Maya Rudolph Is Ready to Serve

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If you want to take an alpha-and-omega approach to understanding Maya Rudolph, you could look to two songs performed half a century apart. In May, Rudolph returned to “Saturday Night Live,” where she was a cast member from 2000 to 2007, for her third go-round as host. It was the Mother’s Day episode, and Rudolph, now fifty-one, kicked off the show by talking about the four children she shares with the filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. But no—she wasn’t just a mother. She was mother, in the draggy, “Bow down, bitches” sense of the word. Soon, she had shed her frilly, black-and-white gown to reveal a shimmering bodysuit, sashaying through the halls of 30 Rock and launching into a ballroom-drag rap number.

Wind back the decades and you get a very different song: the tender, sensual ballad “Lovin’ You,” sung by the soul soprano Minnie Riperton. Riperton wrote it with her husband, Richard Rudolph, and first performed it, the story goes, as a lullaby to baby Maya, their daughter (you can hear her singing “Maaaa-ya” at the end). When it came out, in 1974, on an album co-produced by Stevie Wonder, it became Riperton’s biggest hit. Not long after, Riperton was given a dire breast-cancer diagnosis. She died in 1979, two weeks short of Maya’s seventh birthday. That left the young Rudolph to figure out her place in the world as a biracial child being raised by a white father, in a household steeped in both music and loss.

Throughout her career, Rudolph has melded the divalicious and the deeply felt. She considers comedy “a form of drag,” and her breakout characters on “S.N.L.” included a menagerie of prima donnas: Beyoncé, Oprah, Donatella Versace. (Her incarnation of Kamala Harris, whom she reinvented as America’s fun aunt, may well return this fall, depending on how this twisty election season plays out.) On the animated Netflix series “Big Mouth,” she voices Connie the Hormone Monstress, a kind of ALF-meets-Tina-Turner hybrid sent to induct pubescent kids into the joys and horrors of horniness. But she can also tap into an earthbound sadness, as in the indie film “Away We Go,” or in the afterlife dramedy “Forever,” or even in the more sombre scenes in “Bridesmaids.” Both sides come into play in “Loot,” the Apple TV+ sitcom that just finished its second season. Rudolph plays Molly Wells, a woman who divorces her cheating tech-mogul husband and finds herself with eighty-seven billion dollars. In a quest for meaning, she decides to focus on philanthropy, but doing good isn’t as straightforward as she assumes—money can’t solve all the world’s problems, and she’s reluctant to give up the perks, among them a superyacht, a designer wardrobe, and a Michelin-star chef kept on retainer.

When I spoke to Rudolph recently, over Zoom, she was at home in Los Angeles, sitting in front of bright floral wallpaper in her dining room, a bit frazzled. “It’s been a shit show this morning,” she apologized. “Zooms at home don’t make things easier if you have, um, people in your home.” She was still coasting off the Mother’s Day episode—not the show, necessarily, but the morning after it, when she’d got to sleep in at her hotel, sans kids. “It was the greatest gift,” she told me. In our conversation, which has been edited and condensed, we spoke about Beyoncé’s latest album, opening for Alanis Morissette, and why billionaires are so obsessed with going to space.

I have to tell you, Maya, I was at the dress rehearsal of that Mother’s Day show, so I got to see you live doing that incredible opening rap. Where did that idea come from?

I knew it was going to be Mother’s Day, and the last time I hosted “S.N.L.” I felt mother to the cast, because they were asking me a lot of questions, like, “When you were here, what was it like?” I thought, Wow, I’m another generation to them, the way I felt, when I was there, about when Bill Murray and people would come by. I couldn’t believe that they were in the building that I saw them in. I was really happy that Lorne wanted me there for Mother’s Day, because he knows that it’s still a special place to me, but I’m also a mother now. I’m still the kid that worked there, and I’m mother. The first thing I thought of was the first line: “Oops! I made you dance. / Remember in that movie when I pooped my pants? / When you were a baby, you pooped your pants / And I changed your diaper. / I’m your mother.” I sang it to my kids, and they liked it.

When those younger cast members ask you what was different when you were there, what do you tell them?

