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When the actor Maya Rudolph first appeared as Kamala Harris on “Saturday Night Live,” in September 2019, she established a few motifs: Cocktail at the ready, Ms. Harris was America’s fun aunt (“I call that a ‘funt,’” she said) and a “smooth-talking lady lawyer” with sex appeal and subpoena power.
In the years since, as Ms. Harris’s role in American politics has evolved — from rising Democratic star to thwarted political candidate, from presidential sidekick to sudden presidential nominee — Ms. Rudolph’s portrayal of her, over more than a dozen appearances on the show, has deepened. Now, even with the same dance moves and high-pitched laugh, Ms. Rudolph’s Harris has become more serious, a no-nonsense, Glock-toting boss, surrounded by a gaggle of dopey men.
“Well, well, well. Look who fell out of that coconut tree,” Ms. Rudolph (as Ms. Harris) said, opening the show’s season premiere last month. “The funt has been rebooted. 2 Funt, 2 Furious.” (OK, maybe just a touch more serious.)
“S.N.L.” political characters aren’t precise impersonations, and they are rarely subtle. The most famous ones tend to be high-volume parodies, caricatures that amplify a politician’s peculiarities: Will Ferrell as George W. Bush. Dana Carvey as his father. Larry David as Bernie Sanders. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin.
Eight years ago, when Hillary Clinton was running for president, Kate McKinnon played her as somehow both stilted and animated, wily, at times slightly deranged, struggling to express her ambition and credentials in terms palatable to the American public. It was an impression, but also an embodiment of female outrage, and a foil to Donald J. Trump.
Ms. Harris presents a different challenge for an actor. She is less familiar to viewers than Mrs. Clinton. She is not personally emphasizing the historic nature of her candidacy. Her approach to Mr. Trump is different, heavy on mockery and ridicule. She herself is a more playful person, but she is also more unknowable — campy and careful, in one package.
“She’s not easy to do,” said Daniel Kellison, a comedy producer who has worked with David Letterman, Norm Macdonald and Jimmy Kimmel. “She’s actually kind of normal. That’s the challenge.”
Mr. Trump, Mr. Kellison said, “is a blustery, blowhard character.” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms. Harris’s running mate, is a “big character.” These are easier assignments, he said. “Kamala is all nuance.”
“I think the temptation, for many comedians, is to do larger-than-life,” Mr. Kellison said, naming Mr. Carvey and Ms. McKinnon as examples.
“To her credit,” he said, “Maya Rudolph is doing her own thing.”
Ms. Harris does have some pretty funny mannerisms and political reflexes.
Ms. Rudolph has captured her voice, with its singsong-y shifts of register, and occasional vocal fry. The way she says “Aright?” The theatrical facial expressions. Ms. Rudolph has made it impossible to hear Ms. Harris say “Joe Biden” without hearing “Jabiden.”
She and the writers have also picked up on a few of Ms. Harris’s stock phrases. In the opening sketch of last weekend’s show, a “Family Feud”-style meeting of the candidates, Steve Harvey (played by Kenan Thompson) asked for items kept in a glove compartment. She buzzed in: “Steve, look. I was raised in a middle-class family.”
Ms. Rudolph has also really nailed the vice president’s hands.
Ms. Harris’s hands often work in unison when she speaks, the expressive culmination of a loose-limbed, almost languorous physicality, accentuated by her signature shoulder pads. Her fingers will seem to brush the curves of an invisible serving bowl or, splayed, press down on an invisible keyboard. Sometimes they are lightly held in loose fists in front of her chest. The right index finger might come up to make a point, or she might pause to nod her head. “Here’s the thing,” she says, with a smile.
Ms. Rudolph played Ms. Harris 10 times between 2019 and 2021, and won a Primetime Emmy for the depiction. Back then she was more of a backbencher.
“I’m just gonna have fun and see if I can get some viral moments,” Ms. Rudolph, as Ms. Harris, said in a November 2019 sketch of a Democratic primary debate, as her poll numbers were sliding. “Mama needs a GIF.”
A month later, after Ms. Harris had dropped out of the race, Ms. Rudolph burst into another debate sketch, uninvited, bearing a martini. “I just wanna show you how goooood you coulda had it, America,” she said to the camera, her hair blowing back.
In October 2020, Ms. Rudolph’s Harris debated Beck Bennett’s Vice President Mike Pence. “Now, I’d like to hear the vice president’s response, and while he speaks, I’m going to smile at him like I’m in a TJ Maxx and a white lady asked me if I work here,” she said. “Now I’m gonna switch to more of a Clair Huxtable side-eye.”
This summer, after President Biden dropped out and Ms. Harris became the nominee, Ms. Rudolph was summoned again.
A few things about the performance have changed. The jokes about her sex appeal have faded away. The attention-seeking entrances are gone. The campy cocktail has become a demure glass of wine. And now, as a central figure in the election, she is increasingly — for lack of a better term — playing the wearied straight man.
These days, Ms. Rudolph’s Harris is constantly looking slightly concerned and amused by the men in her orbit. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, portrayed by Andy Samberg, fawns over her and makes terrible jokes. Her running mate, Mr. Walz, is played by Jim Gaffigan as befuddled, saying the wrong, folksy thing (“Gotta have Tums, in case I eat something spicy like tomato”) and “vibing” with JD Vance at the debate.
And, of course, there’s Joe Biden, now played by Mr. Carvey, who stuck an ice cream cone in Ms. Rudolph’s face during a skit the other week. “And guess what? Here’s the deal!” He steals the scene, and she smiles and nods patiently.
(Ms. Rudolph has outlasted seven Joe Bidens on the show since 2019, including Woody Harrelson, Jim Carrey and Jason Sudeikis. Mr. Carvey is the eighth.)
Ms. Harris has expressed admiration for Ms. Rudolph’s portrayal over the years. But some of her supporters would prefer it if the jokes could wait until after the election. Last week, when the radio host Howard Stern interviewed Ms. Harris on his show, he said his nerves about the election made it hard for him to watch Ms. Rudolph’s performances on “S.N.L.”: “I hate it. I don’t want you being made fun of. There’s too much at stake.”
Ms. Harris said she, too, was losing sleep over the election, but she thought the depiction was funny, adding: “I am a huge fan of Maya Rudolph, so I think she put a lot of time into doing the piece and the character.” She has also said, of the performance, that “it is important to be able to laugh at yourself.”
Representatives for Ms. Rudolph did not respond to a request for comment. In an Aug. 20 appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” she expressed astonishment at the whirlwind few weeks for Ms. Harris, and, by extension, for her. “This has been such a tremendous, exciting time for me that feels so much bigger than me or anything I’ve ever done,” she said.
“I spent so many years on ‘S.N.L.’ watching other people play presidential candidates and thinking, you know, there’s nobody that resembles me in the race. To think that we are here, now, and to think that I would ever be close, by association, is so incredible.”
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