Rolling Stone - October 3, 2002
Hot "Saturday Night Live"
AMY POEHLER
SHE'S THE FUNNIEST NEW CAST MEMBER ON SNL. PLEASE DON'T HOLD THAT AGAINST HER


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THIS IS WHAT TINA FEY HAS TO SAY ABOUT HER "SATurday Night Live" cast mate Amy Poehler. "She plays a fabulous array of dirty white trash," says the "Weekend Update" co-anchor and the show's head writer. "That's always useful. And tomboys. She's tough. She's like a Bowery Boy with Beverly D'Angelo's face. Also, she's really fearless, and because of her size, you can throw her around."

"Vanity is the comedy killer," says Poehler, 31. You start wondering if your roots are done, and that's the end." Keeping her own ego in check, she regularly plays the role of Amber on SNL: a one-legged hypoglycemic prone to flatulence.

Poehler grew up in the suburbs of Boston, the daughter of two high school teachers. After college, she moved to Chicago, where she took improv classes with the legendary Del Close and then spent years waiting tables and trying to make a living in comedy. Poehler was a member of the Upright Citizens Brigade, whose show ran for three seasons on Comedy Central. After it was canceled, she hopped into an SNL slot last year. "Comedians get famous and they forget how to order their own coffee," Poehler says. "What can you make jokes about - your assistant calling you too late?" But Hollywood already beckons: Poehler spent her summer vacation making Envy, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Ben Stiller; she plays Jack Black's wife. How will she maintain her edge? "I'm going to keep it real - every now and then, I go to the Bronx and enter a break-dancing contest."

Gavin Edwards