Interview: Heidi Gardner Discusses ‘The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins’

Heidi Gardner has built a reputation as one of the most versatile performers to come out of Saturday Night Live in recent years. Making her start with the famed Groundlings, Gardner joined SNL in 2017, quickly becoming one of the breakout stars. She followed up SNL with a turn to drama, with a role in the Adam Sandler film Hustle and a recurring role in the dramedy series Shrinking. Gardner also recently made her Broadway debut in All Out: Comedy About Ambition, starring alongside Craig Robinson, Sarah Silverman, and Jason Mantzoukas.

Gardner can currently be seen in a recurring role in the NBC comedy series The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, playing Tisha Basmati, the trophy wife of Jerry Basmati (Robinson), the former NFL rival of Reggie (Tracey Morgan).

We spoke with Gardner about her character on The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins working with Robinson in the series, making her Broadway debut, and her infamous break on SNL.

First, I have to tell you, I loved you in Reggie Dinkins. I thought you were hysterical.

Thank you.

What can you tell us about Tisha?

Oh my gosh, Tisha is a dream for me to play. It’s like a character that you dream of playing. It’s like she’s 500 pounds of hair, 800 pounds of accessories. I put these earrings on today, and I was like, “Is this too much?” But Tisha Basmati is head to toe. She’s dripping. So that was just so fun. She’s unfiltered but wraps it all up in a pretty little bow. People can’t see behind the extensions, but obviously Monica can. But yeah, just such a dream.

Was there any particular inspiration in mind from either yourself or the writers?

You know, what’s funny is I had just been told that I came to mind.

How do you take that exactly?

I don’t know. Maybe it was a type of woman that I played on SNL or something that they were like, “Heidi can play this.” So, I’m just really complimented. They just kind of thought I could play this unfiltered lady, and I loved it.

This cast of the show is pretty amazing. Can you talk about working with Craig?

Craig was great because I was such a big fan of his. I was planning on being intimidated by him the first day I met him, but he was so nice, and within 10 minutes of shooting, he was giving me ad-libs to say. And I was like, “We’ve only known each other for 10 minutes. Are you sure you don’t want to say that totally gold genius line?” And he was like, “No, you take it,” because he has jokes to spare. They never stopped coming. So that was so cool. I would love to be like, “That’s the way it works,” but I don’t think I pitched him anything. I think I just took his jokes that he gave me. So, that was such a gift. I would work with him on anything always.

Well, you worked on Broadway with him after that. What was that experience like working with him on All Out?

It’ll go down as one of the coolest, best experiences of my whole life. We were shooting Reggie when he told me we’re going to be doing Broadway together. And I was like, “We just get to continue this husband-and-wife dynamic?” I didn’t know it at the time, but in the show All Out, there was a scene where we were also husband and wife. So, I just keep on telling him, “If you book something and you need a wife, it’s me. And if I book something and I need a husband, it’s you.” And that’s from here on out, man. We just have a shorthand now and a trust. We had a secret handshake before every Broadway show. It was the best.

You’ve done some stage work before, but that was your first Broadway experience. What was that experience like for you as a performer?

Oh my gosh. I underplayed it so much because I didn’t want to feel the stakes of it. Because if I did, I’d be like, “This is too much,” and probably not take the job. My brother Ty was like, “Well, I want to come see you.” And I was like, “Well, you better get tickets quick, because there’s only eight shows.” And he was like, “Heidi, it’s eight shows a week.” I was like, “What? I thought it was only eight shows.” He was like, “You need to get on the website and see what you signed up for. It’s a month.”

I definitely knew the first night that I stepped out on stage, and I saw the audience and the amazing cast I was with, the band Lawrence, that did the show, that I stumbled into a dream. The only thing that’s weird is when you’re doing eight shows a week, you’re doing the same thing. There were a couple of times I felt like I was in a simulation, because I had said the same line so many times. I would always like it when there was an ad lib or something messed up, because I was like, “I’m not on in The Truman Show anymore.”

What was the schedule like for you? It’s kind of rigorous, I imagine.

It was okay. You’re doing four shows a weekend. So, that felt like a lot, but you have your entire day to be free. You get to the theater around 6:30. I would order a cheesy Gordita Crunch. I would eat that at seven and do my makeup and then be on stage at 7:30. The show was an hour and a half. You go out, you sign at the stage door. You’re home by 9:30, 9:45. That’s very doable.

That’s good.

Yes. But by the second show on Sunday, I was very tired.

I don’t know if you saw Kevin Nealon’s post on X recently, kind of calling out SNL members for breaking. He said that he would never break in his day, and Lorne [Michaels] didn’t like people breaking. You were historically known to not break until you famously did. I’m just wondering if you have any comments about that.

I didn’t see his post or his quote, but I will say I, my own self-imposed pressure when I was on the show before I famously broke was like, “You don’t break, you take this seriously. Don’t break.” And I get that the audience loves it. People love it. I just had this thing in my mind that I couldn’t break. That it was just my job not to break. And what I love about the moment I broke was that Mikey Day is one of my best friends and feels like a brother to me. So, him making me break, I felt like his little sister, when your brother is annoying you, and you’re like, “Stop, stop it.” Except it was like on live television. “I’m like, Mikey don’t.” So, it was a very real familial moment for me. Because sometimes you just can’t help it. That’s what I learned the hard way.

Well, congratulations again on Reggie Dinkins. I hope it comes back to season two, and I hope you’re coming along with it.

Thank you so much. I hope so too.

You can watch our full interview with Heidi Gardner below.

The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins airs Monday nights on NBC at 8:30pm, and streams on Peacock the following day.