Maya Rudolph - Feature Forecast Actress

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Maya Rudolph

"I don't look my best when I wake up! But I do feel beautiful when I'm tired and happy and I've had a good laugh and a glass of champagne."

Date of Birth: July 27, 1972

Birthplace: Gainesville, Florida

Maya Rudolph has been one of Saturday Night Live's most recognizable stars for the past six seasons thanks to her hilariously off-kilter impersonations of Donatella Versace, Christina Aguilera, Condoleezza Rice, and many more. Before arriving on the show she showed off her bedside manner as a nurse on Chicago Hope and City of Angels.

Unlike many of her sketch comedy peers, Maya Rudolph creates characters with genuine depth. "The characters that I write on the show are not totally together people," she explains. "I've got a girl who is 14 and lovelorn and will never have the boy that she's obsessed with. To me that's very real and very honest. I understand the sadness, but it's so pathetic that you just have to laugh."

Maya Rudolph was born July 27, 1972, in Gainesville, Florida. The daughter of music producer Dick Rudolph and beloved soul singer Minnie Riperton, she clearly has showbiz in her blood.

Maya recalls being transfixed by her mother and her remarkable talents early on. "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," she says. "She was such a diva in the most exquisite sense. 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."

As Minnie's career began to take off, she and Dick packed up the family and moved to California when Maya was just a year old. The move proved to be fortuitous as Minnie soon recorded "Lovin' You," a sweetly sentimental song that climbed to the top of the charts in 1975.

Just when it seemed as though her life couldn't possibly be better, Minnie was tragically diagnosed with breast cancer. The news came as a blow not only to her family, but also to her legions of dedicated fans. Despite a brave struggle, Minnie succomed to the disease three years later on July 12, 1979, leaving behind her husband and two young children.

For Maya, the ensuing years became a struggle to simply fit in. "My mom was black and my dad is Jewish, and I lost my mom when I was 7," she recalls. "That made me feel really different from other kids."

Fortunately, her own musical talent, as well as her quirky sensability, soon endeared her to her peers. In fact, one of her best friends while growing up was Gwyneth Paltrow. The two girls attended St. Augustine by the Sea School together and continue to be close to this day.

Following high school, Maya enrolled at the University of California at Santa Cruz where she majored in Photography. When not stuck in a dark room, she played synthesizer and cranked out tunes with Super Sauce, an energetic nine-piece funk band she created with some of her fellow friends and classmates. Maya continued to play with the group until her graduation in 1995, when she joined a Weezer spinoff project called The Rentals. With Maya on keypboard and vocals, The Rentals relased the album Seven More Minutes and toured around the world opening for The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Garbage and Alanis Morissette.

When the band eventually went on hiatus Maya chose to put down her synthesizer and branch out into acting. In 1997, she appeared in six episodes of Chicago Hope as Nurse Leah Martine. At the risk of being typecast, she donned her scrubs yet again for a role as a delivery nurse in the Uma Thurman drama, Gattaca (1997) and she appeared as a policewoman in the Jack Nicholson comedy, As Good as It Gets (1997). Additional roles followed in the 1999 drama A Glance Away, as well as a role in an episode of the TV show Action.

Not wanting to get lost in a lifetime of bit parts, Maya chose to join L.A.'s famous The Groundlings improv troupe -- a launching pad for Saturday Night Live cast members such as Laraine Newman, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, and Chris Kattan. It proved to be a wise move. Her increased exposure led to a supporting role in 2000's Chuck&Buck, as well as a recurring role as Nurse Grace Patterson in the short-lived television series City of Angels.

She was also reunited with her childhood friend Gwyneth Paltrow later that year in the karaoke comedy, Duets. In addition to playing a hostess in the film, Maya and her father Dick also served as the movie's music supervisors.

As exciting as 2000 may have been, Maya's high point came later that year when Saturday Night Live producer Steve Higgins saw Maya perform with The Groundlings and invited her to New York for a formal interview. Maya dazzled SNL's staff and producers and was immediately invited to join the cast as a featured performer.

Maya recalls it as being a whirlwind experience. "When they told me I got the show, I had two weeks to move to the East Coast," she says. "It was all so last-minute. But it was the best way to go, because I didn't have time to think about it. And I'm glad it happened that way, because I can't imagine a better fit. It's a really natural evolution of this thing I was creating in my head as a kid, growing up feeling like such a freak and that I didn't belong anywhere. It came at the right time and it just feels right."

Indeed, it didn't take long for Maya to find a niche. Soon after joining the show in May, 2000, she won over fans with her spot-on impersonations of celebrities such as Donatella Versace, Christina Aguilera, Oprah Winfrey, and many more.

maya rudolph becomes a mom

Since joining the cast of SNL, Maya has also appeared in a number of big-budget films including 2003's Duplex, starring Ben Stiller, and 2004's 50 First Dates, starring Adam Sandler.

Despite her increased screen time, Maya's most exciting new role has been that of mother. The Gainesville native and her boyfriend Paul Thomas Anderson gave birth to a daughter named Pearl on October 15, 2005.

In addition to her work on SNL, Maya has been cast in the 2006 Robert Altman comedy, A Prairie Home Companion and Mike Judge's Idiocracy (2006).

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