Kristen Wiig is no shrinking violet.
TheSaturday Night Livealum and powerhouse funny woman is equal parts fearless feminist and girl next door.
And despite her refreshingly humble outlook, Wiig is a Hollywood heavy hitter with the credits to prove it.
This is the untold truth of Kristen Wiig.
But it turns out that her life-of-the-party persona is an on-screen facade and a testament to her acting ability.
“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 toldInterviewmagazine.
“I enjoy being characters rather than myself.
It was there that she found herself navigating some rocky teenage territory.
“I probably lived more of a rock-star life when I was 15,” she toldInterviewmagazine.
“I got in trouble a fair amount.
I cared more about hanging out and skipping school than studying.”
She added,” I definitely ran with a pack of hoodlums, that’s for sure."
“There were suspensions,” Wiig said, noting, “That’s the past.”
And, thanks to an encouraging professor, Wiig decided to pursue her newfound passion.
With a year left in college, she dropped out and moved to Los Angeles unbeknownst to her parents.
“Of course, when I got there, I was like, what am I doing?”
she recalled during an interview withThe New York Times.
“I have no experience, and all the women here are models.”
She enrolled in an acting class.
Suffice to say, it wasn’t her thing.
She started taking classes, and Wiig eventually snagged a spot in the coveted Sunday Company.
In her early 20s, the budding funny woman bounced from odd job to even odder job.
Perhaps the weirdest gig she was hired to do is one she never had the opportunity to start.
Fortunately, she had a moment of self-realization the day before her job was slated to begin.
She toldWomen’s Healththat she packed her Jetta and left for the West Coast.
Like many up-and-coming comedians, she had to find a way to pay the bills.
She toldNPRit was “the most terrifying thing [she’d] ever done.”
And I bought [a] stopwatch when I got to New York so I could time my audition.
Because I was afraid that a big curtain was going to fall down or something in five minutes."
Throughout her tenure on the show, she developed many characters.
One of her most beloved ones was Target Lady, an overzealous retail worker.
“I liked how happy she was about pretty much everything,” she toldNPR.
She didn’t do the things that the Target Lady does.
I kind of embellished a lot."
She allows herself a weekly cheat day and eats whatever she wants.
“It’s good, because it helps you stay on track the rest of the week.
In the beginning, I ate anything I could see.
Health-conscious and wellness-aware, Wiig also toldWomen’s Healththat she is a yoga enthusiast.
“[He] is like my brother,” she toldAccess Hollywoodin 2011.
… We’re like, ‘How else can he throw me around?'”
That multi-position scene took an eyebrow-raising 12 hours to film, according toAccess.
Hamm, who wore little more than a loin cloth, was equally embarrassed.
But we did have a lot of fun.
Fortunately, their racy movie romp didn’t create a rift in their working relationship.
Shortly afterBridesmaids, Wiig and Hamm engaged in more on-screen shenanigans inFriends With Kids.
Still, saying goodbye toSaturday Night Livehad an upside.
“Maybe I would do kayak or canoe tours.
I’d be like, ‘There’s some bushes over there,'” Wiig said.
Like being in a tiny apartment in some tiny town in France and just painting.
I would love to do some weird art installation somewhere.
I play the ukulele, and I would love to do that more and maybe do an album."
She added that she’d like to “escape” and try her hand in another field.
“People always call me a comedian.
And I don’t really see myself like that,” she said in an interview withThe Guardian.
“I guess I just consider myself an actor who does comedy.
But who wants to do other things as well.”
A project has to resonate with her, regardless of its genre.
She toldEsquire, “I love doing drama; I love doing comedy.
I like to be challenged and I don’t want to repeat myself.
So much of it really is the script and the director.
Like Wiig, Rothman is also an alum of the Groundlings and, according toPeople, a yogi.
Director Patty Jenkins gushed to the audience at CCXP 2019 about Wiig’s dynamic performance.
And she went beyond our wildest dreams.”
Still, it wasn’t all coos and giggles in the Wiig-Rothman household.
TheWonder Woman 1984actress admitted toInStylethat motherhood is exhausting, saying that raising two babies is “a lot.”
And it’s frickin’ awesome."
