Kristen Wiig

Kristen Wiig is an American actor and comedian who was a popular cast member on Saturday Night Live (SNL) before branching out to movies, including Bridesmaids (2011), Ghostbusters (2016), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). She is known for playing silly and neurotic characters.

Early life

Wiig’s father, Jon Wiig, worked as a marina manager, and her mother, Laurie (née Johnston) Wiig, was an artist; Kristen Wiig has an older brother, Erik. Her parents divorced when she was nine, and she lived with her mother and brother in Rochester, New York, where she attended high school. She has recalled getting in trouble frequently as a teenager, more interested in hanging out with her friends than studying. While attending the University of Arizona, Wiig took her first acting class, and something clicked.

As a young adult Wiig was moving between jobs when she had an epiphany. In a 2008 interview with Women’s Health magazine, Wiig said she had been living in Tucson, Arizona, and was about to start a job in a plastic surgeon’s office. “I remember looking around and thinking, ‘I don’t want this to be my life,’ ” she recalled. “Then I looked in the mirror and was like, ‘OK, if you could do anything, what would it be?’ And I thought, ‘I would move to L.A. Just try to act.’ Even though I’d only ever taken one acting class. The next day, the Jetta was packed and I was gone, freaking out the whole way.”

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Saturday Night Live

In Los Angeles Wiig got a gig in the comedy troupe the Groundlings, where she honed some of the characters that would soon make her a hit on SNL, such as Target Lady, the irritatingly hyper Target cashier, and Aunt Linda, the old-school movie critic with awful taste. Wiig’s work with the Groundlings put her on the radar of SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels, and she started on the show in November 2005.

In addition to her characters, Wiig did a series of hilarious impressions of politicians and celebrities including Nancy Pelosi, Suze Orman, and Kathie Lee Gifford. Wiig told Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl for a 2011 Interview Magazine story that playing characters came more naturally because she can be shy at times. “I enjoy being characters rather than myself,” she said. “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.”

Acting career

While at SNL Wiig began acting in movies, including Knocked Up (2007), Ghost Town (2008), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Adventureland (2009), Extract (2009), Whip It (2009), MacGruber (2010), and Date Night (2010).

Her performance as the icy, mean-spirited middle manager in Knocked Up won her the admiration of fans—and of the movie’s director and screenwriter, Judd Apatow. “After I saw how much people loved [the scene] in the movie, I instantly asked her if she had any plans to write a script for herself,” he told The New York Times in 2011.

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It turned out she did, and Apatow was a producer for the resulting movie, Bridesmaids, which Wiig wrote with her friend Annie Mumolo. The film—starring Wiig as Annie and Maya Rudolph as her best friend, Lillian, who is about to get married—chronicles the antics of a dysfunctional team of bridesmaids.

In addition to Wiig, the cast of Bridesmaids featured Rose Byrne, who plays Helen, the rival best friend, and Melissa McCarthy, who plays the raunchy Megan. It also starred Jon Hamm as Annie’s selfish and indifferent romantic interest. Bridesmaids was a commercial and critical success, a tour de force that displayed Wiig’s physical comedy, including a signature scene in which she ransacks Helen’s ostentatious bridal shower decorations in a fit of jealous rage.

Wiig and Mumolo were nominated for a 2012 Academy Award for best original screenplay for the movie.

After leaving SNL in 2012, Wiig starred in movies including The Skeleton Twins (2014), Welcome to Me (2014), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), The Martian (2015), Masterminds (2016), and the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters (2016). In 2020 she had a memorable role as Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984. The next year she starred with Mumolo in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.

In 2024 she was able to act with her comedy hero, Carol Burnett, in the Apple TV+ series Palm Royale. “I grew up watching her,” she told Hamm for a 2024 Variety story. “She influenced so many people in sketch comedy.”

In 2025 Wiig starred in Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie.