The way Ashley Padilla commands the Saturday Night Live stage, melting into her characters, it’s easy to forget that even that most excessive mom-bob isn’t actually her hair. That after curtain calls, she doesn’t leave Rockefeller Center in a Honda Odyssey minivan and head to the book club she hosts for housewives.
Instead, she returns to her West Village apartment, a burgeoning talent in one of the most coveted spaces in comedy.
If the character she plays on SNL, the eccentric mom of white suburbia, seems taken right out of a Tri-Valley indoor mall, it’s because Padilla would know something about that.
SNL’s new breakout star — and one of the only people who can pull off a six-minute fart joke (see: “Surprise”) — hails from Livermore. The 32-year-old comedian and actress attended Croce Elementary School and Christensen Middle School before graduating from Livermore High in 2011.
And, she went to Las Positas College.
The Express confirmed that Padilla was “briefly enrolled” at LPC. Eventually, her mother, Nicole Williams, relocated the family to Santa Barbara. Now, she’s a rising superstar, perhaps destined for a sitcom.
Having made it big, Padilla is repping Livermore to the nation. LPC students get to witness a talented local soar into the mainstream. One who likely ate lunch in their cafeteria and shared their daily commute to campus. Padilla once simmered with untapped potential, too.
Padilla shows LPC students they are no less valuable than those attending prestigious four-year universities in big cities. The glitz and glam can come later.
“I was a class clown,” Padilla told New York Magazine. “I was really loud, and I think it was that I just didn’t like anything else. I was bored.”
Padilla said she failed classes and “struggled to find interests outside school.” She decided to work at a Sephora instead. Uninvolved, unfocused and working a retail job in a town known for vineyards and ranches, Padilla fit the profile of someone not expected to amount to much. It’s also the reality for many young locals and community college students today, still unsure of their paths. Padilla’s success beams reassurance. It’s never too late.
At 20, an emotional breakdown over a relationship prompted her family to move to Southern California. According to Padilla, as revealed in New York Magazine, her mother wanted her to focus on comedy. She attended The Groundlings, a renowned comedy school, and got a job as Diane Keaton’s assistant. After 10 years in comedy, she was still nowhere.
“I was about to quit comedy,” Padilla said last December on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “I was like, ‘This isn’t working out. I’m not making any money.’ ”
LIVERMORE NATIVE Ashley Padilla, left, worked in comedy for a decade before getting her big break on Saturday Night Live. Now the Livermore High graduate is one of the most featured comedians on SNL. (Photo courtesy of IMDb)
She arranged a showcase of her best work as a last-ditch effort. An SNL representative caught wind of it and flew her to New York. She joined the cast for the historic 50th season in 2024. Padilla quickly went from getting coffee for Hollywood types to providing a jolt on the biggest comedy stage on TV in the last half-century.
For someone who struggled all throughout school, she may be teaching the masterclass on finding your forte and zeroing in. According to Saturday Night Network, a media outlet and podcast that covers all things SNL, Padilla reached over 90 minutes of screen time in just 13 episodes this season — a feat not accomplished since Kate McKinnon’s run in Season 45.
Padilla, in just her second season, leads all cast members with over 100 sketch appearances. While she is still only considered a “featured player,” she boasts the screentime of a veteran “repertory player.”
She may have carved out an early niche as the outlandish mom, but Padilla has proven to be much more. In November 2025’s “Haircut,” she plays a woman attending dinner after a devastating visit to the hair salon. She’s sporting shaved sides and swinging the emotional pendulum between false confidence and a teary breakdown. Her insistent “It’s nice! I like it!” is immediately followed by tears.
One of Padilla’s comedic specialties is playing with jarring extremes, also seen in February’s viral “Mom Confession” skit, which garnered nine million views on YouTube and TikTok combined. Each pause lures the audience, and the ensuing chaotic explosion serves as the payoff. Her strategic pacing is key to landing the bit.
SNL finds itself at another waxing point in its half-century-long life cycle. The show feels the pressure after the recent vacancies of stars like Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim. But Padilla seems to be central to the show’s recent revival. Her signature
SNL finds itself at another waxing point in its half-century-long life cycle. The show feels the pressure after the recent vacancies of stars like Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim. But Padilla seems to be central to the show’s recent revival. Her signature zero-to-100 outbursts send the crowd into the kind of uproar that rivals a laugh track.
MOM CONFESSION, a skit where Padilla plays a President Trump voter who confesses to her family she might’ve made a mistake, went viral after airing in January. (Photo courtesy of IMDb)
One of Livermore’s own now works alongside household names like Ryan Gosling and Bad Bunny, performing weekly for an audience of millions. After years of rejection and failure, Padilla finally hit her stride. At 32. With no plans to slow down.
While a role model for those deemed underachievers in early life, Padilla’s prosperity didn’t fall into her lap. She flipped the script of her prescribed inadequacy and turned it into award-contending prose. She took the one constant that shunned her out of class, her unbridled wit, and laser-focused that energy into her superpower for over a decade. Then it paid off.
“I get to make money doing comedy,” Padilla said in the magazine article. “I’m surrounded by the funniest f—ing people you can imagine. We get to be funny on television and then do it again the week after. What could I possibly complain about? My one issue is that there’s not enough time in the world to do it forever.”
Proof it’s never too late. Even from Livermore.
In a climate that seems to only recognize nepo babies born with a golden ticket to fame, Padilla proves that the old-fashioned success story lives. That years of hardship can lead to monumental triumph. That Livermore locals don’t need accolades or remarkable roots to find fulfillment. Just grit. And the kind of charm you can’t buy with a trust fund.
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TOP ILLUSTRATION: It was only a short period, but Saturday Night Live’s breakout star, Ashley Padilla, went to Las Positas College. She’s a Livermore native whose unconventional road to stardom is inspirational for local youth.(Photo courtesy of IMDb) .
Jaxyn Good is the Managing Editor of The Express. Follow her on Instagram @jaxyngood
