Maya Rudolph

• 1. Introduction

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  Maya Rudolph is an American actress and comedian, and one of the first places her name appears is in a song sung by her mother. Near the end of "Lovin' You", Minnie Riperton repeats the word "Maya". You can hear it in her performance of the song on The Midnight Special. The girl in that song grew up to build a career in front of cameras and microphones. How did she find her way to comedy? And what did she do once she got there?

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• 2. Roots and Loss

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  Gainesville, Florida, is where Maya Khabira Rudolph was born on the 27th of July 1972. Her mother, Minnie Riperton, was a singer, and her father, Richard Rudolph, is a composer. Her mother was African-American and her father is Jewish. Her paternal grandfather, Sidney Rudolph, was a philanthropist who once owned all of the Wendy's and Rudy's restaurants in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Her great-grandfather was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, and changed his surname from Rudashevsky to Rudolph. He was among the founding members of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative Jewish synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her godmother was the R&B singer Teena Marie, who lived from 1956 to 2010.

  On an episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Rudolph learned that James Grigsby was her maternal great-great-great-grandfather. Grigsby was born into slavery in Lincoln County, Kentucky. His owner, John Warren Grigsby, left a will that granted freedom and financial compensation, yet Grigsby was denied both. Even so, in the 1830s he challenged the owner's grandson in court.

  Westwood, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, is where Rudolph grew up primarily. Her parents had moved the family to California while their children were very young. On the 12th of July 1979, Riperton died of breast cancer at the age of 31. Her daughter's seventh birthday was two weeks away.

  In 1990 Rudolph graduated from Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, where she befriended schoolmates Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black. She went on to the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she lived in Porter College. In 1995 she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in photography. Her next four years, though, would belong to a band.

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• 3. Music Before Comedy

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  The band was the Rentals, and from 1995 to 1999 Rudolph sang backing vocals and played keyboards for it. She toured with the group. She also appears in the music videos for the songs "Waiting" and "Please Let That Be You".

  Her drumsticks came even earlier. Rudolph was the original drummer of the band That Dog before she left to attend college. In 2004 she recorded a track with the Rentals frontman Matt Sharp, which included a cover of Tegan and Sara's "Not Tonight".

  Not every recording was solemn. Rudolph performed "Together in Pooping" and "Little Roundworm" with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, played by Robert Smigel, on his album Come Poop With Me. Her love of Prince lives on in a cover band called Princess, which she shares with her friend Gretchen Lieberum.

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• 4. Saturday Night Live

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  Will Forte was a fellow member of the improv troupe the Groundlings when Rudolph met him, before he became a cast member of Saturday Night Live himself. Her own route to the NBC sketch comedy show, often shortened to SNL, began in 2000. She joined as a featured player for the final three episodes of the 1999-2000 season and stayed until 2007. Her cast credits count 143 episodes. Her impersonations included Oprah Winfrey, Christina Aguilera and Donatella Versace.

  The premiere of the show's 45th season brought a new character to her repertoire, Vice President Kamala Harris. Rudolph has portrayed her only occasionally, and Harris acknowledged the performance. After Harris became the presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, Rudolph agreed to play her on SNL through the 2024 election. To make room, pre-production on the third season of her show Loot was postponed. For this portrayal, Rudolph won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

  She has made several cameo appearances over the years. She has also returned as host on three occasions, in 2012-2021 and 2024.

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• 5. Film Roles

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  In 1997 Rudolph had small parts in two films, playing a delivery nurse in Gattaca and a policewoman in As Good as It Gets. Chuck & Buck and Duets followed in 2000, and she served as music supervisor on Duets. Duplex arrived in 2003 and 50 First Dates in 2004.

  A Prairie Home Companion, in 2006, brought her first prominent film role. That same year she co-starred with Luke Wilson in Idiocracy, a sci-fi comedy from Mike Judge. The film received only a limited release.

