Kristen Carroll Wiig[1] (/wɪɡ/; born August 22, 1973) is an American actress, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. First breaking through as a performer with theLos Angeles comedy troupeThe Groundlings, Wiig achieved stardom in the late 2000s for her seven-season tenure on theNBCsketch comedy seriesSaturday Night Live (SNL) from 2005 to 2012.[2]
Kristen Wiig was born[4] inCanandaigua, New York,[1] the daughter of Jon Arne Joseph Wiig, who ran a lake marina inWestern New York, and Laurie Day (née Johnston), an artist.[5][6] She has an older brother Erik. Her father has Norwegian and Irish ancestry, and her mother, English and Scottish.[7] The name Wiig comes from the area ofVik inSogn og Fjordane in Norway.[8] Kristen's paternal grandfather, Gunnar Ove Wiig, emigrated from Norway to the United States as a child and grew up inRochester, New York, where he was an accomplished broadcaster for theRochester Red Wings baseball team, and later became an executive atWHEC radio,WHEC-TV, andWROC-TV.[9][10]
Wiig moved with her family toLancaster, Pennsylvania at the age of three, and attended Nitrauer Elementary School and Manheim Township Middle School until eighth grade.[11] When she was 13, she and her family returned to Rochester[11] where she attendedAllendale Columbia School for ninth and tenth grades[12] and graduated fromBrighton High School.[13]
Wiig attendedRoanoke College, but soon returned to Rochester. She attended community college and embarked on a three-month outdoor-living program. She had no performing ambitions at the time.[14] She then attended theUniversity of Arizona, majoring in art. When she took an acting class to fulfill a course requirement, the teacher suggested she continue to act.[15] She was hired by a plastic surgery clinic to draw postsurgery bodies, but the day before the job began, in a bookstore she spoke with a psychic who said she should be acting and writing in Los Angeles, so she decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.[1][16]
Wiig relocated to Los Angeles to act while working odd jobs to support herself.[14][15] She performed with Empty Stage Comedy Theatre[17] andThe Groundlings.[18] She felt improvisation was a better fit than acting, and being a part of the comedy group improved her skills.[19] In 2003, she appeared inSpike TV'sThe Joe Schmo Show, a spoof of reality television, in which she portrayed Dr. Pat, a quack marriage counselor. She auditioned forMad TV.[20] While at The Groundlings, Wiig's manager encouraged her to submit an audition tape toSaturday Night Live. She played theTarget Lady on part of her audition tape.[21] She debuted onSNL shortly intoseason 31, on November 12, 2005.[2] She survived anSNL budget cut[22] and became a full cast member at the beginning ofseason 32 in 2006.
She was nominated for fourPrimetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work onSNL (2009 to 2012).[23] Wiig headlined the 2009 Christmas specialSNL Presents: A Very Gilly Christmas, featuring new sketches with her characterGilly and highlights of olderSNL clips. She was featured inEntertainment Weekly's list of 15 Great Performances for her various impersonations onSNL[24] (December 2008) and inEW's list of the 25 Funniest Women in Hollywood (April 2009).[25] She voicedLola Bunny in the seriesThe Looney Tunes Show from 2011 to 2014.
Wiig made her film debut in the 2006Christmas filmUnaccompanied Minors, and appeared inJudd Apatow's 2007 comedyKnocked Up as apassive-aggressive assistant. She also performed inJake Kasdan'sWalk Hard, another Apatow-produced film. Between 2008 and 2010, she had supporting roles in several studio comedies which had various degrees of success. She made a cameo appearance as Bear Trainer Girl in the 2008 comedySemi-Pro, reuniting withSNL alum Will Ferrell. She played a yoga instructor inForgetting Sarah Marshall and a self-involved surgeon inDavid Koepp'sGhost Town.
