Maya Rudolph on Her Mother Era, Reviving Kamala Harris for ‘SNL’ and Why Her ‘Zero-F—s Hormones Have Kicked In’
Like so many of us, Maya Rudolph is having a “Girly Pop Summer.”
The musically minded “Loot” star, “Saturday Night Live” icon and “Big Mouth” standout says her household has been a Taylor Swift stronghold for the past few years, and now Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan are also on repeat.
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“I remember the week I was hosting ‘SNL,’ and Charli’s ‘360’ came out, and I was bumping it so hard in my room to get me ready for the monologue,” Rudolph says. “It gave me all my strength, and that really propelled me into the summer.”
Call it what you want: the Summer of Maya Rudolph or the Season of Maya Rudolph. But limiting it to just right now doesn’t do justice to a career that has spanned decades, from “Bridesmaids” to Beyoncé. So let’s borrow some parlance from Swift and proclaim this latest version of Maya Rudolph her most successful era yet.
In just the past few months, Rudolph became this year’s Emmy MVP, landing four nominations over three shows (the most of any performer in 2024). She launched a production company, Banana Split Projects, and signed a first-look deal at Apple TV+. And, of course, her “SNL” take on Kamala Harris (a role for which she won an Emmy in 2020) has inextricably linked her to the Democratic presidential candidate’s surging White House campaign.
“It does feel like it’s all happening at once, which is weird,” Rudolph says. “If someone was like, ‘Hey, when you turn 52, you’re going to have a moment,’ I’d be like, ‘Sorry, what?’ I did not anticipate this. It does feel like a real convergence of all good things. Everything feels different this year, for sure.”
And on a personal level, that includes dropping her eldest child, Pearl, at college. (Rudolph has four children with her partner, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.) Rudolph is just back from that emotional send-off, which is why it’s on her mind as she sits down to chat in her elegantly decorated Studio City office in late August.
“It’s just really confusing,” she says of the emotions that come with sending your firstborn out into the world. “Why the fuck do we let them go? I’m nowhere near understanding it yet. Why did they invent parenthood this way? It’s all painful. I’m OK, but I can’t lie — it’s hard. Changing diapers was so much easier!”
That’s Rudolph speaking as a mother. But in her Mother’s Day musical monologue on “SNL” (inspired by Madonna’s “Vogue” and nominated for an Emmy for original music and lyrics), we got to celebrate Rudolph as “Mother of the House of Rockefeller,” NBC’s home base, where she spent many years as a superstar. As Bowen Yang said in that bit, Rudolph was “the first to slay the house down, boots queen.”
OK, for those of us unhip to modern slang, what exactly does that mean? All you need to know is Rudolph is finally, rightfully receiving her coronation as this generation’s comedy monarch.
“Is this what happens when you become older?” she says. “You actually get to a place where you have this status, and the only words left are for royalty? I mean, I’ll take it!”
That “SNL” hosting gig in May perhaps kicked off what we might refer to as the “Mother Era” of Rudolph, as she exudes an even more powerful aura in the wake of these landmark career moments. It’s appropriate she’d find some of that energy while returning home to Studio 8H at “SNL” for its Mother’s Day episode and interacting with the show’s now mostly millennial and Gen Z cast.
“The younger generation started asking me the questions that I used to ask the people that I watched on the show,” she says, “and I realized, ‘Oh, now I’m an elder!’”
Even fellow “SNL” icon Kenan Thompson, who participated in the monologue, says Rudolph stands apart from her castmates, past or present: “I’m just in awe of the human being that she is,” he says. “She’s a shining example for my daughters to look up towards. Like, who’s more ‘Mother’ than Maya? She is built for that role, embraced that role, and now is basking in the glory of it. It’s just so wonderful to see, especially for someone like me who kind of owes everything to her.”
After hosting “SNL,” Rudolph embarked on her most intense Emmy campaign ever. It clearly paid off — particularly with a nomination for lead comedy actress for her Apple TV+ comedy “Loot.” Besides music and lyrics, she was up for guest comedy actress for “SNL” (a category she won in 2020 and 2021). And last weekend, Netflix’s animated “Big Mouth” earned her another character voice-over win, an Emmy she also got in 2020, 2021 and 2023.