I tell them the truth. I tell them how much fun we had. This particular visit, I started to see a lot of the differences. For example, it was really trippy to me that the table read was in Studio 8H, [where the show is performed]. It used to be up on seventeen, in a much smaller, more intimate environment. We were all crowded around one small table. Then again, this cast is really big. I don’t know if everyone would fit on seventeen anymore. I think, in the same way that we’re having this Zoom call, it’s a vestige of COVID, but that translated into something that was more convenient.

I imagine that the Internet has made the experience of being on the show different. So many people watched that mother song on YouTube the next day, and weren’t necessarily watching TV at 11:30 P.M. And there’s this instant feedback on social media. I remember, when you were originally on the show, people would start saying “Get out!” like Donatella Versace, and it slowly seeped into the culture.

I’m glad you brought it up, so I don’t sound like a nagging mom. But it’s the thing about being on a live comedy show that scares me, and I’m glad I didn’t work there during the time of social media. YouTube happened on my way out. So I felt free. And I didn’t feel like someone was going to get to it first before Saturday. What I loved about watching the show for the majority of my life is that you were excited to see what “S.N.L.” had to say about the thing that everyone was talking about. Now there’s fifty-plus opinions, and some of them are done well and some of them are not. All that’s totally changed, and you being younger than me saying it first makes me really happy. Because it sucks! And it’s weird having been on both sides of it. I preferred the other side a lot more, and I wish I could bring everyone with me. Those of us who lived on the other side know and cherish it, and kind of can’t believe we can’t go back.

Do you remember the moments, from when you were first on the show, when what you were putting out there started to get reflected back to you?

“Get out!” was one of them. I was living in New York, and in New York you can be in a Hold Everything store or walking down the street, and people will scream “Get out!” at you, and you have to realize they’re quoting your sketch. It was more in that way, just human contact. And at that time I got to be interviewed in Interview by Donatella. For me, that was it.

I just read that interview! She told you that your jewelry was fake, and she was allergic to fake jewelry.

I appreciated that she was keeping on the persona for the interview, because what it said to me was that she liked the character we created, because she knew it was a drag version of Donatella. She doesn’t really talk like that. And then in those days we had the VH1 Fashion Awards at Radio City, and I got to do it with her. That was my first recurring sketch that made an impact, and those were the moments that felt like the equivalent of “trending.”

Now it’s so immediate. I’ll hear from people right away—and then it’s over very quickly. The momentum is faster and it lasts for less time, I’m realizing in this delicious conversation we’re having, because I love talking about this stuff. I love that I’ve seen the times change. I don’t love that they’ve changed, but I love being able to see all the differences.

Looking back at your early years at “S.N.L.,” I realized that you have been playing some form of Beyoncé for twenty-four years. On your first full season, in 2000, you and Ana Gasteyer played Gemini’s Twin, a parody version of Destiny’s Child. That’s a long time to live with a character who’s also a real person. How have you thought about her along the way, as she’s evolved and you’ve evolved your take on her?

I’m in awe of her. She has evolved as an artist so much over the years. That is probably the reason that I’ve been able to go back to that well of keeping up with somebody who’s getting better over time and constantly changing the game. When I was growing up, it was Madonna. It was always terribly exciting to see what Madonna was going to do next. I grew up with MTV, and MTV was Madonna’s palace. It was the place where she was able to create and constantly change. Her styles were different, the eras were different. It was always so fucking exciting.

Eras! She sort of created the idea of eras in the way that’s ubiquitous now.

Yes. It’s all coming back to Madonna.

So, when “Cowboy Carter” came out, did you listen to it thinking, This might fuel my next iteration of Beyoncé—which it did, in the Mother’s Day episode?

It did, but I did not mean for that. There are two “me”s. I am still a person who loves and listens to Beyoncé, but then at my job I get to play her sometimes. I had no idea that that album was coming in the way that it did. For an artist at her level and at this stage in her career to have a clear conversation about racism in America and her personal experience, I didn’t know that was coming. I was so floored by it. Just musically, it’s quite incredible and extremely different than Beyoncé’s other albums. Where she is now as a vocalist compared with where she started, it’s fucking mind-blowing. None of that’s funny, you know what I mean? That’s why I’m saying I’m two people. I’m still somebody who was raised in music, loves music, cares about good music. Anybody who knows me is so sick of my talking about real artists, people who can really sing, really play instruments. My kids are exhausted by it. But those are the things that move me.

