"I just couldn’t prepare for what I saw": Heidi Gardner on breaking character during SNL skit featuring Mikey Day

Heidi Gardner was caught off guard, leading to a viral moment as she saw her co-star Mikey Day fully decked out in Butt-Head cosplay on Saturday Night Live. Gardner was seen breaking character after she started laughing during the skit. In an interview with Vulture, Gardner said that she “lost it” when she saw Mikey in the character.

Speaking to Vulture on April 15, 2024, Gardner said:

"This makes me feel almost even worse and unprofessional. When I looked and saw Mikey in the dress rehearsal, I lost it. I was shocked. I’m thinking about it right now and laughing. I recovered and tried to tell myself in between dress and the live show, 'You can’t laugh like that again.'"

However, she also stated that she was not “prepared” for what she saw during the SNL skit.

"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. 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."

The episode aired on April 13, 2024, when Heidi Gardner played a NewsNation journalist and interviewed Kenan Thompson, an MIT professor, about AI. During the skit, host Ryan Gosling was dressed as Beavis, while Mikey Day was dressed up like Butt-head.

Beavis and Butt-head is an American animated comedy series that debuted on MTV in 1993 and ran for eight seasons.

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“I didn’t know about Mikey’s exposed gums and teeth”: SNL’s skit scene explained as Heidi Gardner breaks character during scene

During a skit on Saturday Night Live, Heidi Gardner broke character and started giggling first after seeing Ryan Gosling, and then burst out laughing when she saw Mikey Day dressed as Butt-Head.

While talking to Vulture, she confessed that they had already rehearsed the scene, and the actress had a similar reaction even during the rehearsals; however, she had not seen Mikey with the “exposed gum and teeth.”

“The dress rehearsal was when the prosthetics made their debut — the noses and the mouths. I didn’t know about Mikey’s exposed gums and teeth.”

As she giggled throughout the scene, it left the audience giggling and cheering. Gardner, however, claimed that the “moment gave her anxiety.”

“Though it got a great response from the audience, which is so nice, however, the moment gave me anxiety and I left the stage a little bit in shock because I felt like I didn't do the job properly. I hope, for those guys and their portrayals of Beavis and Butt-Head, that it helped how shocked I was by how funny they were.”

Speaking of the part that made Heidi Gardner giggle uncontrollably, it happened when Thompson asked her to move Ryan Gosling because, according to the sketch, he was "distracting" him from his speech about AI.

Just after Ryan moved his seat, Kenan Thompson again looked distracted as he stated that now a character similar to Butt-Head was right in front of him. Just as Gardener looked back, she couldn’t contain her laughter and completely lost it, breaking the character. However, the audience too looked amused, as they cheered loudly for Gardener.

While Heidi Gardner claimed that she was not happy about the scene and how she laughed while portraying the role of a journalist in the skit, the same went viral, with the SNL video gaining 5.6 million views on YouTube as of this writing. Social media users also couldn't stop talking about Heidi’s reaction.