1/22/2024 0 Comments Maya rudolph body![]() ![]() You’re either good at them or you’re not.” “They’re both things that, when they’re done well, they can’t really be taught. “They’re kind of the same language, weirdly,” she explains. ![]() “It wasn’t tangible to really understand what it was, but some magical quality.” She quickly came to revere this indescribable connection between music and comedy, the two defining creative forces of her life. “And then I’d see something funny, like a movie or a comedian, and think that I want to be like that, too,” she adds. As she watched musicians crush their sets with wit and flair, she’d long to do the same. She grew up with a keen eye for what makes performers great, not least because she spent her early childhood watching her mother, the singer Minnie Riperton, dazzle crowds on tour. (More than anything else with “Bridesmaids,” Rudolph remembers laughing.) “Knowing what was coming and everyone having to hide it, constantly being sprayed down with everyone in different stages of duress…it was just a really fun slow burn,” she recalls with a laugh. While her infamous “ shitting in the street” moment was mostly just stressful - you try sliding to your knees in a wedding gown across a full lane of traffic - she fondly remembers the setup of everyone sweating through food poisoning before all hell breaks loose. Then again, Rudolph’s also partial to less glamorous comedic turns, like so many of the scenes in “Bridesmaids” that made the movie such a standout 10(!) years ago. “Whether I realized it or not, I was watching these women that I wanted to be, who were gorgeous and funny - which to me is the ultimate combination of perfection,” she says. Rudolph didn’t have to know exactly what Kahn was imitating to know that she was always, as Rudolph puts it, “the beautiful woman doing something hilarious.” Later, as she became more aware of comedians like Catherine O’Hara, Gilda Radner and Jan Hooks, she realized this niche of comedian was her ideal. Growing up with Mel Brooks films as a household staple, Rudolph would watch in awe as Kahn outshone everyone else as an impetuous empress, a jaded madam, a film noir heroine climbing out of a pristine Cadillac in a matching jumpsuit. Take Rudolph’s comedic idol Madeleine Kahn, a forcefully funny woman whose impeccable glamor came arm-in-arm with her ability to make every line a standout. And while her flowered smock isn’t exactly the crisp white button-down for which Stritch became famous, Rudolph draws inspiration from brassy broads like her who insisted on being themselves, expectations be damned. Her distinctive voice turned down from 11, she blinks into the Zoom camera through clear-rimmed glasses, her dog Daisy curled in her lap. I’m just going to become Elaine Stritch and wear a shirt.”Įven over Zoom, Rudolph already seems perfectly content with this ethos. My thighs haven’t seen pant legs in a year. “And I no longer have a waist, so there’s that. ![]() “Heels and I were already on the outs, but now we’ve gone our separate ways, which is fine by me,” Rudolph laughs. On a smaller, more immediate level, that just might mean wearing whatever the hell she wants. On a macro level, that might mean taking on fewer projects even if she loves everyone involved in them. “Something that I feel has been a big awakening for me as I look at work is what makes me happy, what makes me unhappy, and how do I establish those boundaries?” she explains. Speaking from her home in Los Angeles a week after hosting “SNL” for the second time, Rudolph is contemplative about this potential turning point in her life and career. ![]()
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