Maya Rudolph says she wouldn’t want to star on “Saturday Night Live” these days because “there’s so much criticism.”
The “SNL” alum departed the popular show in 2007, just as smartphones became ubiquitous and social media reactions became immediate. In an Apple Music interview Wednesday with Zane Lowe, Rudolph said the prominence of social platforms would genuinely stifle her process.
“I feel like people want to take a sound bite and create problems, and that’s become a business,” she told Lowe. “It’s so ugly, and it’s so not at all my life. It has nothing to do with me. So it just makes you shy away from wanting to put yourself out there.”
“I don’t think I would be creating the things I created on ‘Saturday Night Live’ if I worked there today,” added Rudolph. “It’s scrutiny.’”
Rudolph joined “SNL” in 2000, opposite talents like Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan, and Tina Fey. While she has fond memories — and returns Saturday for her third stint as host — Rudolph thinks the internet has robbed modern casts of the freedom she once had.
“People didn’t have access to the show in the way that they do now when I was on it,” she told Lowe. “People weren’t watching it from their phones the next day in just one sketch instead of watching the entire show. You would watch it in its entirety.”
“I stay away from [the internet],” Rudolph added. “I don’t really want to participate in that game because it’s not my reality. And it’s like that saying of ‘What you think of me is not my business.’ It’s great, and it’s really hard to remind yourself of, but it’s true.”
Rudolph added that “sometimes things tank” and argued that it’s probably hard for current cast members on the long-running comedy series to learn from that, as failed sketches are now immediately scrutinized online — rather than celebrated as admirable missteps by the live audience and actors.
“Oh, it’s horrifying when it’s not working, but it makes you laugh really hard, and I think sometimes it makes it a little bit funnier,” she told Lowe. “It’s absolutely brutal.”