The Improper Bostonian - November 19-December 2, 2003
Soroff ON

AMY POEHLER
BY JONATHAN SOROFF PHOTOGRAPHED BY GREG HENRY/LAMOINE PHOTO GROUP

(Click on images for larger version.)

Now in her third season as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, Burlington native Amy Poehler graduated from Boston College, where she was in an improv troupe called My Mother's Fleabag, and then moved to Chicago to pursue a career in comedy. After performing with Second City and ImprovOlympic, she joined the sketch comedy group Upright Citizens Brigade and moved with it to New York in 1996.

The troupe had a TV show that ran on Comedy Central for three years, and it also opened its own theater. In addition to being a regular on SNL, Poehler has played recurring characters on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Undeclared, and her film credits include Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Wet Hot American Summer, and Martin & Orloff. In her forthcoming film appearances, she starts opposite Jack Black and Ben Stiller in Envy, and opposite Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins in The Devil and Daniel Webster. Recently married, she lives in New York.

Jonathan Soroff: So are Trix really for kids, or does the rabbit in that commercial have grounds for a discrimination suit?
Amy Poehler: Is this a thinly disguised drug reference, or what?
JS: Never mind. Were you a handful growing up?
AP: I was always a “Look at me!” kid. I'd spend a couple of hours putting together a routine and making everyone come out and watch me perform it in the driveway. I wasn't shy.
JS: Now that you're a big, huge star, what's the juiciest piece of gossip you've heard about yourself?
AP: I haven't. But sometimes I'll read the blind items in [the New York Post‘s] Page Six and pretend it's me they're talking about – y'know, the starlet with the drug problem?
JS: So how much rehearsal time do you guys get on SNL?
AP: The one thing people don't realize (or maybe they do after watching the show) is that it's so last-minute. On Monday, you meet the host and pitch ideas to them. Tuesday, you stay up all night writing. Wednesday, you read all the sketches, and they get picked. You rehearse Thursday and Friday, tape any taped pieces and rehearse any songs, and block a scene maybe once or twice. Saturday, you have a run-through, a dress rehearsal in front of a live audience, and then there's the live show. Sketches will be added on a Saturday. Or you can work on a sketch all week –there's a set and costumes– and then, after the dress rehearsal, at a meeting between 10:30 and 11:30, that sketch can go away. Lorne Michaels' quote is that the show airs because it's 11:30, not because it's ready. And that's what I love about it.
JS: Favorite guest host?
AP: Anyone who compliments me. If a host says something flattering, it's very easy to fall in love with them. We have all these glamorous movie stars who come in with beautiful skin, and we've stayed up all night, and we're like, “I don't really like him or her.” Then they walk by and say, “That was really funny,” and they're instantly my new best friend.
JS: Tell me a guest-host horror story—someone who was a wicked big dink.
AP: People are usually too scared to be nasty. The interesting thing with the host is they're out of their element. You have these big stars used to controlling everything thrown into a show where they don't have very much control, working with people who have worked together for years, and they're asked to do things they don't normally do. If they surrender to it, they do great. It's people who try to come in and control the situation. Sometimes, an actor will say, “I can't really understand the motivation here,” or use all these actor-y terms, and I'm like, “You mean you can't do it funny? Just read the f------cue cards.”
JS: So is Britney Spears really made out of marzipan?
AP: [Laughs.] You're not gonna get me to dig on celebrities.
JS: Then just give me one “Jeane Dixon Predicts,” like, is Tori Spelling due for a big comeback?
AP: There are a lot of people I worry about in the world. Tori isn't one of them.
JS: Scariest Christopher Walken moment?
AP: He's really good at sitting there and not talking. Y'know how most people feel compelled to fill in the silence? He could just sit there forever and not talk, which shows either incredible discipline or that he's able to sleep with his eyes open.
JS: Ever seen Ben Stiller naked?
AP: God, no. You're not gonna get me on any of this.
JS: Is Jack Black the Orson Welles of our generation?
AP: [Laughs.] He's awesome. I love people who take some of the vanity out of comedy. You can always win my heart by doing a pratfall or walking around with a plate of spaghetti on your head. He just kind of barrels along in a way that I really like.
JS: You play his wife in a movie called Envy. Name one thing you envy.
AP: Just one? God! I envy people who automatically get up early. I can't quite figure it out, because it's a battle for me every morning. So I envy early risers, and I envy people who can speak another language, so they can more readily talk about other people while they're standing right next to them. I could go on. I envy people who can jog, and I think these might be the same people who are early risers and speak French, but they get up and run and sweat, and then just go about their day. It's shocking to me. I find that fantastic.
JS: Funniest thing you ever did or said onstage that your audience didn't get?
AP: Because they didn't hear it, or because they didn't understand? Can you imagine if I just rolled out 500 examples? “One time, I did a sketch on Love Canal and not a single person got it. Another time, I referenced this crazy tree that grows in Africa.” [Laughs.] I've blocked all those horrible moments out.
JS: The thing you miss most about living in Boston?
AP: My family—and the Burlington Mall, which never fails to delight.
JS: In Deuce Bigalow, your character had Tourette's syndrome. If you really had it, what inappropriate thing would you love to be able to say?
AP: I'd want to comment on poor service. I've waited tables since I was 16, and it's true everywhere—in restaurants, at the airport—people are so f------ rude! And I'm sick of it. I believe myself to be an easy customer, but once in a while, I'd like to blurt out, “You should definitely be fired.”
JS: You created the role of a one-legged dating-show contestant on SNL. Any angry letters from one-legged women?
AP: No. I'd like to think I've shown the world that one-legged women can be as trashy and despicable as everyone else.
JS: If you lived in a trailer park, what would you have in your front yard: a pink flamingo, a bathtub Mary, one of those reflective balls?
AP: No. I would probably have an old, broken-down tanning booth filled with used scratched tickets from the lottery, none of them winners, and miscellaneous baby effects, slightly burned from a fire, but nobody really knows the whole story.
JS: OK, that's deeply disturbing. You know what freaks me out? When you see a sneaker or a sweatshirt lying on the side of the highway? It's really ominous.
AP: [Laughing.] When you live in New York, the things you see on the street are amazing. You'll look down, and there's like a china plate, filled with chicken wings and a dirty sock. I'm like, “What the f---?!” It's so gross.
JS: OK, fill in the black: On the whole, Amy Poehler would rather _____.
AP: Amy Poehler would rather you mind your own business. With three exclamation points. Just kidding.