‘SNL’ Actress Ego Nwodim Brings Improv to Baltimore Schoolchildren
The Baltimore County native aims to help local youth explore and embrace the possibilities. The “yes and” of life. Saturday Night Live actress Ego Nwodim has been teaching improv to Baltimore schoolchildren through her passion for the art form. She credits her love of improv for her ability to explore possibilities and interact with others, a tool for staying present and present. Nowodim discovered improv at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she found it, and immediately fell in love with the form. After college, she attended classes at the Los Angeles chapter of the Upright Citizens Brigade and performed a one-woman show, Great Black Women…And Then There's Me. Despite not being in the practice of improv regularly, she credits it to fostering better communication, understanding, and listening skills. She also recommends it to friends who aren't in showbiz, even though she is not in the industry.
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Saturday Night Live‘s Ego Nwodim talks about improv likes it’s her therapy—or maybe even a form of religion. When she was a student at Eastern Tech High School in Essex, she knew she wanted to act, although her Nigerian-American parents wanted her to be pre-med.
She compromised—leaving Baltimore to study biology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the center of the entertainment industry. It was in L.A. where she discovered improv.
“I didn’t even know it existed,” she says from her home in New York City. She immediately fell for the art form that famously encourages “yes and”—an openness to possibility, a generosity in the way you interact with other people, a tool for being present and in the moment.
But it wasn’t just the practice of improv that energized her, it was discovering that such an art form even existed.
“I feel like, as a child, I was aware of very few professional paths available to me,” she says. “So to me, improv represents expanding your horizons. The knowledge that there was this art form out there that’s available to anyone was very empowering.”
After college, she took classes at the Los Angeles chapter of the famous improv troupe, the Upright Citizens Brigade, and did a one woman show, Great Black Women…And Then There’s Me.
She was good at it. So good, in fact, that Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live came a-callin’.
With her adorably scratchy voice, big smile, and gleefully silly impressions, Nwodim became an instant fan favorite. She’s been on the show since 2018 and has also appeared in multiple TV shows, films, and commercials. She’s very much a rising star.
As a sketch comedy show, SNL allows Nwodim to flex some of her improv muscles. But it isn’t actual improv, which uses no script. And she misses it.
“I’m not in the practice of doing improv regularly. When I [was doing it,] I think I was a better person, a better version of myself,” she says. (See? Therapy.)
She notes that it has become an even more crucial life skill at a time when we spend so much of our lives with our noses buried in our phones. It helps to foster better communication, better understanding, and, of course, better listening skills.
In fact, Nwodim is such an improv true believer, she recommends it to friends who aren’t even in showbiz. “I have a friend who is an accountant and I encouraged her to take an improv class!” she says with a laugh.
At some point, she realized that she wanted to bring this art form that she loves to kids, not just to share the life skills that come with improv, but to open their minds to life’s possibilities—that idea that if you see it, you can be it.
“I had people I looked up to in the improv space,” she says. “But I didn’t see many people who looked like me. There’s nothing like seeing someone who looks like yourself and seeing what’s possible for you. There’s just no substitute for that.”
Nwodim wanted to be that person for Baltimore kids. And she knew just who to reach out to.
Konular: TV, Saturday Night Live