Kristen Wiig is no shrinking violet. The Saturday Night Live alum is equal parts fearless feminist,
girl next door, and Hollywood heavy hitter. What else does she have up her sleeve,
and how did she get to be such a big name? Keep watching to find out!
The daughter of an artist and a lake-marina manager,
Kristen Wiig was born in Canandaigua , New York, on August 22nd, 1973. When she was 9 years old,
her parents got divorced, and she later moved to Rochester, New York with her
mother and older brother Erik. It was in her new hometown that she found herself navigating
some rocky teenage territory. As she revealed to Interview magazine,
"I probably lived more of a rock-star life when I was 15.
I got in trouble a fair amount. I cared more about hanging out and skipping school than
studying. [...] I definitely ran with a pack of hoodlums, that's for sure."
Wiig's rebellious adolescent stage also included underage drinking at a Grateful
Dead concert and smashing potted plants on a neighbor's porch. As she told The Guardian,
"There were suspensions. That's the past."
With her penchant for creating zany characters, one might think that Kristen Wiig is the ultimate
exhibitionist. But it turns out that her life-of-the-party persona is actually an
on-screen facade and a testament to her acting ability. As she told Interview magazine in 2011,
"I never considered myself to be funny — maybe because socially I
can be a little shy sometimes. I just didn't think that you could be both."
She also admitted in that interview that she was nervous to appear on SNL's famous Weekend Update
segment because she couldn't hide there the way that she could in a group-sketch setting.
She also noted that she would rather appear behind a fictional personality
than be herself in the spotlight. As she put it,
"I enjoy being characters rather than myself. If I had to get up and talk in front of a group
of people just as myself, I would be terrified. I get a little anxious, I guess. But if I'm on
stage in front of hundreds of people and I am a character doing a monologue, I'm totally fine."
"You seem really nervous, but you're doing fine."
"Sorry. I'm usually calm, cool, and collected."
After high school, Wiig headed to college, where she was an art major at the University of Arizona
in Tucson . She took a theater performance class to fulfill a requirement, and though
she was initially terrified by it, she ended up really enjoying it. And thanks to an encouraging
professor, she decided to pursue this newfound passion. With a year left in college, she dropped
out and moved to Los Angeles, unbeknownst to her parents. As she told The New York Times in 2008,
"Of course, when I got there, I was like, what am I doing? I have no experience,
and all the women here are models."
She enrolled in an acting class, and as she explained to the Times,
"It was one of those very Method classes where you
have to sit for an hour with your eyes closed and pretend you're drinking, like, hot soup."
Suffice it to say, it wasn't her thing. Luckily, though, Wiig found her place with the Groundlings,
an improvisation program that boasts alumni like Will Ferrell and Maya Rudolph.
She started taking classes and eventually snagged a spot in the coveted Sunday Company.
While Wiig had talent and ambition to spare, she couldn't survive on wit and will alone.
In her early 20s, before she really broke through in showbiz, she bounced from odd
job to even odder job, This included working at Anthropologie, dabbling in floral design,
and even manning a hot dog cart. Perhaps the weirdest gig ever was one that she never
actually had the opportunity to start. Right before her fortuitous move to Los Angeles,
she was supposed to sketch patients' before and after pictures for a plastic surgery practice.
But then she had a moment of self-realization the day before that job was slated to begin,
so she packed her Jetta and left for the West Coast.
Like many up-and-coming comedians, she still had to find a way to pay the bills, though.
In a 2011 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she recounted waiting tables at
the Universal Pictures commissary and the weird encounters it led to. As she put it,
"A couple times I've seen executives and I'm like, 'How do I know you? Oh,
I used to give you Cobb salad and Arnold Palmers, and I had a tie and khaki pants on."
Wiig made her Saturday Night Live debut on the November 12, 2005 episode after surviving an
intimidating audition for a panel that included Lorne Michaels and Tina Fey. As she told NPR,
"It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done to this day. Because I knew it would
just be me on stage for five minutes, and they were very clear that you had five minutes."
Throughout her time on the show, she played many characters, and one of the most beloved was the
overzealous Target Lady. Wiig told NPR about the origin of that character when she revealed,
"I liked how happy she was about pretty much everything. I was actually in a Target [...] and
the woman who was at the register, she just said something in a voice that struck me."
After seven seasons on SNL, Wiig made her final appearance as a member of the cast on May 19th,
2012. In an interview with The Guardian about a year later, she admitted that she missed the
creative energy and pulse-quickening spontaneity of it all. As she put it,
"It's like your brain is in the best shape ever — and then when you leave,
you feel a little like your mind is slowly dulling,
because you're not having to fix things and solve puzzles and create on a minute-to-minute basis."
Kristen Wiig is a vegetarian who eats plenty of tofu and soy,
and drinks a lot of water and cranberry juice. But she's not overly strict about it, as she
allows herself a weekly cheat day to eat whatever she wants. As she told Women's Health in 2008,
"It's good, because it helps you stay on track the rest of the week. In the beginning,
I ate anything I could see. But it's funny: The more you do it, the less you end up splurging."
