Maya Rudolph, LGBTQIA+ icon, says starring in projects with a limp-wrist nature is her “happy place”.
The Emmy Award-winning comedian currently stars in Apple TV+’s acclaimed comedy series Loot – which recently premiered its sophomore season – as Molly Wells, who becomes the world’s third-wealthiest woman after divorcing her tech billionaire ex-husband (Adam Scott).
Loot has been lauded for Rudolph’s performance and camp storylines, as well as the inclusive casting of queer icons such as Fire Island star and writer Joel Kim Booster and Pose lead Michaela Jaé Rodriguez.
In a recent interview with GAY TIMES, Rudolph says that telling camp and queer stories is when she feels most comfortable: “I’m always in there. I’m always rooting around in there. It’s my happy place. It’s where I belong.
“I was lucky enough to have a hand in selecting some of the people on the show, so maybe it’s more a reflection of what I like and the world that I like to see on camera.”
Booster, who plays Molly’s loyal assistant Nicholas, praises Rudolph for her work on the iconic SNL sketch Gays in Space, which focused on a gay spaceship and their intergalactic adventures. Rudolph memorably sang the theme song. (Booster even paid homage to the skit in Fire Island.)
“The woman started Gays in Space, so you can’t deny that a lot of her work on SNL, especially for me watching it as a young gay boy, felt very much for me,” says Booster, to which Rudolph responds: “It was a love letter to young Joel Kim Booster!”
Season two of Loot dives deeper into Nicholas’ backstory, with the third episode introducing his conservative parents. The episode hilariously opens with Molly and Nicholas reading lines for his raunchy play Vengeance Falls, which leads to Molly inviting his parents to opening night – without his knowledge. Of course, shenanigans ensue.
“It’s always nice to get a little more depth, I think,” says Booster. “Season one was a lot of fun for me, creating this very cold and absurd character. Being able to see why he is the way he is a little bit was really fun for me.”
Matt Hubbard and Alan Yang, Loot creators, brought Booster into the creative process by asking him whether he would like Nicholas’ parents to be Asian or – to reflect the star’s adopted upbringing – Caucasian.
“The ability to show that, with it being incidental and not a ‘part of the story’ necessarily, was really nice for me and important to normalise it, basically, [for] families that look like mine,” he explains.
Loot also stars Rodriguez as Sofia, the director of Molly’s foundation, Ron Funches as Howard, Molly’s cousin and the foundation’s IT specialist, and Nat Faxon as Arthur, the foundation’s accountant (and Molly’s will-they-won’t-they? love interest).
Rodriguez tells GAY TIMES that it’s “fun” to play a comedic character, as opposed to more dramatic roles such as her trailblazing performance as Blanca Evangelista on Pose, for which she made history as the first trans actor to win a Golden Globe, and Nicolette on American Horror Story: Delicate.
She praises Loot as a show that is “encompassed in light and happiness”: “There are really strong topics that we tackle on the show itself, but we do it through light and comedy. It helps me mentally.”
Pose memorably focused on the African-American and Latino trans communities in the 1980s and 90s, and reflected the harsh realities the trans community had (and continue) to face, from discrimination to violence.
As a trans woman, some of the storylines were difficult for Rodriguez’s mental health. She explains: “You’re playing a trans person and you’re also a trans person, so there’s a lot of things that I had to deal with that I don’t have to deal with when it comes to Sofia.
“I can really change it up and be a total different character and play her up when I need to.”
Loot is now available to stream worldwide on Apple TV+.
You can watch our full interview with Maya Rudolph, Joel Kim Booster, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and Nat Faxon here or below.
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