SNL’s Heidi Gardner speaks to FMS students
“Saturday Night Live” cast member Heidi Gardner joined lecturer Jon Niccum’s Intermediate Screenwriting class for a virtual Q&A session on Feb. 7, where students held up homemade cue cards and even impersonated Lorne Michaels while asking questions about her career and writing process.
The virtual event was open to all film and media studies students, not just Niccum's class.
“Every semester, I try to recruit a high-profile guest or two to speak to my class. But I also open these events up to all FMS students via Zoom,” said Niccum, who wrote one of the first feature articles on Gardner for the Kansas City Star in 2018. “The whole department isn’t going to fit into my classroom. This gives them the opportunity to still be part of the experience.”
After graduating from Notre Dame de Sion High School in Kansas City, where classmates voted her ‘most likely to be on SNL,’ Gardner came to the University of Kansas in 2001. Not sure what she wanted to study, she tried her hand at a film class.