Maya Rudolph is thinking back on her upbringing in the entertainment business when the public learned about her mother's identity.
The 51-year-old Bridesmaids actress spoke with Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast on Monday, April 22, about her mother, the late singer-songwriter Minnie Riperton, who is best remembered for her 1974 hit song "Lovin' You," and her father, American songwriter and musician Richard Rudolph, who was 77 years old.
The actress acknowledges in the interview with Shepard, 49, that having well-known parents was not always a benefit as people may believe.
“They were musicians,” she said. “They weren't actors.”
“My trajectory was, I wanted to go to New York, and I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live,” Rudolph explained.
She added, “I understand that drive to be somewhere else — forage in a new city and create my own path. But that’s a huge undertaking. I wasn’t like, ‘Oh my dad writes songs, that’s gonna make me a comedian.' There was no direct line. I knew I had to get there myself.”
Rudolph thought about her mother's celebrity at that point, though she wasn't positive how many of her contemporaries were aware of her accomplishments.
“It's interesting because my mom was a singer that not all my friends were that aware of at the time,” she said.
Many, according to Rudolph, didn't realise the connection until years later.
“Everybody that knows who I am now knows that's my mom. But growing up, I didn't feel like she was a household name. I felt like she was special, yeah,” she added as Shepard agreed.