The daughter of glass-breaking soul songstress Minnie Riperton, Maya Rudolph began her career following in her mother's musical footsteps. After college Maya played with alterna-pop group The Rentals but soon left the group to join the California comedy-training group The Groundlings. The Florida filly landed her first role as a delivery nurse in the movie Gattaca (1997). A throwaway role in As Good As It Gets (1997) followed, then Maya's musical talents were put to good use as music supervisor on the karaoke-kamikaze flick Duets (2000), starring childhood pal Gwyneth Paltrow. That year also saw Maya latch on with Saturday Night Live, where her multi-dimensional talents really flourished as she did hysterical impressions of Beyoncé, Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, and other eclectic entertainers. Maya parlayed her status as a celebrated sketch savant into parts on SNL-alum-led comedies 50 First Dates (2004) and Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004) and a supporting role in Mike Judge's Idiocracy (2006), a dystopian dick-flick into which Maya injected Fallopian firepower. The burgeoning star left SNL in 2007, freeing up space for roles in Shrek the Third (2007), MacGruber (2010), and Grown Ups (2010). The biggest of all her breaks came in 2011, when a modestly-budgeted movie called Bridesmaids premiered to clitical acclaim and "box" office success and turned its six leading ladies, among which Maya, Kristen Wiig, and Melissa McCarthy could be counted, into superstars. Since then, Maya has made us laugh, dance, and swoon in everything from SNL guest appearances to The Emoji Movie (2017) to the NBC fantasy series The Good Place. We hope to see more of her in the future--wink wink.
