Last year, Scarlett Johannson was named one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, but in her latest movie she is completely outshone by a lesser-known comedian.

The actress has her thunder stolen by Saturday Night Live regular Kate McKinnon in their new comedy Rough Night – an all-female romp that’s essentially Bridesmaids with more bite.

Johansson stars as Jess, a bride-to-be whose bachelorette party goes horribly wrong, while McKinnon plays Pippa, her best friend who flies from Australia to take part in the festivities.

While Johansson delivers a solid performance, the movie would be virtually laugh-free were it not for McKinnon, who creates a character who is equal parts ridiculous and loveable.

McKinnon said she listened to Australian podcasts to perfect her accent. And it clearly paid off.

While she occasionally veers into Kiwi territory (a running joke in the film), her over-eager drawl calls to mind ocker girls next door like Sam Frost, and has a little bit of Kath & Kim in the mix.

But it’s not just the accent – as a keen-eyed comic and seasoned impersonator, McKinnon’s mannerisms and dialogue perfectly capture the quintessential Aussie.

Sure, Pippa is a caricature – she whips out a jar of Vegemite at a restaurant to use on the bread basket, for example.

But her constant complaints about jet lag being “no joke, you guys!”, and her insistence on altering every little word by adding extraneous letters (“that’s B-gorgeous!” she shouts) is more than a little familiar.

“You don’t have snags?” she asks incredulously while trying to order a pizza, and when held at gunpoint she screams, “oh my god it is true all you Americans have guns!”.

She’s an island of hilarity in a film that otherwise relies on heavy drug use, bodily functions and gory hijinks for humour.

This ability to transform is far from new for McKinnon, who has been a working actor for 10 years and a regular on SNL since 2012, winning an Emmy for her work.

The 33-year-old is perhaps best known for her impersonation of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, which she regularly reprised alongside Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump.

Most recently, McKinnon delivered a spot-on impression of US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions testifying before the Senate’s hearing into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“What I noticed is that [Sessions] has got this funny little mouth,” McKinnon said on Late Night with Seth Meyers this week.

“I could always do this thing with my lips and I’ve been trying to use it and then he popped up into the world and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to use it!’.”

Watch Kate McKinnon’s Jeff Sessions act below

In Rough Night, McKinnon once again proves why Baldwin fell “madly in love with her”.

“I can honestly say Kate McKinnon is probably one of the three most talented people I’ve ever worked with on the show in my entire life,” he told Vanity Fair this year.

“Truly, Kate is someone who, there is no limit to what she can do.”

Rough Night is in cinemas from Thursday.