I want to dig into “Cowboy Carter” for a second. Are there certain tracks that are living with you right now?

You want to talk about the whole album? Because I’d be happy to. The first song, “Ameriican Requiem,” lays out for you: Listen, everyone, here’s the story I’m going to tell you. And the story is not pretty. I made this speech at the Time 100 Gala, and the thing that I wanted to say was: She didn’t have to talk about this. She has loyal fans. We know how incredibly gifted she is. And yet she chose to take this moment to say, This is something deeply personal to me. I’m sure it was incredibly cathartic for her, but it’s a shift for the rest of us, for people who don’t feel like they belong, even when they were told that they did. She performed at a country-music awards show—and she was raised in Texas—and people gave her such a hard time. To be at the level she’s at and still feel like people are moving the goalposts really resonated with me. Not to say I had a similar experience. It’s just the experiences that we all live. I’m sure a lot of people scratch their heads about me and my work and why I’m not constantly talking about race, being a mixed person in America, and code-switching and how I speak and how I was raised. People know who my mother was, and she was a Black woman. I mean, I grew up with people saying, You have a Black mom. Why don’t you know how to do your hair? I’ve lived with the spectrum of opinions about who I’m supposed to be. So, for my own version of whatever “Cowboy Carter” is to everyone else, my ears heard something incredibly powerful. I’m so happy that she made this for herself. But I think she’s aware that she’s able to move things for other people.

You want to talk about track listings? O.K.! “Protector” fucked me up. I’m a mother. That song fucked. Me. Up. It’s about seeing the beauty in your children and being a mom. And then “Just for Fun” is such a gorgeous song. There are songs on this album that are just guitar and her layers of beautiful vocals. The trot of a horse is one of the sounds. Her nails, like Dolly used to do, are one of the sounds. What’s the one with Miley Cyrus?

“II Most Wanted.”

That song is fucking gorgeous! She’s one of the best vocalists of all time. Let’s just get realistic for a moment. Prince is dead. Who do we have who can do that with their voices? I get really grumpy about musicians who can’t play music. Like I said, my family is tired of hearing me talk about it, but I’m not going to stop anytime soon. Now, do I love shitty pop? Of course I do. Some songs are great because there’s a great hook. Sometimes songs are great because the persona is great. [Sighs.] We’re talking about “Cowboy Carter,” and I’m having a “BRAT” summer as we speak, so I can go in different directions.

As you said, you grew up in a musical household, but you also spent a couple months out of college on the road with the Rentals. I’m curious to hear what that life was like.

It was so fun. Someone sent me a video the other day. It was an in-store record performance that the Rentals played somewhere. I want to say Michigan. My brother and I used to go on the road all the time with my parents, so that wasn’t lost on me, that that world existed. It was normalized, and yet we knew it was exciting. You know it’s not normal to lose your tooth in Lake Tahoe and wake up with a chip from the casino from the tooth fairy. We’d get to stay in hotels and order French fries.

That just reminded me, there was some bullshit—somebody asked me about being a nepo baby, and I was, like, Are you seriously coming for me? What planet do you have to be on to think that I’m not aware that I was raised in a show-business family? I would have to be brain-dead not to notice that. All the things our families do influence who we are. If my dad had been a lawyer, that would have influenced me. There’s this concept that nepo babies are people who got the job because their dad’s good at something. And I just think, Bitch, have you seen my work?

Also, you succeeded in a career that is not what your parents did.

It’s all in the soup. Whatever I’m doing and whatever my husband is doing are spilling onto my children. It’s just a matter of what they do with that. I don’t remember who said this, but I always think about this when I think about my parents doing music and me doing comedy: square people make round babies. I don’t think that it was necessarily a rebellious act for me to go into comedy. I think it all came from the same place. It was just my version of it. And what I soon realized in doing it is that a lot of it was musical. It’s my first language in a lot of ways.

A lot of your best-known characters from “Saturday Night Live” have a kind of diva flair: Donatella, Oprah, even Kamala Harris. Is that something that you drew from seeing your mother onstage?

