“I must say, it has been quite the experience,” Maya Rudolph comments when asked about the surge in public requests for her to revive her Saturday Night Live portrayal of Kamala Harris, following Joe Biden’s July 21 announcement that he will not be running for reelection. Rudolph previously took on the role in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
 |
| Maya Rudolph Mary Ellen Matthews |
In an exclusive conversation with Morfeli Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, held before an audience at the San Vicente Bungalows in West Hollywood, Rudolph, who is currently a nominee for four Emmys — best comedy guest actress and best original music/lyrics for NBC’s SNL, best comedy actress for Apple TV+’s Loot, and best character voiceover for Netflix’s Big Mouth — elaborated: “My phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
It’s as if I had 50 grandmas sending me articles saying, ‘This is the thing I saw you were in!’ It’s non-stop. And it’s intriguing because everyone is so thrilled about this idea, yet I have no involvement in it. It’s just unfolding around me. It’s incredible.”
“It’s incredibly thrilling to be connected with this, I won’t deny it,” she said, adding, “I could sense it happening around me when Kamala was running the first time. This feels much larger. You brought up Condoleezza Rice [another politician she once impersonated], and I hesitated because I thought, ‘That wasn’t a great character.’ Back then, I didn’t portray many political figures because there weren’t any who resembled me. That was simply the reality. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable; I didn’t look like them. So you couldn’t have convinced me that I’d be linked to someone running for president of the United States. It’s amazing. I hope it turns out well; it would be fantastic.”
At 52, Rudolph, daughter of the late “Lovin’ You” singer Minnie Riperton and music producer Richard Rudolph, rose to fame 25 years ago. In 1999, after years with the LA-area improv group The Groundlings, she began a seven-season stint as one of SNL’s greatest cast members, playing 72 characters — including Donatella Versace, Oprah Winfrey, and Beyoncé — across 137 episodes. She co-wrote many characters with her friend and fellow Groundlings alum Emily Spivey, describing them as “divas” in the best sense.
Following her departure from SNL in 2007, Rudolph featured in sitcoms (Up All Night), variety shows (Maya & Marty), and films (2009’s Away We Go, 2015’s Sisters, 2019’s Wine Country, and 2011’s Bridesmaids) — while occasionally returning to Studio 8H at 30 Rock for cameos and hosting. Her third hosting appearance was on May 11 this year, when Lorne Michaels invited her to host the annual Mother’s Day episode.
She captivated viewers from the beginning with a comedic ‘Mother’ song, modeled after Madonna’s “Vogue,” performed throughout the studio. Both her guest appearance and song are now Emmy-nominated.
Ironically, it was the short-lived Amazon dramedy series, Forever from 2018, that led her to the creators who would craft her most significant acting role outside of SNL. Matt Hubbard and Alan Yang, the co-creators of that series, later developed Loot, a comedy where Rudolph stars as a woman who, after divorcing her billionaire husband and receiving half of his fortune, tries to navigate life among ordinary people, including those at a philanthropic foundation she was unaware she had.
“It felt very timely and intriguing to join the conversation about philanthropy, wealth, and social responsibility,” the actress notes. She also serves as an executive producer on the show through Banana Split Productions, which she co-founded with her friend since kindergarten, Danielle Renfrew Behrens.
Interestingly, Rudolph’s Emmy nomination for comedy actress in the second season of Loot is her first performance recognition beyond the comedy guest acting categories (which she won in 2020 and 2021 for SNL) and voiceover acting (which she won in 2020, 2021, and 2023 for Big Mouth).
Before Loot, Rudolph, who is biracial, discovered that many in the industry were unsure how to utilize her. As a result, she found immense freedom in writing her own characters at The Groundlings and SNL (“People weren’t planning to write me as many things, so I had to show them how to see me”) and voicing animated characters like Connie The Hormone Monstress on Big Mouth (“You can be anything, which is a dream for me”).
