Amy Poehler
Amy Poehler
Amy Poehler is an American actress, comedian, director, producer and writer. After studying improv at Chicago's Second City and ImprovOlympic in the early 1990s, she went to New York City in 1996 to become part of the improvisational comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade. The group's act became a half-hour sketch comedy series on Comedy Central in 1998. Along with other members of the comedy group, Poehler was a founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth16 September 1971
CountryUnited States of America
I believe great people do things before they are ready.
I'd like to think that I don't have a stock character that I go to. I'm lucky in that when you get to initiate your own scene, you get to play whoever you want. That's really kind of cool, but all my characters are short. I look on the videotape, and I thought they were taller, but they're all 5'2".
I think the hardest thing is to know what you want, ask for it, and then to stop talking.
If you ever want to see heaven, watch a bunch of young girls play. They are all sweat and skinned knees. Energy and open faces.
My phone is trying to kill me. It is a battery-charged rectangle of disappointment and possibility. It is a technological pacifier.
Sleep and I do not have a good relationship. We have never been good friends. I am constantly chasing sleep and then pushing it away. A good night's sleep is my white whale. Like Ahab, I am also a total drama queen about it. I love to talk about how little sleep I get. I brag about it, as if it is a true indication of how hard I work.
Ladies like improv stilts, and I think men like improv giant cocks. But one of the great things about improv is that you get to play some roles you'd never get to play otherwise, you know, like the old Italian pizza-maker who's passing on the business down to his son. You get to play it all when you improvise.
I do not improvise in heels.
When something feels really big, too big to handle, just go very small. Just go real small, just look at the person next to you and look in their eyes and meet the person next to you, find out their name, change one person's life and make one call, write one letter, give one dollar. Whatever small thing feels like what you can do - it changes the course of the ship and that is all it is.
Nice manners are the secret keys to the universe.
There's nothing like watching a live performance of, frankly, anything. You have to make sure that people believe everything is improvised. I could not stress enough how little we [actors] prepare and what small amount of time we put in before these shows.
Keep your virginity for as long as you can, until it starts to feel weird to you. Then just get it over with.
Sleep helps you win at life.
Fighting aging is like the War on Drugs. It's expensive, does more harm than good, and has been proven to never end.