When Wiig does feel the urge to treat herself, she'll turn to dark chocolate
peanut M&Ms and lemon cupcakes from Buttercup Bake Shop in New York City.
She's also health-conscious and wellness-aware in general,
as she's also a yoga enthusiast. During her time on SNL, she'd take private classes with friends
and squeeze in cardio sessions with runs in Central Park and along the Hudson River.
Most actors who have gotten intimate on camera will tell you that it's not so much hot and heavy
as much as it is cringey and awkward. Kristen Wiig, for one, has admitted that filming her
over-the-top bedroom scene in Bridesmaids with Jon Hamm was awkward to say the least,
and that was mostly because of their real-life friendship. As she recounted to Access Hollywood,
"I remember, it was our last day of shooting and I mean,
it's so silly. We're like, 'How else can he throw me around?'"
That multi-position scene took an eyebrow-raising 12 hours to film.
Hamm, who wore little more than a loincloth, was equally embarrassed. As he put it,
"It's not a lot of fun rolling around in front of 30 or 40 crew members in a flesh-colored thong.
But we did have a lot of fun. We had a lot of jokes and a lot of laughs,
and I'm sure a lot of that will end up on the DVD somewhere."
Wiig has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon multiple times, but rarely as
herself. Instead, she's shown up in-character as the likes of Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning,
Harry Styles, JoJo from The Bachelorette, and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.
If you've seen any of these clips, you know how hilarious they are, but you might not know that
these bogus interviews are totally improvised. In a 2017 interview with Esquire, Wiig revealed
that she arrives at the show 15 minutes early to find the costume that's provided. She also noted,
"There's no reason to be nervous because you don't have anything you have to say,
and it really forces you to be in the moment."
When Wiig finally appeared on the show as herself in 2017, Fallon challenged her to
share one of her famous old-time cocktail recipes. Without missing a beat, she flexed
those improv muscles once again and invented the ingredients needed to whip up a Sea Cloud,
which included salt water from the ocean, three half oranges, rum, and milk.
"And it's served lukewarm."
"What?! A lukewarm cocktail?"
"Because you're on that sea, and they don't have ice."
"They don't have that ice on that ship."
From 2005 to 2009, Kristen Wiig was married to actor Hayes Hargrove.
Details surrounding the demise of their relationship are scarce,
but there's little doubt it left Wiig feeling dubious about marriage as an institution. In 2011,
she told Stella magazine that she had no plans to tie the knot a second time. As she put it,
"I probably won't ever get married [again]; it's not something that I would want to do."
As a female role model, she also wanted to make sure that she wasn't sending the
wrong message about women and marriage while starring in Bridesmaids. As she described it,
"I think women put that pressure on themselves,
maybe even more than society does, but if you're the single girl at the wedding,
you know someone is going to ask you when you're going to get married."
Despite her skepticism, though, in 2019 Wiig got engaged to actor-producer-director Avi Rothman
after three years of dating. Like Wiig, Rothman is an alum of the Groundlings,
and he's also a yogi. He even plays a character named "Ogden
the Inappropriate Yoga Guy" on the YouTube series of the same name.
In January 2020, Wiig and Avi Rothman welcomed twins via surrogacy. After three years of enduring
the highs and lows of IVF, Wiig was more than ready to privately settle down with her sweet
babies. News about her motherhood didn't break for a few months, and the timing was in a way
fortuitous, because shortly thereafter the COVID-19 pandemic made quarantining at home
necessary. But it hasn't all been coos and giggles in the Wiig-Rothman household. Unsurprisingly,
raising two little ones has proven to be a little bit exhausting for the new mom. She told InStyle,
"I can't wait to see them every morning. It’s not all just lying around and smiling at babies,
though [...] Obviously, some days I get more sleep than others,
but it is what it is. And it's frickin' awesome."
Before the news was made official via an Us Weekly exclusive in June 2020,
Wiig hinted about her life development when she appeared on SNL on Mother's Day
weekend and gushed about her own mom during her monologue.
"I'm so thankful for all the things she's taught me, like preparing to be a mom myself, things like
breastfeeding. Babies love that chicken."
In Wonder Woman 1984, Kristen Wiig plays the role of Barbara Minerva, an archeologist who becomes
obsessed with collecting treasures held by the title superhero. At the 2019 Comic-Con Experience,
director Patty Jenkins gushed to the audience about Wiig's dynamic performance, as she declared,
"We were super fans of Kristen and we love how funny she is, but also I've been a huge admirer
of what a great actress she is for a long time. So when we needed someone to go all the way from one
end of the spectrum of being funny, sweet Diana's friend, all the way to a totally different place,
we knew that Kristen Wiig would kill it. And she went beyond our wildest dreams."
Indeed, Wiig makes a drastic transformation in the film as she becomes Minerva's villainous alter-ego
Cheetah. Who knew that this former teenage rebel would one day be sparring with Wonder Woman?
"It's like a dream."
"You're in a major superhero movie. Like, this is major. I'm so excited!"
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