Maya Rudolph recently opened up to her colleague, Garrett Morris, about her terrifying first experiences with SNL and the show’s big wig, Lorne Michaels.
Maya Rudolph has long been a favorite face on the show, but she hasn’t always been so at ease with the way things work at the show.
Recently, as the show’s 40th anniversary approached, Maya Rudolph recalled her first interview with Lorne Michaels.
Maya Rudolph said, “I had a really stupid, strange experience. I got really sh**ty advice: ‘Oh, don’t audition this year, there’s some contractual thing, and it’ll be blah, blah, blah.’ I was performing down the street here in L.A., doing improv at The Groundlings. … I sent in a tape.”
When the big interview came for Maya Rudolph, she seemed to choke in every way humanly possible.
Maya Rudolph continued with the tale, “Then I came out to meet with Lorne and I had a terrible interview. I ate some popcorn in his office and gagged because there was no water. He asked, ‘Why do you think you should be on the show?’ And I said, ‘Because I like to wear bangs.’ It was terrible.”
After that disastrous first meeting, Maya Rudolph just knew she had blown it and she prepared herself for disappointment.
She said, “And I remember walking down the street thinking, ‘I’m never going to be able to enter that building again.’ Then they did this amazing thing. They said, ‘We’re gonna have you come for the last three shows of the season.’ They were basically testing me on air. That I can do! So they threw me in.”
Her first experiences working with the cast went about as smoothly as her first interview for SNL. It was a confusing, turbulent time for poor Maya Rudolph.
She said, “It felt like starting school and everybody knew where they sat in the cafeteria. Like everyone knew each other and the girls heard I was coming. No one was happy to see me. I got there on a writing night on a Tuesday and I said, ‘What do we do all night?’ And Chris Parnell said, ‘We write.’ And I said, ‘Till when?’ He goes, ‘Seven, eight in the morning.’ And I remember all the doors closed and I was like, ‘What the f*** do I do?’ And you just do it. It was terrifying.”
What an amazing and hilarious account of Maya Rudolph’s first disastrous interview for SNL!
What do you think about her stint on SNL. Was she one of your favorites?