That’s right, Rudolph started the decade with zero Emmys. Now she has six.
“She’s so multifaceted that watching Maya work, it’s like being with a Hall of Famer,” says “Big Mouth” co-creator and star Nick Kroll.
Here’s what’s especially stunning and gratifying about the “Loot” nod: Believe it or not, this is her first solo lead role. Rudolph has starred in countless series and films as part of an ensemble or duo, but the fact that she’s never been No. 1 on the call sheet might be a shock. But Rudolph is surprised that we’re surprised.
“I didn’t really get offered things like that very often,” she says. “I think it’s surprising to people because I’ve been here for so long, and they’re aware of what I do and what I’m capable of. But I’m not that surprised people didn’t offer them to me. It took a long time to even just kind of laugh at that fact, but it used to really piss me off.”
Rudolph points out that when you’re seen as funny, you tend to be pigeonholed as the wacky best friend. Why? “Because there’s lots of meat in that role, where you think, ‘That’s where the fun is.’ Who wants to be the straight guy, right?” she says. “But when you’re never the straight guy, that’s all you ever want to be. I remember, even at ‘SNL,’ sitting in Lorne Michaels’ office saying, ‘I just want to play the wife sometimes. Why can’t I be the girlfriend?’ He was like, ‘You don’t want to be the girlfriend. You want to be the crazy German art dealer neighbor!’”
But back in those earlier eras, when Rudolph was still coming up, she wanted to be the main thing. Not getting it was “really hard to swallow,” she says, noting that her multiethnic background might have confused some in the industry back in the day. (Rudolph’s mother was Black, her father Jewish.) “But it didn’t surprise me. I don’t look like most. That sounds like an archaic thing to say now, but it wasn’t as normal 20 years ago, right? Let’s put it that way.”
That fight to be noticed as a lead, and not just the supporting player in someone else’s story, is what inspired Rudolph to compare her characters to drag queens — like the way she carries herself in the Mother’s Day monologue, strutting around in a sequined bodysuit rapping, “I’m your moth-uh.”
“The universe knows about drag now, and that’s wonderful. For me, it was growing up feeling like an ‘other’ and not really having a space or a name for it, but then seeing RuPaul and this positivity surrounding it …”
Rudolph remembers a time where you could only choose one ethnicity on official forms like the SAT exam. That meant anyone of mixed heritage could only mark the generic “Other” box. “That can be very lonely,” she says, “and it can be very scary. I picked a really hard profession to not be like everyone else.”
She adds, “I always liked fitting into the cracks — that was just a normal thing to me. Then, feeling like there was a name for it — and not just a name, but like a pride in it and a beauty in it — that’s why ‘drag’ is the term that I think holds the most value to me. Now I see Chappell Roan performing in drag, and I feel like, ‘I see you. I get it.’”
Rudolph, of course, grew up as the daughter of composer Richard Rudolph and “Loving You” singer Minnie Riperton, who … wait a minute. Sorry, we’re not going to do this. This is a celebration of Maya Rudolph and the amazing era she’s in. Her Mother Era. Her four Emmy nominations. Kamala Harris. “Loot.” Bubble baths. (That last one is for you “Big Mouth” fans.)
So when we ask Rudolph what’s the question she’d most like to retire after the Emmy interview gantlet, this is the one. With Rudolph’s permission, we’d like to note that she is overwhelmingly proud of her family, of her mom’s place in music history and how her parents raised her in a musical, loving environment. But she doesn’t need to explore the story of her mother’s early death anymore.
“My whole career, people have always brought up my mom, which is wonderful. But then they also bring up the tragedy of losing my mother when I was little,” she says. “And they ask me how old I was when she died. The other day, I said, ‘Why the fuck are we still doing this?’ First of all, if you know me and you know who I am, you already have that information. And the second thing is, who wants to be asked about their childhood trauma every time they talk about their career? I’m 52 years old, and I have survived my childhood trauma.”
