Ashley Padilla apparently has a plan for how she’d like to spend one of her Saturday Night Live hiatuses: getting stranded on an island with one of the show’s head writers.
In a new episode of Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast out Tuesday, Padilla revealed that she and SNL head writer Alison Gates are serious about the idea of competing on Survivor together.
Padilla brought it up while discussing her love of survival reality shows, telling Poehler that she and Gates—one of her frequent writing partners at SNL—recently let that enthusiasm derail a work session.
“We were on a Zoom the other day, supposed to be working, fully supposed to be working,” Padilla said. “And we set that aside to have a vulnerable conversation about…really lay out the game plan of if we want to go on Survivor together.”
This wasn’t just the two joking about what their alliance name might be, either. According to Padilla, they’ve discussed taking the idea to the people who would actually have to sign off on it.
“We are so serious about it in a scary way that we need to stop talking about it because both of us want it,” she said.
Gates has been with SNL since 2018 and is currently one of the show’s head writers. Padilla joined the cast in 2024, and the two have become close collaborators. Elsewhere in the Good Hang conversation, Padilla singled out Gates and fellow SNL head writer Kent Sublette for helping her adapt her Groundlings-honed writing style to the demands of television.
Padilla’s survival-TV obsession goes beyond Survivor. She also enthusiastically recommended Fox’s Extracted to Poehler, explaining the competition’s elaborate premise in enough detail that Poehler eventually pulled up a clip during their interview.
And while two members of SNL’s writing staff washing up on a Survivor beach would be unusual, the show does have some precedent for casting famous superfans. The White Lotus creator Mike White was already an established Hollywood writer, director, and actor when he competed on Survivor: David vs. Goliath in 2018, finishing as runner-up; he later returned for Survivor 50. Former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson, another longtime fan of the show, competed on Survivor: Nicaragua in 2010.
Your move, Jeff Probst.
