Kristen Wiig

Actor

• Born: August 22, 1973
• Place of Birth: Canandaigua, New York

Contribution: Kristen Wiig is an Academy Award– and Emmy–nominated actor, comedian, and writer best known for performing as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 2005 to 2012, for cowriting and starring in the 2011 comedy film Bridesmaids, and for costarring in Ghostbusters (2016).

Background

Kristen Carroll Wiig was born on August 22, 1973, in Canandaigua, New York, to Jon, who worked on a lake marina, and Laurie, an artist. She has one older brother, Erik. The family briefly lived in Pennsylvania before moving to Rochester, New York. Wiig’s parents divorced when she was nine years old, and she and her brother stayed with their mother.

Wiig attended Brighton High School in Rochester and graduated in 1991. While she then enrolled at the University of Arizona in Tucson to study art, she dropped out after a year to move to Los Angeles to try to become an actor. Soon after arriving in Los Angeles, she became fearful and unsure of herself and her chosen new career. She had no contacts and no money, and she had never received any formal acting training.

To support herself, Wiig worked as a floral designer and as a waitress at a Universal Studios restaurant. After several years, she discovered improv comedy as a possible source of acting work and income. She attended a performance of the Groundlings, the famous Los Angeles comedy troupe that has produced such successes as Lisa Kudrow and Phil Hartman. The show inspired her to begin taking improv classes with the hopes of one day joining the Groundlings.

Career

After acquiring sufficient training with the Groundlings, Wiig was accepted into the group and began performing as various characters that she created. However, her work with the comedy group still did not provide her with the long-term success she sought.

Wiig continued to work day jobs into the early 2000s, and it was not until 2003—after she had lived in Los Angeles for eleven years—that she landed a spot in the first season of the Spike TV fictional comedic reality show The Joe Schmo Show. She performed on the show for nine episodes and soon earned enough money to leave her day jobs.

In 2005 Wiig discovered that the producers of Saturday Night Live (SNL) would be in New York casting for the show’s new season. Seeing an opportunity to use her comedic talents to establish her acting career, she flew to New York to audition. There, during the stand-up comedy–styled tryouts, she exhibited her roster of comedic characters for series creator Lorne Michaels and head writer Tina Fey. Wiig was eventually called back for a second audition and then hired after several episodes of the new season had already aired.

Wiig would spend the next seven years as a main cast member on Saturday Night Live. She became a popular actor on the show, with producer Michaels using her more than anyone else in numerous sketches. In addition to her many offbeat and surrealist characters, Wiig also performed a number of impressions of such celebrities as Judy Garland, Diane Sawyer, and Katharine Hepburn.

The great success that Wiig enjoyed from SNL over the next few years made her a highly sought-after comedic actor, and she began appearing in supporting roles in comedy films such as Knocked Up, The Brothers Solomon, and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, all released in 2007. She also received guest spots on various popular comedy series, including 30 Rock (2007), Flight of the Conchords (2007), and Bored to Death (2009–10). Wiig’s work in mainstream film and television continued into the end of the decade, with supporting roles in the films Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Ghost Town (2008), and Adventureland (2009).

Meanwhile, Wiig’s performances on SNL continued to receive rave reviews, and from 2009 to 2012, she was nominated for four consecutive Emmy Awards for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series. She was nominated for another Emmy in 2013, this time for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series, for hosting an episode of SNL in May 2013.

In 2011, after several more roles in films and television, including several voice roles, Wiig cowrote and starred in the comedy film Bridesmaids, which features Wiig as the maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding. The film was met with critical acclaim and great commercial success, and in 2012 she was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay.

Wiig made her final appearance on SNL as a cast member in May 2012. Following her departure, she continued to appear in comedy films, most notably in Girl Most Likely (2012), Despicable Me 2 (2013), and Anchorman: The Legend Continues (2013). She also received guest spots on television series such as the rebooted Arrested Development (2013).

Though Wiig continued to have roles in comedies and other genres that often have a comedic twist, she also proved her increasing versatility by appearing in films outside of comedy as well. Remaining in demand, she had either supporting or starring roles in the films The Skeleton Twins (2014), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2014), Nasty Baby (2015), The Martian (2015), Zoolander 2 (2016), and Masterminds (2016). One of her next biggest roles came when she was cast as part of the ensemble helming the rebooted version of the classic comedic fantasy-action film Ghostbusters (1984). While the original film had an all-male cast that included such actors as Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, the new version, also titled Ghostbusters (2016), received mixed reviews but was noted for its departure in casting all women in the lead roles. Wiig, acting alongside Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones, portrayed paranormal enthusiast Erin Gilbert. She followed up this performance with Despicable Me 3 (2017), in which she once again lent her voice to the character of Lucy; the drama Downsizing (2017); the horror film Mother! (2017); and the comedic drama Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019). From 2019 to 2021, she provided the voice for the character Jenny Hart in the new Fox animated series Bless the Harts.

The beginning of the 2020s saw Wiig enter the popular superhero film genre when she prominently appeared as the villain Barbara Minerva in 2020's Wonder Woman 1984. In addition to costarring in and cowriting the comedy film Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021), in 2021 she reprised her role as Vicki from the 2010 action-comedy film MacGruber for the television series continuation of the same name. Her next part on television would earn her further critical acclaim. Portraying the lead character, Maxine Simmons, in the Apple TV+ darkly comedic period drama Palm Royale, she earned Emmy nods both for her performance in and involvement as an executive producer of the first season, which aired in 2024. That same year, she continued to voice Lucy, this time for Despicable Me 4.

Impact

Wiig’s comedic talents rest in her unique powers of improvisational comedy and the creation of wacky characters. She has invented dozens of humorous, foolish, and surreal personas that first made her a star on Saturday Night Live. This helped her earn great success in film as she ventured into screenwriting with Bridesmaids in addition to taking on roles outside of the comedy genre.

Personal Life

Wiig was married to actor Hayes Hargrove for several years before divorcing him in 2009. She was then romantically linked with actor-producer Brian Petsos before dating musician Fabrizio Moretti, drummer for the indie rock band the Strokes, from early 2012 to mid-2013. Later married to actor Avi Rothman, she welcomed twins, Shiloh and Luna, via surrogacy in 2020.

Bibliography

Dominus, Susan. “Can Kristen Wiig Turn On the Charm?” TheNew York Times, 28 Apr. 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/magazine/mag-01wiig-t.html. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

Gleiberman, Owen. Review of Bridesmaids, directed by Paul Feig. Entertainment Weekly, 25 May 2011, ew.com/article/2011/05/25/bridesmaids-movie-review-kristen-wiig/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

Keegan, Rebecca. "Comedy Queen Kristen Wiig Is Back with a New Life, Glam Look and Star-Packed Series." The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Mar. 2024, www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/kristen-wiig-interview-apple-series-palm-royale-snl-1235850965/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

"Kristen Wiig." IMDb, www.imdb.com/name/nm1325419/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

Wiig, Kristen. “Extended Interview with Kristen Wiig.” Interview by Dave Itzkoff. The New York Times, 22 Aug. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/arts/television/extended-interview-with-kristen-wiig.html. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

Wiig, Kristen. “Kristen Wiig: ‘I’m Getting More Sleep Since I Left Saturday Night Live!’” Interview by Tim Lewis. The Guardian, 22 June 2013, www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/23/kristen-wiig-despicable-me-2-snl-interview. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

Wiig, Kristen. “Kristen Wiig: ‘My Next Movie—It’s Going to Be a Porky’s Prequel.’” Interview by Emma Brockes. The Guardian, 18 Nov. 2011, www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/18/kristen-wiig-bridesmaids. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.