Maya Rudolph

Maya Khabira Rudolph (born July 27, 1972) is an American actress, comedian and singer. In 2000, she became a cast member on Saturday Night Live, then played supporting roles in films such as 50 First Dates (2004), A Prairie Home Companion (2006), and Idiocracy (2006).

After leaving Saturday Night Live in 2007, Rudolph appeared in films including Grown Ups (2010), Bridesmaids (2011), Grown Ups 2 (2013), Inherent Vice (2014), Sisters (2015), CHiPs (2017), Life of the Party (2018), and Wine Country (2019). Her voice acting includes the animated films Shrek the Third (2007), Big Hero 6 (2014), The Angry Birds Movie (2016), The Emoji Movie (2017), The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), The Willoughbys (2020), The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021), and Luca (2021).

Rudolph starred as Ava Alexander in the NBC sitcom Up All Night (2011–2012), and co-hosted the variety series Maya & Marty (2016) with Martin Short. She voiced various characters in the Netflix animated sitcom Big Mouth (2017–present), which won her Primetime Emmy Awards in 2020 and 2021, and the Fox animated sitcom Bless the Harts (2019–2021). She appeared in the NBC fantasy comedy series The Good Place (2018–2020), for which she received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. For her portrayal of United States senator and vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. She continued to reprise the role throughout 2020 while Harris campaigned for and was elected vice president.

Early life
Rudolph was born in Gainesville, Florida, to singer-songwriter Minnie Riperton and composer Richard Rudolph. Her mother was African-American and her father is Ashkenazi Jewish. Her paternal grandfather was Sidney Rudolph, 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, changed his surname from "Rudashevsky" to "Rudolph", and was one of the founding members of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative Jewish synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rudolph's godmother was R&B singer Teena Marie.

Rudolph's parents moved to Los Angeles, California, when she and her brother Marc were very young, and they grew up primarily in the Westwood neighborhood. Near the end of the song "Lovin' You", Riperton repeats "Maya". She incorporated this into her performance on The Midnight Special. She died of breast cancer on July 12, 1979, at age 31, two weeks before Maya's seventh birthday. In 1990, Rudolph graduated from Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, where she befriended schoolmates Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black. She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, living in Porter College. She graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in photography.

Television and film
Rudolph was in the improv troupe, the Groundlings, where she met future Saturday Night Live cast member Will Forte. In May 2000, she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live as a featured player from the final three episodes of the 1999–2000 season until 2007. She has made several cameo appearances over the years. Since the 45th-season premiere, she has occasionally portrayed Vice President Kamala Harris, a performance acknowledged by Harris.

She has appeared in many other television shows, including the CBS medical drama series City of Angels and Chicago Hope. She had small parts in Chuck & Buck, Gattaca, As Good as It Gets, Duplex and Duets; she was also a music supervisor for Duets. Her first prominent film role came in 2006 with A Prairie Home Companion. Earlier, she had costarred with Luke Wilson in the 2005 Mike Judge sci-fi comedy Idiocracy, although that film was shelved until September 2006 and then only given a limited release. She also guest-starred as Rapunzel in the DreamWorks animated film Shrek the Third. She guest-starred as Julia in The Simpsons episode "The Homer of Seville". Rudolph guest-starred as character Athena Scooberman in NBC's Kath & Kim, and starred in the film Away We Go with The Office star John Krasinski. In 2010, she appeared in Grown Ups starring Adam Sandler, where she played the wife of Chris Rock's character. In 2011, she appeared in Bridesmaids with Saturday Night Live colleague Kristen Wiig, and in 2013 she played a supporting role in The Way, Way Back as the girlfriend of Sam Rockwell's character. She co-starred in the NBC sitcom Up All Night, with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett. Rudolph's self-titled variety show television pilot aired on May 19, 2014, but the show did not go beyond that. It was later announced that she would star in an NBC variety series Maya & Marty with Martin Short, which debuted on May 31, 2016. Her next series, Forever, premiered on September 14, 2018, on Amazon Video. As a voice actress, she had various roles in the Netflix animated series Big Mouth, premiering in 2017.

In 2018, she performed in advertisements for Ruby Tuesday and Seventh Generation. In 2019 she appeared as the mother in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. In 2021, she voiced Daniela Paguro in the Pixar film Luca. In 2022, Rudolph will portray Malvina Monroe, the antagonist of Disenchanted, the sequel to the 2007 Disney film Enchanted.

Music
Prior to joining Saturday Night Live, Rudolph was a backing singer (1995–99) and briefly a keyboardist in the band the Rentals, with whom she toured briefly. She appears in the music videos of the songs "Waiting" and "Please Let That Be You". She sang backing vocals for "Barcelona" and "My Head Is in the Sun", both from the album Seven More Minutes. In 2004, she recorded a track with the Rentals frontman Matt Sharp, including a cover of Tegan and Sara's "Not Tonight". She performed "Together In Pooping" and "Little Roundworm" with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (Robert Smigel) on his album Come Poop With Me. She is in a Prince cover band called Princess with her friend Gretchen Lieberum.

Personal life
Rudolph has been in a relationship with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, who is her common law spouse, since 2001. They live in the San Fernando Valley with their four children.