Maya Rudolph doesn’t do FOMO

When “SNL” vet Maya Rudolph isn’t busy being hilarious — like in the new comedy “Sisters” alongside Tina Fey and Amy Poehler — she’s busy raising her four young children with her husband, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. So it’s understandable why she doesn’t have much time for social media. But even she did, she’d avoid it all the same.

Your character, Brinda, has a major chip on her shoulder from high school. How was it playing that kind of long-held resentment?
It is fun. I think the insecurity of Brinda’s character really is our own collective insecurity. Everybody wants to be invited to the party. That’s sort of the worst possible feeling in terms of high school days. You don’t want to be the person that’s left off the list. I feel like with Brinda it’s almost as if she was just waiting for Kate (played by Fey) to come back to her hometown so she could be like, “See? I’ve really got my life together.” She’s probably played it out in her head enough that she’s practiced her head whip away. It’s very dramatic, as an exit. She’s thought about it a long time.

It’s interesting how that FOMO turned her into a mean girl.
She has major FOMO. I just learned about FOMO. But everyone’s got FOMO. Well, not everyone. Some people don’t. Some people are actually content.

Twitter and Facebook have made it more pronounced.
Yes. I don’t dabble in those things. Maybe I was just born so early in the ’70s that it’s just so hard for me to relate to the idea of sharing everything. When I do see other people’s Instagrams or Twitter, it’s such a carefully edited version of themselves, so everything looks f—ing great. Everything is perfect. Your life is perfect. But also I don’t want anybody to know my business.

And it’s a lot of work.
I feel like if I was constantly doing that and not doing the other things I need to do, I would hate myself a little bit. I don’t have enough time to do the things I’m supposed to be doing, so it would just feel like pure procrastination.

Has anyone every pressured you to do it for work?
Yes. When I did my variety show, I was given a Twitter account. “You’ve got to announce it.” “OK, I’ll do it.” And so I announced it, like, “Hey! My show’s coming on. You should watch it.” And the response was so crazy. I obviously had not set up my settings correctly, but people started responding and my phone would not stop. And I couldn’t turn it off. It felt weird.

That sounds terrifying.
It was. And I’m not used to it. I’m not good at it. I’m good at other things.

Such as?
Roller-skating. But not ice-skating. And I do not know how to roller-blade either.

The party in this movie looked crazy, but it could not have smelled very nice.
The only thing that was kind of gnarly was outside. It had a horrible smell from all the water in the sinkhole. It was a bummer. It kind of smelled like the inside of an old, wet cast. But inside the set it smelled wonderful. It wasn’t like when you go to a bar at 10 a.m. and you smell last night and you’re like, “I’m going to be sick. How did anybody spend time in here last night?”

How does this compare to crazy parties you’ve been to?
This is the craziest party. I mean, I did go to a lot of parties in high school. I grew up in L.A., and the thing to do was just go to random parties. You’d just go to somebody’s house. It was so stupid, everything about it was dumb. The concept of it is just so screwed up. “Hey, there’s a bunch of children in a home and the adults are gone and everyone’s wasted!” That’s a very, very dangerous, bad idea.

Do you think that new perspective has to do with being a grownup and a parent?
That’s the worst payback ever, actually having to think about that stuff. I don’t have any tattoos, but there was a time when I really wanted one. And then my daughter, her cousin drew these dots on her face and I was like, “If you’re going to get a tattoo you need to talk to me first. We need to have a conversation.” What’s happening to me? (laughs)

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