Without a doubt. I remember learning, years into my adulthood, that my mother worshipped Mae West. I thought, Wow, that really makes sense. My mother loved a feather boa. I wouldn’t say “diva” is the right word for her, but she had such a rare musical gift, and the way that she existed onstage commanded this awe. She was just the most unique singer I’ve ever seen, so it created this command of the stage, which I witnessed. Along with that, I always noticed what she was wearing. She had these incredible gowns from this amazing place from back in the day called Holly Harp, and flowers in her hair.

Someone sent me footage of me in the audience as a kid, and I hated it. I hated everyone cheering for my mom. Children want their mothers to be their mothers. They don’t belong to anybody else. I noticed that when my kids were little—my daughter didn’t like when I had wigs on at “S.N.L.” It really bothered her. I get that as a kid and as a mother. So it’s funny that I was so inspired by it, because as a kid I fucking hated everybody looking at my mother.

She also had this superpower of singing in the whistle register. I imagine seeing audiences reacting to that was its own special thing.

It’s not something I possess. It’s not something that anybody can just walk around and do. It’s an extraordinary gift. And not just that she could hit the notes but the way it became a part of her and of her performance. They’re really unique songs. It wasn’t typical R. & B., even though that’s what she was known for, because of being a Black woman. It was her own music. That was part of the soup, too, for me. We were raised to really have this deep understanding of being completely ourselves, which is so empowering. And yet it’s really hard to grow up being whatever you aren’t, feeling like you’re supposed to be something and you’re never quite that. My parents definitely braced us for the hard world, or at least the world that they thought we were growing up in. They armed us with this knowledge that you’re never going to be understood as much as by the people who love you and see you. You asked me about the Rentals, didn’t you?

Yeah, let’s hear about that!

Actually, my daughter asked me the other day what it was like, in the exact same words you did. It was such a fun job out of college. I got to live on the road for six months. We opened for Blur and for Alanis Morissette, and we got to spend Thanksgiving with her and play hacky sack with her band and go bowling.

What year was this?

’95, ’96? “Jagged Little Pill” was just becoming huge. Matt Sharp’s label for the Rentals was her label—they were both on Maverick. So that’s how we ended up opening for her for a month.

“Jagged Little Pill” was such a defining moment of nineties music.

It was crazy to witness. Matt had already been in the Rentals, so he understood becoming a big pop star. I got the gig because my girlfriends from high school, Rachel and Petra Haden, were already in a band called That Dog, and they couldn’t go on tour. So Rachel said, “Call my friend Maya.” I was in a band in college, but it was a hobby. These are also people who I grew up singing with in our bedrooms and living rooms. We had this understanding of music as just part of our lives, but we weren’t necessarily taking it seriously. Musicians’ kids always find one another, by the way. That’s just one of those things that we do. I don’t know why.

Anyway, we were the opening band. It was really Matt’s project. I was just hired to go on tour. We did a lot of those Christmas shows, like KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas. I don’t know if they had the Jingle Ball yet. But it was all of these bands at once. It was No Doubt also becoming extremely huge. It was Oasis, which was fascinating to watch, because those brothers did not get along, in case you didn’t see the documentary. It was wild to witness.

What do you remember about that?

I remember fighting. I remember yelling. I think there was a show where Liam didn’t even come onstage at one point. So these larger shows would happen, and I’d get to see all these bands: Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins. I was in my early twenties and just eating it all up. And we went to Europe. I loved being on tour with Blur so much. Oh, it came up because my kids were really into Gorillaz, and I said, “You know, Damon Albarn was in a band called Blur.” And then I started playing them early Blur and dreaming about the early Blur days and all these places in Europe. We slept on a tour bus, which is basically like sleeping in a bunk bed made of coffins, then we’d wake up in another city. But it’s great at that age.

How did you know it was time to leave that life? Or was there a part of you that thought you might do that for good?

It was sort of over. Like I said, I was just hired to tour. I think I’ve always kept the music part of my life alive, but I’ve never pursued it. I love singing as a group sport, but I don’t really sing on my own. And I wanted to come back home to Los Angeles to start doing the Groundlings. I really wanted to pursue sketch comedy, and I had my sights set on “Saturday Night Live.” I didn’t know what that meant or how difficult that would be. At the time, the cast was Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri, Chris Parnell, Chris Kattan, Ana Gasteyer—they were all on the show, and they had all been Groundlings. And the Groundlings was in my back yard. I grew up here, and I’d gotten to see shows when I was younger. So I went straight there. It was one of the only times in my life where I felt, I’ve got this mission.

