American actress and comedian Maya Rudolph, known for her characters and impressions on Saturday Night Live (SNL).
Born in 1972, Maya is the youngest child of singer Minnie Riperton and record producer Richard Rudolph. Little Maya spent her childhood surrounded by artists. “When I was a little girl, I would stand on the side of the stage and watch my mom singing out there in beautiful gowns.… I always had the idea of wanting to be on a stage, in these beautiful gowns, with a microphone in my hand, and that comes from my mom.” Rudolph once said
When Maya was almost seven, her mother died of breast cancer. Shortly after, Maya decided that what she wished while watching her mother sing should come true, and began singing and appearing in local theaters.
After high school, she formed the band Super Sauce, then she went on to play keyboards for The Rentals, a Weezer spin-off band, in the mid-1990s, and later co-founded a Prince cover band, Princess.
After singing, Maya joined the Groundlings, an improv and sketch comedy troupe based in Los Angeles, and in 2000 she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live after a Saturday Night Live producer saw her performing with the Groundlings.
Joining the cast didn’t stop Maya’s work on the big screen, she took many roles in films, such as Chuck and Buck, Duets and 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler.
During her time on Saturday Night Live, Maya took a short maternity leave, on which she once commented, “So I just kind of went along and I didn’t really know how I would feel once I had her. So I took some maternity leave, it was only like three and a half months, and I only came back that early because Steve Martin was hosting and Prince was the musical guest. And so I flew across country and came back. That is truly why I broke my maternity leave….
Maya has four children with her partner director Paul Thomas Anderson.
This year, Maya Rudolph made her Broadway debut in the comedy Oh, Mary!. “Oh, Mary! is the funniest play I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of plays, you’d be surprised. It’s such an honor to play the role of Mary, especially after so many iconic Marys have come before me,” she said.
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