Wiig's career had a turning point in 2011. The comedyBridesmaids, which she wrote with fellow Groundlings performerAnnie Mumolo, was released that spring byUniversal Pictures to critical acclaim, making US$167 million in North America and US$280 million worldwide.[28][29] In her top-billed role, she played a single woman suffering a series of misfortunes after being asked to be her best friend's maid of honor.The New York Times wrote: "A lanky-limbed blonde who evokes Meg Ryan stretched along Olive Oyl lines, Ms. Wiig keeps her features jumping and sometimes bunching. She's a funny, pretty woman, but she's also a comedian, and she's wonderfully confident about playing not nice ... Ms. Wiig, a longtime cast member ofSaturday Night Live, and Ms. Mumolo, a veteran of the Los Angeles comedy troupe the Groundlings, know what female moviegoers want: honest laughs with, and not solely about, women".[30] For her work in the film, Wiig was nominated for theGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Her last 2011 film was the romantic comedyFriends with Kids, where she played one half of a sex-obsessed couple, oppositeBridesmaids collaboratorMaya Rudolph. It received positive reviews, who deemed it "sharp, shrewd, and funny",[31] and was a success inlimited release.[32]
In the 2010s, Wiig was a prominent figure inHollywood, acting in leading and supporting roles. The little-seen dramedyRevenge for Jolly!, which premiered at theTribeca Film Festival, was her first 2012 release. In the comedyGirl Most Likely, she headlined oppositeAnnette Bening as a playwright who stages a suicide in an attempt to win back her ex, only to wind up in the custody of her gambling-addict mother.Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 20% rating based on 85 reviews, with the site's consensus: "Largely witless and disappointingly dull,Girl Most Likely strands the gifted Kristen Wiig in a blandly hollow foray into scattershot sitcom territory."[33]
Hateship, Loveship (2014), her next theatrically released production,[39] was based on the 2001 short story "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" byAlice Munro. In it, she played a woman who must move to a new town to begin work as a housekeeper for an elderly man who needs help keeping house. Critics asserted that Wiig's "vibrant performance is almost worth the price of admission—and it has to be, becauseHateship Loveship doesn't have much else going for it", as part of a mixed overall response.[40] In 2014, she also reprised her role inHow to Train Your Dragon 2, and starred withBill Hader inCraig Johnson's dramedyThe Skeleton Twins, as estranged twins reuniting with the possibility of mending their relationship.The Skeleton Twins was an arthouse success,[41] with theGlobe and Mail remarking: "Johnson's unfussy direction serves as a fine showcase for the twoSNL veterans to demonstrate how their comic shorthand plays equally well in a slightly darker register".[42]
In 2015, the dramedyWelcome to Me was released in selected theaters to a positive critical response. In it, Wiig played a multi-millionaire withborderline personality disorder who uses her newfound wealth to write and star in an autobiographical talk show. Rotten Tomatoes' consensus was: "A transfixing central performance by Kristen Wiig holdsWelcome to Me together and compensates for its uneven stretches."[44] In her next film, another dramedy titledThe Diary of a Teenage Girl, Wiig starred as a woman whose boyfriend starts a sexual relationship with her daughter. LikeWelcome to Me, the film received a limited theatrical release and was favorably received by critics.[45] In 2015, she also played the director of media relations for NASA in the successful sci-fi dramaThe Martian, oppositeMatt Damon, and starred as a family practitioner who is more interested in having a baby than having a boyfriend in the black comedyNasty Baby, directed by Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva.[46]
Wiig had four notable roles in 2016, including the comedyZoolander 2 (2016), where she took on the role of a villain and the "Queen ofHaute Couture", alongside Ben Stiller,Owen Wilson, and Will Ferrell.[47]Ghostbusters featured Wiig as an author who bands with other paranormal enthusiasts to stop an otherworldly threat.[48] She also voiced a hot dog bun in the animated comedySausage Party, and played a woman planning a robbery inMasterminds.
Wiig was married to actor Hayes Hargrove from 2005 to 2009, and datedThe Strokes drummerFabrizio Moretti from 2011 to 2013.[55]
In 2019, after three years of dating, she became engaged to actor Avi Rothman. In January 2020, they became the parents of twins, a son and daughter, viasurrogacy.[56][57][58] In February 2021, Wiig confirmed that she and Rothman had married.[59]
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