Maya Rudolph is not Oprah Winfrey.
Maya Rudolph is not playing Oprah Winfrey on her new sitcom. Maya Rudolph is not playing a thinly veiled Oprah-ish character on her new sitcom. I know this because I asked Maya Rudolph, and Maya Rudolph said she wasn’t doing any of that. Sure, she plays a daytime talk show host on “Up All Night,” one of the few breakout hits of the new TV season, a Wednesday night success for NBC that also features Christina Applegate and Will Arnett.
Yes, Rudolph’s character is an egomaniacal workaholic, taken with self-improvement trends and prone to booming announcements. Yes, the character’s name, “Ava,” sounds vaguely reminiscent of “Oprah.” Yes, Rudolph played a memorable Oprah on “Saturday Night Live,” and it’s understandable why she has spent a great deal of the fall explaining to media that she is not playing Oprah on “Up All Night.” (Yes, she even told AOL: “It’s hard not to sneak traces of it in where you get a chance.”)
And yes, I believe that Maya Rudolph believes she is not playing Oprah.
But come on, she totally is.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s because this is Chicago, and for so long everyone woke up to the sun and the Oprah, or because Harpo Studios is still on the Near West Side, playing host to Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show. Every new aspirational touchy-feely hour of afternoon talk, real or fictional, will forever remind us of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” But I find it impossible to watch Maya’s Ava, who lords over a soothing, flatly lit set (albeit in Los Angeles) and implores her fans to “keep on watching and growing,” without seeing Oprah.
In fact, I was so certain that Rudolph was doing a gentle satirical riff on Oprah that I contacted NBC and explained that I would like to talk to Rudolph about her character and “playing someone, at least loosely, reminiscent of Oprah.”
Later, Emily Spivey, the former “SNL” writer who created “Up All Night” (and the character of Ava), explained in a phone interview: “It’s definitely an amalgamation of those types of (talk show) personalities, and Oprah is just the most well-known. That’s where the comparisons are coming from, I suppose. We wanted Ava to be her own thing, but, yes, sure, it is fair to say she is Oprah-esque. After all, there exists a certain kind of grandiose personality who can sustain having a talk show named after them.”
But then there’s Rudolph herself, who so firmly denied any Oprah similarities that you have to wonder: Is it possible to lightly satirize someone without meaning to? The following is an edited version of our conversation.
Q: Can you describe your character? Because it seems very reminiscent of Oprah.
A: She’s somebody who had a career in something else, and she got a new life, and now she’s this fledgling daytime talk show host with enormous aspirations. Without a doubt, she wants to be as big as Oprah, although, let’s be honest, if you’re going into daytime talk, everybody wants to be as big and influential as Oprah. A lot of people throw those aspirations around. But you don’t necessarily get there just because it’s the goal. You either are that kind of person or you aren’t. We made (Ava) more of a character. She is a little bit oblivious to the outside world. She thinks she’s helping people, but I don’t know if she’s helped anybody.
Q: So you see her existing on the same plane of existence as Oprah, in the same talk show world?
A: No. I hope you didn’t get that (from my answer). Maybe you misunderstood me — completely, actually. I’ll start over. I thought I was being clear. She has aspirations to be that. But I don’t think many people could be that. I don’t see her on the same plane. She is someone more self-consumed. Someone who is trying a new career path. She had one pop hit in the ’90s, and she is not Oprah at all. She has a long way to go. … I didn’t create the character. Emily Spivey, who created the show, created the character. The original concept was the character was in a workplace. It was a public relations firm and I, personally, didn’t have a lot of connections to the public relations world, and Emily was worried it was a little more inside and wouldn’t connect with people. But when we found out the pilot was greenlit, Lorne (Michaels, executive producer) said, “She’s going to do daytime talk,” and I said OK. No one asked me, but they knew me well enough and had worked with me on “Saturday Night Live” and knew it was something that I would have a lot of fun doing.
Q: Do you see yourself drawing from your Oprah impression from “SNL”?
A: No.
Q: Not even as a jumping off —
A: No. I think everybody wants me to say yes, but she is a made-up character.
Q: Sure, but even the font for Ava’s show is reminiscent of Oprah’s cursive font.
A: Listen, maybe I’m the wrong person to interview about this. I’m getting the impression that you want to do an article on my character being like Oprah. I don’t have anything to do with the font they use on the show. But everybody always asks me if I’m doing Oprah, and I’m not. I did Oprah on “SNL.” I have yet to see the similarities between my character and Oprah. But people want a story, so they want to hear me saying, “I’m doing (Oprah).” I think that my character, she has appropriated that kind of on-air personality and what she believes to be a strong listening ear. Like Oprah. Like any other daytime talk show host aspiring to be like Oprah. She is probably mimicking her, the way that (Ava’s) show is such an aspiration show. But do I think our character is there yet? Absolutely not. She doesn’t book big-time personalities. Her show is still in a fledgling state. She still has animal experts come on and put parrots on her head. She believes her show is at a stage where she is helping women live their best possible lives. But you have to understand, for me, personally, Oprah paved the way, and like anything successful there will be a million copycats because everybody sees (Oprah) as the template of success in daytime talk. But our character has a long way to go.
Q: Did you watch any daytime talk as research?
A: No. I don’t have any time to watch daytime talk as research. I haven’t modeled her after Oprah! But one of the things you do on “SNL,” when you’re trying to create something that’s part of popular culture, you appropriate, give it common language. Which is why you probably feel the logo looks like the Oprah logo. It gives people a connection to (the type of character) we are creating and a place for them to feel a familiarity.
Q: Is Ava rich?
A: Rich? In terms of money? Not necessarily. She has her own show, so she is doing well, but I don’t associate her with a rich persona. She wants to be more successful, though.
Q: There’s a line in one episode: “I told him, turn this helicopter around.” That sounds rich.
A: That was from the pilot (episode). (Ava) was dating rich bachelors. I don’t think she owns a helicopter.
Q: Where do you want to see the character go?
A: I want to see her do well and book great guests. But she has a long way to go in her personal life. She has been a workaholic and doesn’t have much personal life or depth at the moment. I’m sure we could give her depth, though it is fun to play the naivete that comes with people who don’t have a lot of depth.
Q: Sorry to confuse you at the beginning of this interview.
A: You didn’t confuse me. I think you were confused. I wasn’t confused. It just worries me that you made an effort to make clear that you heard something else. And it worries me this article is going to be —
Q: What I was asking, and maybe I put it badly, was did you see Ava as existing in the same world as Oprah? I don’t mean on the same level of success. But does Ava’s show take place in the same world as Oprah’s?
A: I think that Ava would think that because she is slightly delusional, but you would have to be in order to consider yourself capable of that high level of success. I think it’s going to take some time for the world to think that of her. But (Ava) has a good enough heart, and I think she can prove herself, but she needs time.