Maya Rudolph

Grigsby was denied financial compensation and freedom granted by the last will and testament of his enslaver, John Warren Grigsby, and challenged the enslaver's grandson in court in the 1830s.

Rudolph's parents moved to Los Angeles, California, when her brother Marc and she were very young, and they grew up primarily in the Westwood neighborhood.

Near the end of the song "Lovin' You", Riperton repeats "Maya".

She incorporated this into her performance on The Midnight Special.

Since the 45th-season premiere, she has occasionally portrayed Vice President Kamala Harris, a performance acknowledged by Harris.

She has appeared in many other television shows, including the CBS medical drama series City of Angels and Chicago Hope.

She had small parts in Chuck & Buck, Gattaca, As Good as It Gets, Duplex, and Duets; she was also a music supervisor for Duets.

Maya Rudolph (born July 27, 1972) is an American actress and comedian.

Born in Gainesville, Florida, and raised in Los Angeles, she is the daughter of singer Minnie Riperton and composer Richard Rudolph.

Rudolph was born on July 27, 1972, in Gainesville, Florida, to singer Minnie Riperton and composer Richard Rudolph.

Her mother was African-American and her father is Jewish.

Her paternal grandfather was Sidney Rudolph, a philanthropist who once owned all of the Wendy's and Rudy's restaurants in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Her great-grandfather was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, changed his surname from "Rudashevsky" to "Rudolph", and was one of the founding members of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative Jewish synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Rudolph's godmother was R&B singer Teena Marie.

On an episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots, Rudolph discovered that her maternal great-great-great grandfather was James Grigsby, who was born enslaved in Lincoln County, Kentucky.

Her mother died of breast cancer on July 12, 1979, at age 31, two weeks before Maya's seventh birthday.

In 1990, Rudolph graduated from Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, where she befriended schoolmates Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black.

She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, living in Porter College.

She graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in photography.

Rudolph was in the improv troupe the Groundlings, where she met future Saturday Night Live cast member Will Forte.

She joined the cast of Saturday Night Live as a featured player for the final three episodes of the 1999–2000 season through 2007.

She has made several cameo appearances over the years.

In 2000, Rudolph became a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL).

During her tenure on the show, she played supporting roles in the films 50 First Dates (2004), A Prairie Home Companion (2006), and Idiocracy (2006).

Earlier, she had costarred with Luke Wilson in the 2005 Mike Judge sci-fi comedy Idiocracy, although that film was shelved until September 2006 and then only given a limited release.

She also guest-starred as Rapunzel in the DreamWorks animated film Shrek the Third.

She guest-starred as Julia in The Simpsons episode "The Homer of Seville".

Rudolph guest-starred as character Athena Scooberman in NBC's Kath & Kim, and starred in the film Away We Go with The Office star John Krasinski.

Her first prominent film role came in 2006 with A Prairie Home Companion.

After leaving SNL in 2007, Rudolph appeared in more films, including Grown Ups (2010) and its 2013 sequel, Bridesmaids (2011), Inherent Vice (2014), Sisters (2015), Life of the Party (2018), and Disenchanted (2022).

As a voice actress, her credits include the animated films Shrek the Third (2007), Big Hero 6 (2014), The Angry Birds Movie (2016), The Emoji Movie (2017), and Luca (2021).

In 2010, she appeared in Grown Ups starring Adam Sandler, where she played the wife of Chris Rock's character.

Rudolph starred in the NBC sitcom Up All Night (2011–2012) and co-hosted the variety show Maya & Marty (2016).

In 2011, she appeared in Bridesmaids with Saturday Night Live colleague Kristen Wiig, and in 2013 she played a supporting role in The Way, Way Back as the girlfriend of Sam Rockwell's character.

She co-starred in the NBC sitcom Up All Night, with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett.

Rudolph's self-titled variety show television pilot aired on May 19, 2014, but the show did not go beyond that.

Since 2017, she has voiced various characters for the animated sitcom Big Mouth, including Connie the Hormone Monstress, which won her three Primetime Emmy Awards.

For her portrayal of politician Kamala Harris on SNL, Rudolph won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

She received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for playing a judge in the comedy series The Good Place (2018–2020).

In 2022, Rudolph began executive producing and starring in the comedy series Loot.