldn't do it. But I really found a way in humanity wise with people.

That I wasn't expecting and so nice.

Just one of those unexpected life experiences where you're like, that was really special.

What do you do?

Like I would never want to be me or I don't understand how anyone does the negative side of it? Did it happen? Like what happens when someone when you're like this is really bad? What would you say? How would you handle it in a way that isn't me or upsaying, well if that happened.

Yeah, this is just an example.

So I wouldn't even say I had to deal with like really bad the thing that I could really tell. And it's probably because you know, a lot of the people that I was seeing weren't necessarily like twenty one year old, no fear like just giving it at all. I could tell so many people like we're finally shooting

Ease and be like, oh my god, like he's not only dude doing that. That's yeah, that was one thing nice.

Thank you, Heidi Gardner. Thank you for all of it, of course, thank you, thank you for being in shrinking, Thanks for being brilliant and hope I see you in real life soon under okay, I will have a lovely day, good day to goodbye. So that was episode three hundred and fourteen. Don't forget to get tickets to the last seven dates of my American tour of my stand up show Second Best Night of Your Life. Tickets are available