AMY POEHLER aims to “do good work with friends.” Photo courtesy of HFPA
LOS ANGELES—Amy Poehler was in an extra cheerful mood last Tuesday, when it was announced that she and Tina Fey were returning as hosts of the Golden Globe Awards not only in January but also in 2015. Asked what the high and low points of her first Golden Globes cohosting gig last January were, she cracked, “The moment of success was when I sat on George Clooney’s lap. And the moment of failure was when I had to get off. Yes, it was all summed up in that one moment.”
As she settled down for the interview, the actress said: “This is a vintage shirt that I found in my closet today. This morning, I woke up and I was like, ‘Oh, I forgot I have to wear something. I have to wear clothes.’ I am so used to shooting on ‘Parks and Recreation’ where I just show up and they just tell me what to wear.
“We’re happy to be back and be able to do it for two years in a row so that we can really get a groove on,” Amy said of her and Tina’s comeback as Golden Globes hosts. The news was met with jubilation by the media which praised the duo when they hosted the show last January.
“We come from comedy so Tina and I just want to make sure it’s going to be a good show, that we could deliver again, that we are both interested in doing it again and we have the time to do it,” Amy stressed. “We want the people who are hiring us to feel like it would be interesting, new and exciting for them again. We felt like if it is meant to be, if we are meant to do it again, we would. If it was a one-time thing, we were happy with the way it went.”
Then she quipped, “But lower your expectations, please.”
Preparation
On the preparation that she and her friend will do, Amy said, “Tina and I are just enjoying this day of being happy that we’re doing it (again), and then we’ll put off work for like several months. And then a month before (the show), we’ll be like, ‘Oh s**t, we haven’t done any work for the Golden Globes.’”
“Then we’ll work really hard,” she added. “No. It’s so far out right now. We’re in that lovely period where we don’t have to do any of the hard work. We just get to hear congratulations from nice people and then we get closer to the date. Tina and I are used to working backing up from a deadline so we do a little bit better when we’re under pressure.”
Amy and Tina have been pals since the 1990s. “We met in 1996 in Chicago when we were improvising together,” she recounted. “We were certainly diamonds in the rough—a couple of late bloomers in every way. So we’ve known each other for a very long time.
“We were put on an improv team together by a woman named Charna Halpern who ran the Improv Olympic, a theater that we worked at in Chicago. She saw the two of us and said, ‘Oh, you two could work well together.’ So we met doing comedy. I can’t stress enough how two diamonds in the rough we were in every way. We were just excited to do comedy together. We saw a mutual respect and admiration for each other. That certainly hasn’t waned.”
TINA Fey, left, and Poehler plan to “put off work and cram” before the hosting gig. Photo courtesy of HFPA
Amy praised Tina. “She does amazing work. Everything she does is so specific, funny and interesting. We just hit it off right away. We knew we would be ‘married’ for a very long time.
“The chance to get to work together in different ways is really exciting,” Amy said. “My goal is to do good work with my friends, so getting to work with Tina feels that way. We’re both busy now so the only time we do get to see each other is at awards shows… We don’t see each other as much as we’d like to. She is one of my oldest and dearest friends. We have both experienced life and our careers in a simultaneous way. It has been really nice to have a partner along what can be a very crazy ride.”
Always dressed up
She joked, “I imagine that she’s always dressed up in her house every day.”
When asked how often she and Tina see each other and what they chat about, Amy fired off her improv wit: “I write down a log every time we see each other. I write about what topics are discussed, where we eat and what each of us is wearing.”
“Parks and Recreation,” where Amy plays city councilwoman Leslie Knope, found an excuse recently to shoot in London. “Yes, we filmed in London because Chris Pratt was filming there,” Amy confirmed. Chris, who plays Andy Dwyer in the series, is no longer a chubby character. He buffed up to land the Peter Quill/Star-Lord role in Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“Chris is going to be a huge movie star,” Amy predicted. “I said that first. I did when Bradley Cooper’s first movie came out. I know how to pick them. Chris is really fit. We added in the first episode (of the new season) where he said he stopped drinking and he lost 60 pounds. Adam Scott (who plays Ben Wyatt) said, ‘Wow, you must have drunk a lot of beer.’ Chris said, ‘Yeah, I guess I did.’ But when you put Andy character’s clothing on Chris, he looks the same.”
Amy dished, “We won’t be asking Chris to take off his shirt anytime soon. I mean, not on camera. Certainly, in my trailer I’ll be asking him.”
As to what fans of the hit series could expect, Amy revealed, “What’s coming is Leslie has been making all these what she feels are great ‘changes’ for her as a city councilor. The town is upset that things are changing so it’s that struggle of her wanting to do well in city government and the city not liking when things are different and changing. So right now, she’s fighting a recall. They are trying to kick her out of the city council. So we’ll see what happens with that.
“And as far as writing is concerned, Mike Schur, who’s the show creator, is the head writer,” Amy said. “I write a script a year. Mike and I just collaborated on our 100th episode which we’re shooting this week. That’s really exciting. I get to write an episode and I direct as well. But I am not involved in the day-to-day breaking stories in the writers’ room because I’m usually on the set.”
(E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.)