What were some of your characters there?

Big shocker—some of my characters sang. I think I did a Gwen Stefani improv at one point. A ren-faire thing, where me and my friend Damon sang. We were ren-faire performers who took it very seriously. But I did a lot of different characters. Wigs and wigs and more wigs. I loved the wigs. It’s the one thing we all talk about, fellow-Groundlings—the wigs.

Wigs have been big in your career. I immediately think of the Donatella Versace hair. But I know from your previous interviews that hair has been very central to your journey. Growing up with “superthick and supercurly” hair, as you put it, and having a white dad who didn’t know how to treat it. Do you think those things are connected to your attraction to wigs?

Yes. I remember very clearly as a kid watching Whoopi Goldberg’s one-woman show on HBO. She had a character who would take a T-shirt and put it on her head, and she’d pretend that she had long, flowing hair. I remember thinking, Oh, shit, how does she know that I do that? Because I would do that before I got in the bath—it was such a fun way to pretend you had long, flowing, luxurious hair.

Once the wig became this accessory that could transform the character, I was off to the races, because I could control it. I could be anyone or anything with it, and it allowed for instant gratification. Growing up with thick, curly hair, at least in my experience, you feel incredibly limited. I had the same haircut for many years. You don’t do a lot with it. Saying this today sounds unrealistic, because there are far more tools and products that encourage different curl patterns. But, growing up, we didn’t really have that. We had, like, one brush that yanked. There was no leave-in conditioner. So it was always about making your hair obey and taming it. As I got to college, I noticed that started to shift in popular culture. And so the wigs felt like this thing that could help you achieve the look that you wanted, and that felt like a freedom.

Molly Wells, the billionaire you play in “Loot,” has this extremely straight bob. There’s never a hair out of place. Is that part of how you thought about creating the character?

When we were talking about how she looked, it wasn’t a huge conversation. But I just feel like that sleek, empowered, fuck-you, slightly cunty bob is just perfect. Nobody’s hair just looks like that. It means you’re getting your hair done. Some of the choices that we make for Molly are about life style. She doesn’t have any grays, because she’s getting her hair colored and treated. At one point, we established that she had a salon in the house and people there 24/7, which I would hope, if you have that much money, you’d have that. We make these choices about Molly all the time based on our own lives and what we think billionaires live like, but we’re guessing.

How do you and the writers and creators of the show figure how billionaires live? I imagine you can’t just call up Melinda French Gates and ask her—or can you?

I would love to call her. I don’t have her number. I mean, we’ve been treating the show in the same way I’ve always treated anything in comedy: you get inspired by real stories, but you’re not telling those stories. Something captures your eye in the culture, and you get an idea. But we don’t have a direct line to any of these people to say, Is this true? Are you really doing this?

Do you glean things about the billionaire life style from reading about them?

It’s all game. It’s all fodder. To me, the word “billionaire” equals “fantasy.” It’s this amount of money that sounds make-believe to us, that sounds like you can do anything, go anywhere. But it’s impossible to be unaware of what billionaires are doing in the world. A perfect example is space. Who didn’t hear of billionaires going to space? That’s a perfect encapsulation of “What would you do if you had so much money?” You probably would go to space, I guess?

Right. In Season 2, your ex-husband, played by Adam Scott, builds a rocket and attempts to go to space, sort of to impress his ex-wife but also to one-up her. Why do you think these people are so obsessed with going to space?

It’s very hard to put myself in the mind-set of “What would you do if you had the money?” I would assume I would go to Hawaii, but it’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than owning one of the islands. And the idea of space, just in and of itself, is kind of funny. There’s nothing bigger!

To me, going to space is like going in the submersible to see the Titanic. If you had all the money in the world, why would you want to cram into this tiny machine and go to a place where humans are simply not supposed to go?

I will never go in a submersible. That sounds horrifying. I think it’s that idea of the impossible. That’s got to be titillating to people with that amount of money. Because, let me be clear, that amount of money also equals power. We don’t need to talk about this election, but it’s that shit—it’s money equals power. I won’t talk about it, because if I say his name I will punch through a wall. And he hosted “S.N.L.” when I worked there. [Sighs.] I won’t do it. But it’s power.

