“Saturday Night Live” star Ego Nwodim got a special surprise live on air while co-hosting the Feb. 3 episode of TODAY with Jenna & Friends: her mom!
The segment began with a taped interview of Ego’s mom, Okey Nwodim, talking all about her daughter.
“Being Ego’s mom has been exciting to say the least because Ego is very adventurous and she’s very lively,” Okey said in the clip. “She keeps you talking, because she never stops talking.”
Ego, watching the clip for the very first time, laughed before telling Jenna that “it’s true” she never stops talking.
“The way she is on camera is (the) way she is,” Okey continued alongside shots of some of Ego’s most iconic roles on “SNL” and photos from her childhood.
Okey then launched into a story about how Ego would sing and dance in the aisles of the supermarket growing up.
“I’ll tell Ego, ‘Stop dancing.’ And she goes, ‘Mom, the music is going on.’ I say, ‘Yes, the music is going on. That doesn’t mean you should be dancing,’” Okey recalled, smiling.
After the video, Jenna surprised Ego by bringing her mom out live in the studio, reuniting the extremely close mother-daughter duo who speak on the phone “many times during the day,” Okey shared.
Ego confirmed, adding that they don’t just speak on the phone everyday, they actually FaceTime multiple times a day. She then praised her mom for always inspiring her to follow her dreams.
“She just was an impeccable leader and example for us,” Ego said. “She went to med school after having the four of us. So she’s a family practitioner and she’s just — what she’s taught us is the power of persistence and ambition and has just made us all feel like we could do whatever we wanted so, I decided to be an actor.”
Before Ego became a star, she received a degree in biology from the University of Southern California.
Okey told Jenna in studio that she wasn’t always excited for her daughter to become an actress.
“I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ That was not even listed in my mind,” Okey said. “I said ‘OK, when you finish medical school, you can go to acting school.’”
She has since come around to the idea.
“I’m very proud of her now,” Okey explained. “I’m so pleased with what she’s doing because she’s happy with what she’s doing so that makes me happy.”
Okey is fully on board and watches “SNL” every week to see her daughter’s work.
“I know whenever she’s coming to say her lines, I’m always holding my breath to make sure she does it correctly. And then at the end of the program, I will call her immediately and I tell her, I watched it, ‘This is what I felt when she did that,’” Okey said in the video clip. “She’s very diligent. She’s very, very persistent. I’m very, very pleased with her and very happy. And as long as she’s happy with what she’s doing, I’m happy with her.”
Okey said that Ego has always had the ability to make people smile, ever since she was a little kid.
