Maya Rudolph doesn’t need to say anything to make us laugh. Audiences around the world want to watch her perform, and only the slightest twitch of her face begets giggles. She can impersonate an elusive chanteuse or an over-the-top Italian designer or make a phrase like “bubble bath” sound luxuriously burlesque. But years ago, when it came to public-facing parts of her job—interviews, talk shows, red carpets—she would find herself unable to be funny. “It would always feel like someone was stealing my soul,” says Rudolph, 50, sitting comfortably in a velvet armchair on a late September afternoon.

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