Maya Rudolph Slays as Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris on SNL
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris just became the most powerful woman in the country’s history-which means it was Maya Rudolph’s time to shine on SNL.
While Jim Carrey took the stage as President-elect Joe Biden, Rudolph appeared in a cream suit that the Vice President-elect wore only three hours before. The Emmy-winner, who won an award for portraying Harris last year, started off her speech powerfully, saying, “I am humbled and honored to be the first female [applause], yes [wild applause], the first Black [applause], the first Indian-American [applause] and the first biracial vice president [applause]. And if any of that terrifies you, well, I don’t give a font.”
To close out the segment, Carrey and Rudolph did a victory dance before the show segued to Alec Baldwin as President Trump, who sang “Macho Man” at the piano.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory speeches. pic.twitter.com/DRnMCeoqlh
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) November 8, 2020
In terms of getting Rudolph’s costume so quickly, it was no easy task. “Every store in the city had been closed for hours,” costume designer Tom Broecker told PopSugar in an interview on Monday, so he and his team, including wardrobe supervisor Dale Richards, had to put the look together from SNL’s costume closet. They dug out a box of cream charmeuse fabric to make Harris’s silk “pussy bow” blouse from scratch. There was also a cream double-breasted suit from when actress Cecily Strong played Melania Trump in a sketch a year earlier, though she never actually wore it. It wasn’t by Carolina Herrera, but SNL’s master tailors got to work, refitting the suit on Rudolph’s mannequin form. In just 80 minutes, she was ready to take the stage in a perfect dupe.
the devil works hard but the SNL costumes department works harder pic.twitter.com/lFd1eV7Z41
— m ★ (@shadisonmively) November 8, 2020
“It would require an incredible amount of work to recut a double-breasted suit into a single-breasted suit, but I work with the most incredible tailors in the world,” Broecker told PopSugar adding, “nowhere else in the world could this happen.” The only difference was that Rudolph wore Jimmy Choo pumps instead of Manolo Blahniks.
It’s going to be a good four years for SNL, and hopefully, for America, too.
