Maya Rudolph On Returning As Kamala Harris On ‘SNL’: “Everybody’s Just Ready For It”
Maya Rudolph is returning to Saturday Night Live next season to play Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, something she said “feels so much bigger than me”.
Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Rudolph was asked by guest host RuPaul Charles whether she would be back next season. “Interesting that you brought this up, because no one has asked me,” she joked.
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Deadline revealed in July that Rudolph would return to the long-running NBC show to play Harris. Rudolph cleared her schedule, in particular moving production of season three of Apple comedy series Loot, to allow her to be in New York for the next season of SNL. See clips of her as Harris in the video below.
“I’ve never experienced something like this before in any of the work I’ve done. This has been such a tremendous, exciting time for me that feels so much bigger than me or anything I’ve ever done. I’ve played her on the show already, but the minute it was announced that she was running, I think I was home watching The Bear and it was announced that I’d confirmed doing SNL. I was like, I did what? Everybody’s just ready for it,” she added.
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Rudolph, who was on SNL between 2000 and 2007, said that it was “incredible” that there’s a Presidential candidate that looks like her.
“I would never have believed you if you’d said, ‘Hey one day you’re going to be playing the Presidential candidate’. To think that I had anything to do with this by association is mind-blowing. I spent so many years on SNL watching other people play presidential candidates and thinking there’s no one that resembles me in the race. To think that we’re here now, and to think that I would ever be close by association, is so incredible.”
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