{"id":3102,"date":"2019-11-25T11:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T19:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/and-now-live-from-new-york\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T11:06:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T18:06:04","slug":"usc-dornsife-alumna-ego-nwodim-is-snl-cast-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/usc-dornsife-alumna-ego-nwodim-is-snl-cast-member\/","title":{"rendered":"And Now, Live from New York \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n    \n            \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-3119-768x432.jpg\"\n          data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-3119-1280x720.jpg 1280w,https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-3119-768x432.jpg 768w\"          data-sizes=\"(min-width:1200px) 75vw, (min-width:768px) 83vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  alt=\"And Now, Live from New York \u2026\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n  \n      <div class=\"image-caption\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  Ego Nwodim graduated from USC Dornsife in 2010 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in biological sciences. Eight years later, she earned a spot on one of the most acclaimed programs in television, Saturday Night Live. (Photo: Mary Ellen Matthews\/NBC.)\n\n\n<\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n          <nav aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\" class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n        <ul>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\">News<\/a><\/li>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\/?category=alumni\">Alumni<\/a><\/li>\n                  <\/ul>\n      <\/nav>\n    \n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--page-title\">\n\n    \n  <h1>And Now, Live from New York \u2026<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n          <div class=\"subtitle\">\n            \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  Ego Nwodim \u201910, now in her second season as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, graduated from USC Dornsife with a degree in biological sciences \u2014 never doubting she would succeed as an actor. <strong>[6 min read]<\/strong>\n\n\n<\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    \n           <strong class=\"author-field\"><span >By<\/span><a href=\"mailto:communication@dornsife.usc.edu\">Greg Hardesty<\/a><\/strong>\n    \n          <span class=\"post-date-field\">November 25, 2019<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--social-share \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--social-share\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"content-wrapper\">\n    <span class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list\" style=\"line-height: 32px;\">\n      <span class=\"title\">\n        Share\n      <\/span>\n                        <a class=\"a2a_button_copy_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/#copy_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Link\">\n            <span class=\"a2a_svg a2a_s__default a2a_s_copy_link\">\n              <svg height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 19 19\" width=\"19\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><path d=\"m7.43475275 9.52380952-2.17490843 2.26076008c-1.08745421 1.058837-1.68841575 2.518315-1.68841575 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xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><path d=\"m8.14285714 9.42857143c-.17142857 0-.34285714 0-.51428571.08571428l7.28571427 6.34285719c.3428572.2571428.6857143.2571428.9428572 0l7.2857142-6.34285719c-.0857142-.08571428-.2571428-.08571428-.4285714-.08571428zm-1.28571428 1.11428567v.1714286 8.5714286c0 .6857143.6 1.2857143 1.28571428 1.2857143h14.57142856c.6857143 0 1.2857143-.6 1.2857143-1.2857143v-8.5714286c0-.0857143 0-.0857143 0-.1714286l-7.2 6.3428572c-.7714286.6857143-1.8857143.6857143-2.6571429 0z\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\" transform=\"translate(-6 -9)\"\/><\/svg>\n            <\/span>\n            <span class=\"a2a_label visually-hidden\">Email<\/span>\n          <\/a>\n                  <\/span>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n  \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <p>Back when she was a student at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences majoring in <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/bisc\/\" target=\"_blank\">biological sciences<\/a>, Ego Nwodim wouldn&rsquo;t be shy about having a little fun in her organic chemistry lab.<\/p>\n<p>She often would break into song, startling her fellow pre-med students.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Mainly Britney Spears,&rdquo; she says with a laugh. &ldquo;My go-to song was &lsquo;I&rsquo;m a Slave 4U.&rsquo;&rdquo; Her classroom cohorts didn&rsquo;t know it at the time, but Nwodim (pronounced &ldquo;Woh-dim&rdquo;; her first name is pronounced &ldquo;Eh-go&rdquo;) was dead set on a career as an actor. But she had to make a deal with her mother, a doctor who raised her and her three siblings, and who insisted she go to college while pursuing her dream.<\/p>\n<p>Always a good student growing up, Nwodim gave it a go &mdash; but knew acting was her destiny. Hence, her classroom song-and-dance escapades.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t taking that class too seriously, I think,&rdquo; says Nwodim, who graduated from USC Dornsife in 2010. &ldquo;I was doing well, but I was having fun with it at the same time.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Nwodim recently reached a height to which all comedic performers aspire: becoming a cast member of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbc.com\/saturday-night-live\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Saturday Night Live<\/i><\/a>, one of the most high-profile stages of all for working comedic actors.<\/p>\n<p>Her booking as a featured player on the long-running NBC sketch-comedy show was announced Sept. 21, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Nwodim is the seventh African American woman to be hired as an <i>SNL <\/i>cast member.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knew It as a Kid<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nwodim, who grew up in Baltimore, had known that being on stage was her calling since she was 12.<\/p>\n<p>She felt it in her bones.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I used to dance, and I loved performing; I started when I was 7,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Performing in front of an audience is something I really enjoyed. I also did a play when I was 12 and fell in love with (acting).<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I knew I wanted to perform. I found such joy in it. I knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Being the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant and a first-generation United States citizen, Nwodim had some convincing to do.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;As an immigrant, my mother just wanted her children to be stable and successful,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;And when you say you want to pursue a career in acting, nothing about that sounds stable, and the process of achieving success as an actor is incredibly unlikely.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>And yet, Nwodim&rsquo;s mother was supportive.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Go all out and don&rsquo;t give up,&rdquo; Nwodim recalls her mother telling her. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got this.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"news-image-landscape news-image-right\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/migration-uploads\/Ego_InStoryA-3119.