This is what Google and Wikipedia are for. (And if you can’t bother to search, Riperton died of breast cancer in 1979 at 31.) Maya Rudolph — queen, mother, icon — has been overly polite in agreeing to address this history time and time again. But not in this era. Not anymore.
“I answer the question and then afterwards, I’m like, ‘Why the fuck did I do that again?’” she says. “Maybe this is the day where we just go, like, ‘You can stop asking.’ It just makes a sad story. But we’re talking about great things, yeah, and humans are capable of so much more than one thing. But for whatever reason, people want to really focus on the sadness, and I’m like, ‘I good.’”
Yes, we good!
So good, in fact, that a weight appears to have been lifted after Rudolph shares these feelings. She jokes that she’s finally reached the “zero-fucks hormones have kicked in a lot more than they used to” stage of life.
“I am a polite person, and I care about how I treat other people, obviously. And I try not to ruffle feathers. I like to be respectful. But at a certain point, you have to stand up for yourself. It took me a long time to get to feeling more comfortable in this space, but I’m in it now.”
Rudolph’s refreshing honesty wouldn’t stun anyone who knows her. “SNL” pal Tina Fey marvels at Rudolph’s lack of interest in “showbiz nonsense.”
“Her vibe is ‘Let’s order grilled cheeses and sit on this dressing room couch and write something really funny,’” Fey says. “The fact that she always looks chic on a red carpet is because she appreciates fashion as art, too, not because she wants to get on some list. She likes the real deal in all things.”
That Mother energy infuses the “Loot” set, says co-star Joel Kim Booster, who notes that Rudolph has brought an important work-life balance to the show.
“This is my favorite thing about Maya. It is so nice to work on a set where the person at the top loves their family,” he says. “Because I’ve worked many sets and many jobs where the person at the top doesn’t care if their family lives or dies, and it is a much different environment to work in. There’s an understanding that we all have a life we want to go home to. It’s not a five-nanny situation at her house. She’s driving her kids to dance class and going to the dance competitions at the Hyatt by the airport. It’s so normal. And having someone that normal be your boss makes the experience and the chaos of doing this kind of work so much easier.”
In “Loot,” Rudolph plays Molly Wells, the billionaire ex-wife of a tech mogul, played by Adam Scott. Molly decides to give away most of her fortune to charity, and although the character’s mansion and private jet might signal she’s still a bit out of touch with everyday people, there’s an empathetic heart to the character that only Rudolph could pull off.
“She finds the natural humanity that we all share,” says “Loot” co-creator Matt Hubbard. “And she’s so good at making you feel for her that it comes through no matter what — whether it’s a sketch character or someone who’s a billionaire.”
Rudolph says she’s never been interested in creating asshole characters. Even her archvillains are not necessarily jerks. “Big Mouth” may be the filthiest series Rudolph has ever done, but there’s a lot of depth and emotion to her character, Connie the Hormone Monstress.
“I know that there are different forms of comedy, and I don’t do all of them. But the ‘laughing at other people’s expense’ form of comedy has never been mine,” she says. “I feel like it’s important for me to be able to tap into the empathic part of the character. I have to like the character so that I can live in the character.”
That includes her famous takes on celebrities like Donatella Versace or Beyoncé. “I never planned on being an impressionist when I started working at that show,” Rudolph says of “SNL.” “I think of my impressions more as characters. And so we created a Beyoncé character, and we really love her. But she’s a character.”
The same goes for Rudolph’s version of Vice President Harris. Although it hasn’t been officially announced, it’s no surprise that Rudolph, who’s based in Los Angeles, is expecting to spend the next few months on the East Coast reprising that role on “SNL.” “It’s definitely going to impact my fall,” she says. “I have already heard from a lot of Realtors in New York. I think the day of the announcement that she was running, some lady yelled at me across the parking lot, ‘Getting ready for New York?!’”
The messages, memes, GIFs all came flooding to her phone long before she even heard from “SNL” about bringing back her Harris impersonation. Booster admits he sent one of them: “I may have been the first one to go to our cast text chain and say, ‘She’s about to have a busy fall!’ I think my first thought was ‘Thank God for democracy.’ And then my second thought was ‘Maya is going to be so great this season.’”