  Away We Go, in 2009, paired her with John Krasinski, the star of The Office. A year later, in Grown Ups, she played the wife of Chris Rock's character in a film starring Adam Sandler. She returned for the 2013 sequel Grown Ups 2.

  Bridesmaids, in 2011, put her alongside her Saturday Night Live colleague Kristen Wiig. In 2013 she played the girlfriend of Sam Rockwell's character in The Way, Way Back.

  Paul Thomas Anderson's 2014 crime comedy-drama Inherent Vice also cast her. In the 2015 comedy Sisters, she reunited with former SNL colleagues Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. In 2018 she played Christine, the best friend of Melissa McCarthy's character, in Life of the Party. In 2022 she played Malvina Monroe, the main antagonist of Disenchanted, the sequel to the 2007 Disney film Enchanted.

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• 6. Voice Work

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  In the 2007 DreamWorks film Shrek the Third, Rudolph guest-starred as Rapunzel. She also voiced Julia in the Simpsons episode "The Homer of Seville".

  In 2013 she voiced Burn in the DreamWorks Animation film Turbo. A year later she voiced Precious in The Nut Job, a role she repeated in the 2017 sequel The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature. In 2014 she also voiced Aunt Cass in Disney's Big Hero 6. Aunt Cass returned in 31 episodes of Big Hero 6: The Series, which ran from 2017 to 2021, and in the 2022 Disney+ miniseries Baymax!

  Matilda in The Angry Birds Movie of 2016 and its 2019 sequel was another of her roles. In 2017 she voiced Smiler in The Emoji Movie, and in 2019 she played the mother in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. In 2021 she voiced Linda Mitchell, a mother of two, in Sony Pictures' The Mitchells vs. the Machines. That same year she voiced Daniela Paguro in the Pixar film Luca.

  Big Mouth, the Netflix animated series that premiered in 2017 and ran through 2025, gave her the most room. Rudolph voiced various characters across 81 episodes, including Connie the Hormone Monstress. That work won her four Primetime Emmy Awards.

  She even stepped into a galaxy far away. In 2019 she voiced ZO-E3 in the video game series Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series.

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• 7. Television and Production

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  Ava Alexander was the character Rudolph played in Up All Night, the NBC sitcom in which she co-starred from 2011 to 2012 with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett. The show ran for 35 episodes. A self-titled variety pilot aired on the 19th of May 2014, but the show did not go beyond that.

  Maya & Marty, an NBC variety series with Martin Short, debuted on the 31st of May 2016. Rudolph was also a writer and producer on it. Her next series, Forever, premiered on the 14th of September 2018 on Amazon Video. She played June Hoffman and served as an executive producer. That same year she performed in advertisements for Ruby Tuesday and Seventh Generation.

  From 2018 to 2020 Rudolph played a judge in The Good Place. The role earned her three Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

  In July 2022 Rudolph began starring in Loot, an Apple TV+ series in which she plays Molly Novak and also serves as an executive producer. From 2021 to 2023 she hosted Baking It for 12 episodes, again as an executive producer.

  Animal Pictures, her production company with Natasha Lyonne, has produced Russian Doll, Poker Face, Loot and The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy. As of the 3rd of October 2023, Rudolph reportedly separated amicably from the company to produce independently. Later in 2023 it was announced that she would become the spokesperson for M&M's, after owner Mars Inc. supposedly pulled its Spokescandies in light of criticism for its depictions of gender.

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• 8. Stage and Recognition

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  Largo at the Coronet hosted an untitled Paul Thomas Anderson stage play in 2008, in which Rudolph played various roles. In 2024, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

  Rudolph is in a relationship with the filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, although they are not married. They have four children together.

  In April 2026 she made her Broadway debut at the Lyceum Theatre. She took over the role of Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary! for a ten-week engagement. The same year her credits also include the documentary Lorne, in which she appears as herself, and a Muppet Show television special.

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