Former Saturday Night Live cast member Maya Rudolph stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, where guest host RuPaul asked her about the upcoming season of SNL.
After it became clear in July that Kamala Harris would be the new Democratic nominee, NBC soon announced that Rudolph would be returning to SNL to reprise her impression of Harris, which she first debuted back in fall 2019.
“I have to tell you something. I have never experienced anything like this before in any of the work I’ve ever done,” Rudolph said. “This has been such a tremendous, exciting time for me. That feels so much bigger than me.”
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Rudolph joked that she was taken by surprise by the news that she was returning to SNL, saying, “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 confirmed doing SNL. And I was like, ‘I did what?’”
Rudolph is particularly excited to play Harris this year because, unlikely many of her SNL co-stars, she believed that she never had much hope of getting to one day play the Democratic presidential candidate of the United States.
“I would never have believed you if you had said, ‘Hey, one day you’re going to be playing the presidential candidate,” Rudolph explained. “For me to think that I have anything to do with this by association is mind-blowing.”
Rudolph continued, “I spent so many years on SNL, you know, watching other people play presidential candidates and thinking, you know, 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.”