Look, I’m sure there are some people, like this character we’ve created, who have become billionaires without the drive for power. But I assume that, unless you woke up a Rockefeller, most people who are looking to have this amount of money are looking to have this amount of power. And power means, “I’m going to space. Humans can’t—I will.” It’s something that I have a very hard time relating to, but I do think it’s what divides the millionaires from the billionaires. But you’re talking about a room of comedy writers. We’re definitely not making a documentary on billionaires, because I don’t think any of us have a fucking clue what that type of life is like.

There’s a great running joke about David Chang always being on call as Molly’s personal chef. I love how that gives you a sense of the scale without having to build a mansion. And I love that people like him and Tony Hawk are game for the cameos on the show.

There’s nothing I love more than people being in on the joke, and David’s a perfect example. There was one day when he was making a dish that I believe is from one of his restaurants—it was, like, a shaved foie gras over some sort of mousse thing. It was incredible. I got to eat maybe one or two bites of it, and they’d refresh it. I didn’t want to stop, because it was so good. But the line was that I would rather have him make me a microwaved burrito, as my comfort food. He knew that was funny. The same for Tony. He’s been around long enough to know how absolutely ludicrous it is to be a personal skateboard trainer to a woman who refuses to get on the board. I hope we have more people that come and play with us in that way. The David Chang bit was born out of that idea of “If you had all the money in the world, what would you do with it?” I’d want David Chang to be my personal chef! At least once, for a party.

But you also have to have the shamelessness to think that you could just snap your fingers and get him.

I always bring up “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” because that show gave me that feeling when I was a kid: Anything is possible! Extravagance! And then it became “MTV Cribs,” and you got to see that Shaq had a custom round bed that fit the length of his body and this amazing pool that looked like the Flintstones lived in Las Vegas. There’s always this kernel of magic that comes with the idea of having billions. One day you’re going to see people walking with llamas, and the next you’re going to see them in Paris, and then someone’s eating a burrito made by David Chang. I love that element for the show, because truly anything can happen.

Molly’s also a very contemporary character. A few years before the show started, MacKenzie Scott divorced Jeff Bezos and became the third-wealthiest woman in the United States. And you have figures like Abigail Disney, who’s become this class traitor saying that billionaires should pay higher taxes. It’s not just “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” from the eighties. There’s a certain kind of woman in the culture right now who is trying to figure out what to do with this ungodly wealth that came through an ex-husband or something.

Right, and not just any woman but a woman going through a divorce. I love the idea of a woman who’s having to rethink her life at my age. I find that element of Molly such a great foundational place to start from. So many women in my life are rethinking their marriages, rethinking their lives. Their children are older, or they didn’t have children, or they worked, or they didn’t work. They’re starting a new life on their own. A woman my age being divorced is a juicy place to start as a character, and being honest and raw about this part of life and the bumps that you didn’t expect. It’s how I’ve experienced life so far: the joy in seeing the funny in things, but also the brutality of the pain and the honesty of life.

When I think about your career, there are, of course, these over-the-top divas like Beyoncé and Donatella, but also characters in “Forever” and “Away We Go,” who are just normal humans. Molly has a bit of both. She’s very grounded and at times very sad, and yet she’s often out of touch and absurd. Is that part of what’s stimulating about the show for you?

Very stimulating. I’ve always been drawn to both. I’m a person who needs to balance the sad with some gut-busting laughter. I have a lot of friends who are very funny people and can’t stop doing bits at home, and probably their spouses want to kill them. I have to leave a lot of that stuff at the office. I’m not Shecky Greene at home. If you ask someone who lives with me, they might disagree. I do think I make a lot of noise. There are a lot of noises that are constantly being emitted from me that I’m unaware of, so that’s probably not so fun to live with. But, yeah, I prefer the balance of the two. It’s the only way to keep myself sane.

That feels like a good note to end on. Thank you for talking with me, Maya.

It was a pleasure. I hope I didn’t talk about “Cowboy Carter” the whole time. This woman is going to think I’m stalking her! I’m really not. And I didn’t even finish talking to you about all the songs I love on that album. Don’t get me started on “Sweet Honey Buckiin’ ”! ♦

Sourse: newyorker.com