Maya Rudolph is a Billionaire Divorcée in Apple Comedy

A billionaire loses her dignity but finds herself in a new comedy starring Maya Rudolph 

Molly Novak is a woman in a downward spiral. 

As played by Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live, Bridesmaids) in the new Apple TV+ comedy Loot, which drops the first three of its 10 episodes on Friday, she’s a spoiled billionairess living a life of excess complete with a private jet, enormous yacht and a sprawling mansion in Bel-Air that has its own nightclub, bowling alley and movie theatre. (She’s so rich, she even has David Chang as her personal chef.) 

LootBut when she’s betrayed by her husband of 20 years (Adam Scott), Molly embarks on a drug- and booze-fuelled bender and winds up falling in the pool at a swank party, an indignity that goes viral. 

She’s publicly humiliated and at rock bottom—but at the same time, there’s hope. Molly learns she actually has a charity foundation run by the no-nonsense Sofia (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, late of Pose), who pleads with her to stop generating the sort of bad press that makes it hard for her foundation to help people. So she cleans up her act and gets down to work, aided by her loyal assistant Nicholas (Joel Kim Booster, Fire Island), mild-mannered accountant Arthur (Nat Faxon, Married) and her pop-culture-loving cousin Howard (Ron Funches, Undateable). What ensues is an uproarious journey of self-discovery. 

Apple TV+The series is the brainchild of Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, who had previously worked with Rudolph on the 2018 Prime Video comedy Forever and wanted to create a vehicle that takes advantage of their star’s remarkable versatility. 

“She can kind of do it all,” Hubbard explains. “She has extraordinary range, she’s obviously one of the funniest people alive—you can see her stint on SNL as proof of that. But she’s also one of the rare comedic actors who can really execute subtle dramatic moments and convey so much emotion with her facial acting.” 

“And that allowed us to at some point take huge comedic swings and write big set pieces for her,” he continues. “At the same time, she can turn around and do dramatic scenes with anyone else in the cast.” 

One of the funniest sequences comes in an early episode when Molly appears on the real-life YouTube foodie show Hot Ones and munches some scorching chicken wings with the host, Sean Evans. Soon, her mouth is on fire and she’s swearing like a sailor, demanding beer to put out the flames. And as she keeps eating, she gets drunker and more profane. On camera. 

(So much for not making a spectacle of herself.) 

“We really wanted a public meltdown for her, so we had a lot of different talk shows in mind,” Yang explains. “And we talked it over with Maya and she’s like, ‘Well, there’s a performance piece I could do’… So we were really excited about having her do that with Sean. And Sean was really cool to play ball with us as well.”

Loot debuts Friday, June 24th on Apple TV+