Ego Nwodim Is Just Getting Started

I watched it on Peacock the next day, so the cursing was censored. I just assumed it was one person that cursed, and then I heard the live audio where the whole audience said “Shiiiit.”

They all knew.

Did you have any idea they would respond like that?

I mean, no, I never swear. But I assure you no, because someone would have gotten ahead of it and been like, “Hey guys, you can’t have that in the script.” No one flagged it.

Really?

Think about it. When has the audience ever responded verbally in unison to a sketch?

I guess if there was no prompt.

There’s never been a prompt for the audience. The expectation is that they’re just going to watch this performance.

I rarely watch myself back, but I did watch that back because I didn’t even remember this part. The first prompt I had to my audience was, “Because Miss Eggy don’t what? That’s right. Play.” And the whole joke is that [the audience] knows Miss Eggy, this kind of corny standup. But no, they don’t know her. That’s the first time my character’s ever been on the show. She’s not a real standup. Miss Eggy’s not a real person. It was supposed to be silent, and then I say, “That’s right.”

Right, the silence is the joke.

So if you watch, the audience said, “Play.” I was like, “Wait, how’d y’all know?” That was also in the moment. I remember being like, “Are the cue cards facing the audience some way, where they’re reading them all along?”

But the audience cannot read the cue cards. They just knew, and they were so cued in and enjoying the Miss Eggy performance. They were really her crowd at a comic club.

Did you guys actually get in trouble?

I asked Lorne [Michaels] very casually if we got fined, and he was like, “I don’t think so.” And then I was like, I’m not going to push. No further questions.

I have to say, when you came out with the handbag, I was like, “This is going to be good.”

The handbag was an, “if you know, you know,” because that’s such a nod to the Queens of Comedy and Def Comedy Jam comedians, because some of them would do that and come out with their purse. I mean, we thought about cutting it.

Really?

We were like, “Fuck, Lorne’s going to say, why is she carrying a purse?” Lorne does like for things to make sense. But he didn’t ask.

Is Miss Eggy going to be making an appearance in the finale?

We don’t know. We don’t know what the show is going to be. We have no idea because it’s, what’s today? Thursday.

Today is Thursday, yeah.

We do not know what the show is going to be. We know things that are being floated. We know things we’re going to try, but we don’t know.

That’s crazy. I can’t imagine working on that tight of a schedule, with so much up in the air. I’m a person who has to have things locked in.