Rudolph says it’s all been a bit of a tsunami. “It’s a huge compliment,” she says of being a part of the Kamala Harris news cycle. “But it was also very bizarre, because I woke up to an article saying that I was confirmed to play her — and I hadn’t spoken to anyone! This is so much bigger than me, and this is about something very important. I’m thrilled to be associated with it, and I’m also glad that I’ve played her and everyone’s cool with it. She likes it.”
The secret to her version of Kamala? Early on, when Harris was mostly known as a stern prosecutor and California’s attorney general, Rudolph zeroed in on the politician’s playful side — something that has now been on full display during this presidential campaign.
“I said, ‘When I see her, I see her having fun,’” she says. “And so the fictional Kamala that we created tapped into her fun. And then [‘SNL’ producer] Steve Higgins said to me that his wife called her a ‘fun aunt,’ and we were laughing at how that sounds like ‘funt.’ We just went from there. That was the moment where you realize, ‘Oh, now I know how to do this.’”
Rudolph, who attended UC Santa Cruz, also tapped into her memory of people she knew from the Bay Area. “All my friends were from Oakland and Berkeley. Bay Area people are my people,” she says. “I know how they speak. They have that word ‘hella’ that is so Bay. I see the Bay Area alive and well in her, in certain elements of the way that she talks. But I also see the ferocity in her wisdom and her experience and all the work she’s done.”
It’s not lost on Rudolph, the significance of her return to “SNL” to play the Democratic presidential candidate who happens to be a woman of mixed heritage. “I never saw it coming, really, until she came on the scene, and then I thought, ‘Oh, wow. The playing field has completely changed.’”
Before Harris, the closest Rudolph came to playing a politician on “SNL” was an experiment in impersonating then-candidate Barack Obama — but it didn’t make it to the show. “There was a moment of asking me to step up and try,” she remembers. “And we did try for dress rehearsal. Sadly, Obama was there and had to see me dressed as him. We both laughed heartily, and thank God that never made it to air.”
With Rudolph hopping coasts for “SNL,” production on L.A.-based “Loot” has been shifted, with a new start set to be announced soon. But the show’s producers are confident Season 3 (currently being written) will come out on time.
Rudolph’s exhaustive schedule, too, includes her new production company, which she formed with Danielle Renfrew Behrens after ending their Animal Pictures partnership with Natasha Lyonne. That first production company produced “Loot,” as well as Lyonne’s Peacock series “Poker Face” and the Prime Video animated series “The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy.” Rudolph, Renfrew Behrens and Lyonne will continue to exec produce the projects they have in the pipeline together.
“I never really knew what having a production company was,” Rudolph says. “I feel like I learned on the job with Animal, which was great. But I think I’m just really particular about projects. I feel like Natasha and I both wanted to do so many, and there’s so little time to do all the things we want to do.”
And then there’s music. Rudolph and college pal Gretchen Lieberum continue to perform Prince covers in their band Princess. But beyond that, she’s been hesitant to release her own music into the world.
Until, perhaps, now. Get ready: Mother may be gifting you with some originals.
“I thought about it so many times,” she says. “I feel more comfortable in my skin now to investigate what that would be. Music comes from such a very profoundly vulnerable place that’s incredibly private and feels very tender. There’s also that part of me that loves music so much that doesn’t want to fuck it up. I worry about being able to live with my mistakes. But if I’m honest, I feel like I’m much closer to investigating that part of myself. Because music has been coming out of me my whole life, and I can’t stop.”
It’s a reminder that there are many more eras left for Maya Rudolph to give. “I feel like I’m anticipating something new,” she says. “I can feel a shift coming, for sure.”
Styling: Rebecca Grice/Forward Artists; Makeup: Molly Stern/Forward Artists; Hair: Eddie Cook/A Frame Agency; Manicure: Ashlie Johnson/Forward Artists; Look 1 (trench and boots): Khaite; Look 2 (dress and boots): Chloe; Look 3 (turtleneck dress): Louis Vuitton
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