Kristen Wiig on ‘Palm Royale,’ Next Stage of Career, Life Post ‘SNL’

“Palm Royale” is an easy sell to a viewer from the get-go.

Kristen Wiig plays a wannabe socialite from Chattanooga desperate to assimilate into the ultra-exclusive Palm Beach high society community in the ’60s. Wiig and costars Laura Dern, Allison Janney, Carol Burnett, Josh Lucas and Ricky Martin are straight out of a Slim Aarons photo as they down grasshopper cocktails in sherbet-colored frocks between tennis lessons, affairs and plenty of gossip.

Maxine (Wiig) steals and lies her way through each episode on a relentless quest to be accepted by these people who, against a backdrop of Vietnam War protests and the women’s rights’ movement, seem to care only about their social status. Wiig makes the character likable, and audiences are left rooting for her every success.  

It’s a new era for the actress, 50, who became a household name during her tenure on “Saturday Night Live” from 2005-2012. 

It’s hard to imagine anyone but Wiig playing Maxine, but Dern was originally supposed to be in the role, after spending years developing the show from the book. When it came time to shoot, Dern’s schedule prevented her from taking on the character (she went on to play Linda Rollins), and she called Wiig, pitching her both the role and coming on board as a producer.

“It was a no-brainer for me. On every level: the people, the script, where it was going, the look of it. The book was great and the character was so fun for me,” Wiig says.

“I love characters where obviously there’s some humor in them, but they’re also not where they want to be,” Wiig adds. “I didn’t feel like I played someone like this before, because she’s so positive about it all. She’s not complaining really. She’s just like, ‘I’m going to get there.’ And if a door slams in her face, she’s smiling, because she just knows she has to.”

“There was something about her endless optimism and cluelessness and unlikeability with the other characters, there was something about that that I really loved,” she continues. “Her wanting such shallow things, it’s very easy to not like her, but the show centers around her, so we have to have people like her and root for her. So we had to find that ‘how are people going to root for this person who’s doing all of these things?’ Having her have those two very drastic sides felt like such a fun challenge for me.”

“Palm Royale” is one of Wiig’s most dramatic roles yet, and she says she’s drawn to the duality of acting in something that’s both funny and serious.

“The tone of the show is vastly different from the book, but I think what we all fell in love with in the book was that it had just extremes in both directions. Just ridiculous things that would make you laugh, and then things that would make you cry,” Wiig says. “And I mean, of course, as an actor, that’s always so fun to play because I really love doing both, and I haven’t done something in that sort of space in a long time.”

The year before she left “Saturday Night Live,” she starred in the hit comedy “Bridesmaids,” and post-“SNL,” Wiig has been working nonstop, in films like “Wonder Woman 1984,” the “Despicable Me” movies, “Ghostbusters,” and “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.”

While “Palm Royale” may signal a shift in her career — a more dramatic role, in prestige television with the potential for awards-season buzz and a second season (though no announcements have been made yet) — Wiig says she doesn’t “have much of a plan.”

“I definitely believe things come when they’re supposed to come and just trust the divine timing of things. I left [‘SNL’] knowing I wanted to always say ‘yes’ to things that I felt right about, and comfortable saying ‘no’ to things. It’s such a case-by-case because you get sent something and maybe you would’ve said ‘yes’ at a different time, or maybe you would’ve said ‘no’ at another time. But I think you start reading it and then for me anyway, it’s pretty early on where I’m like, ‘oh yeah, this feels like this is my next thing.’ But yeah, there’s no plan.”

She’s talked for years about wanting to direct someday, and that remains a goal, with it ideally being something she’d write. She’s “trying to discipline” herself to write this summer while between projects.

“I’m trying not to force it, but at the same time, I feel like sometimes I have to force it,” she says.  

If you had given Wiig in 2012, as she was saying goodbye to “SNL,” a glimpse into the future as to what her life would look like, “oh my gosh. I would be so happy,” she says. 

“More so just personally, just with my family and my kids. But I think career-wise, it’s all a surprise. Anytime something comes up for work, it’s always out of the blue, really, if you think about it,” she says. “You get a phone call or you get an email you weren’t expecting, and then you’re like, ‘oh.’ But yeah, I mean, I like my life,” she adds with a laugh.