Maya Rudolph Is ‘Thrilled’ to Make ‘SNL’ Return as Kamala Harris: ‘This Is So Much Bigger Than Me’
Saturday Night Live will return for its 50th season on Sept. 28. The show has lost a few cast members and brought on a couple more since it last aired, but this upcoming run of episodes will feature the greatest possible addition: Maya Rudolph reviving her fictionalized take on Vice President Kamala Harris. “I’m thrilled to be associated with it,” the actress told Variety in a new interview. “And I’m also glad that I’ve played her and everyone’s cool with it. She likes it.”
SNL doesn’t have the strongest track record when it comes to election seasons — particularly the not-so-funny-in-hindsight decision to have Donald Trump host the show in 2015 during his first presidential campaign. Since then, he’s spent four years in the White House, lost his second campaign to President Joe Biden, and racked up 34 felony convictions. Heading into this new season, Rudolph is cognizant of the fact that the stakes of the 2024 election — in which Trump is running against Harris — go far beyond cold opens and hit-or-miss comedy sketches.
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“This is so much bigger than me, and this is about something very important,” she shared. Rudolph has emphasized that when she’s stepping into the shoes of a real person, whether it be Harris or Beyoncé, she sees the job as playing a fictional character rather than performing an exact impression.
“And so the fictional Kamala that we created tapped into her fun,” Rudolph explained. “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.’”
She also tapped into Harris’ Bay Area roots, drawing inspiration from her friends in Oakland and Berkeley. “I see the Bay Area alive and well in her, in certain elements of the way that she talks,” she said. “But I also see the ferocity in her wisdom and her experience and all the work she’s done.”
Rudolph’s role will be essential to Saturday Night Live in the lead-up to the election, but also in the months that follow as Inauguration Day approaches. Rudolph is preparing accordingly and gearing up to spend more time than usual in New York. “It’s definitely going to impact my fall,” she said. “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?!’”
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