Reflecting on a challenging period in her life, Maya Rudolph delves into her decision to relocate her family.
During an interview with Town & Country for their May cover story, the 51-year-old actress reminisced about the pivotal moment when she opted to move her family from New York City, where she was actively involved in Saturday Night Live, to Los Angeles.
Rudolph, who shares four children — Pearl, 18, Lucille, 14, Jack, 12, and Minnie, 10 — with her director husband Paul Thomas Anderson, recounted the complexities of this transition.
“I thought, ‘This is all going great!'” Rudolph reflected on the early days of motherhood. “I’d always wanted to have kids. I’d always wanted to live in New York. I’d always wanted to be on Saturday Night Live.”
Shortly after welcoming their first child, daughter Pearl, Anderson expressed the desire to relocate the family to Los Angeles.
Rudolph vividly recalled the challenges of commuting between Los Angeles and New York City to fulfill her SNL commitments, occasionally bringing her infant daughter along for the journey.
“This little bald baby, listening to the musical guests warm up. I look back and I can’t believe I did that,” she admitted. “It was crazy. I don’t think I slept for two years.”
In June 2022, Rudolph appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers and shared insights into collaborating with her children on her husband Anderson’s film Licorice Pizza.
“That was actually a magical thing, because COVID happened, lockdown happened and then Paul was told like, ‘Okay, you can shoot now.’ “
She continued, reflecting on the unusual circumstances,
“But my kids were not allowed to go back to school. So we were doing Zoom school and it was a scary time, no one was vaccinated.
And it provided this amazing experience where my kids, their friends, their friends’ parents, my parents, my nanny — we were all in it. We were all around and so we had a little world. Like we were living in the 1970s in San Fernando Valley for like three months. It was beautiful.”
In a 2020 interview with PEOPLE, Rudolph disclosed that her children had already developed a fondness for performing.
“We have a lot of living room shows,” she shared, “but I’m usually told to sit down and watch!”
Describing her children as “natural hams,” Rudolph added,
“They’ll dance to anything.”