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Ego Nwodim has proven to be a highly versatile <em>SNL<\/em> cast member, performing a variety of memorable characters on the show. (Top Left Photo: Rosalind O&rsquo;Connor\/NBC; Top Right Photo: Will Heath\/NBC; Bottom Photo: Steven Molina Contreras\/NBC.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Los Angeles Bound<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nwodim attended Eastern Technical High School in Essex, Maryland, near Baltimore. By the time she was a junior, she knew she had to get the best grades possible to make it into the university of her choice.<\/p>\n<p>And she knew she had to live in or near Los Angeles to become a successful actor. She worked hard to boost her grades during her senior year in high school, which gave her a better shot at being accepted to an L.A. university.<\/p>\n<p>And she was.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I kind of made a deal with my family that if they let me go to college across the country, I would go to college and major in biology as a premed student,&rdquo; Nwodim says. &ldquo;I remember thinking I wanted to go to UCLA. I went to visit and thought, &lsquo;This campus is huge!&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>A college guide noted that USC had out-of-state enrollment of 40 percent.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That appealed to me,&rdquo; Nwodim says. &ldquo;Having to move across the country, I wanted to be part of that 40 percent so it would be easier to make friends.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Moving far from home, Nwodim says, made her grow up quickly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Path to Laughter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At USC, Nwodim minored in business and <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/soci\/soci\/\" target=\"_blank\">sociology<\/a>, with an emphasis on social welfare.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;My interests are kind of all over the place,&rdquo; she says. She started taking dramatic acting classes off campus when she was a senior. Over the course of a year or two, she got a commercial agent and a manager.<\/p>\n<address>&ldquo;To be able to make people laugh is such a gift.&rdquo;<\/address>\n<p>Comedy, at first, wasn&rsquo;t on Nwodim&rsquo;s radar.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;(My reps) told me, based on my energy, I should consider taking improv classes,&rdquo; Nwodim says. &ldquo;They were really popular at the time. But I didn&rsquo;t really want to because I&rsquo;m stubborn. I didn&rsquo;t just want to do something because it was popular.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;In fact, I refused to do it for a year and a half. I finally caved and told them I would take Improv 101. But I fell in love with the class, and that&rsquo;s how I discovered comedy as a viable path for me.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Nwodim knew comedy was her destiny after she made a character reel &mdash; a short demo video of her portraying different characters &mdash; and showed it to her USC friends, who knew she had come out of the acting closet.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They told me, &lsquo;This is the most &lsquo;you&rsquo; thing I&rsquo;ve ever seen you do,&rsquo;&rdquo; Nwodim recalls. &ldquo;And I thought, this <i>is<\/i> me. It&rsquo;s kind of cool to do the thing that&rsquo;s <i>you<\/i>.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Deciding to pursue a career in comedy, Nwodim took more classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in L.A. She became a regular cast member and also performed her one-woman show, <i>Great Black Women &hellip; and Then There&rsquo;s Me<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Nwodim was named one of the New Faces at the 2016 Just for Laughs festival in Montreal. Supporting roles on television include <i>Law &amp; Order<\/i>, <i>True Crime: The Menendez Murders,<\/i> <i>2 Broke Girls<\/i> and <i>Living Biblically<\/i>. She has also made several guest appearances on the podcast <i>Comedy Bang! Bang!<\/i><\/p>\n<p>And now, Nwodim&rsquo;s on the big stage at <i>SNL <\/i>(her acclaimed skits include the racy &ldquo;Thirsty Cops,&rdquo; about two female cops hitting on a handsome man played by Seth Meyers.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Comedy and Happiness<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nwodim recalls a professor at USC whose words stuck with her.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;She taught a communication class,&rdquo; Nwodim says. &ldquo;One day she told me, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re not cynical.&rsquo; And that&rsquo;s really an important thing to carry through life.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s this positive, can&rsquo;t-fail mindset that has taken Nwodim far in her successful career as a working actor. And she&rsquo;s just getting started.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;You kind of have to know (you will succeed),&rdquo; Nwodim says of professional acting. &ldquo;Some of the people who don&rsquo;t think they&rsquo;ll make it do. But for me, I just kind of knew for sure that it was going to work out.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a big part of pursuing it. I just knew that, against all odds, things were going to work out. It was nice knowing I had a college degree, but I can&rsquo;t imagine a world in which I would have actually gone to medical school.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Nwodim finds a direct link between happiness and being a comedic performer.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really important for me to do work &mdash; whatever work I&rsquo;m doing &mdash; that adds real value to society, or impacts people&rsquo;s lives for the better,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;What I really think is great about comedy, and why I&rsquo;m so fulfilled by performing comedy, is that it certainly brings joy to people while at the same time illuminating social issues.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And to be able to make people laugh is such a gift,&rdquo; Nwodim adds. &ldquo;Having purpose like that, in turn, impacts my happiness. There&rsquo;s kind of a synergy going on there. I get to make people laugh, and that helps me feel fulfilled because I&rsquo;m adding something to people&rsquo;s lives that makes them feel joyful.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Comedy is just a very cool thing.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/usc-dornsife-magazine-fall-19-winter-20\/\">Read more stories from USC Dornsife Magazine&rsquo;s Fall 2019\/Winter 2020 issue &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ego Nwodim \u201910, now in her second season as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, graduated from USC Dornsife with a degree in biological sciences \u2014 never doubting she would succeed as an actor. <strong>[6 min read]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[117,647],"class_list":["post-3102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-biology","tag-entertainment-industry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>And Now, Live from New York \u2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/usc-dornsife-alumna-ego-nwodim-is-snl-cast-member\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"And Now, Live from New York \u2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ego Nwodim \u201910, now in her second season as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, graduated from USC Dornsife with a degree in biological sciences \u2014 never doubting she would succeed as an actor. 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