Amy Poehler and Tina Fey will host the Golden Globes for the second year in a row this Sunday night. As part of the publicity tour for the festivities, the two of them sat down — separately — with The Hollywood Reporter for an interview. The whole thing is worth a read because every interview with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey is worth a read, and it’s mostly lighthearted and fun, but the real highlight here is Amy Poehler absolutely refusing to play along when the reporter tried to get cute or rope her into making a comment about a dicey issue. A sampling:
A challenge: $1,000 if both of you wear Amy Adams’ plunging blouse thing from American Hustle.
Fey: First of all, if you think my going rate for anything is $1,000 you are looking at an old catalog. I get at least $12,000 to dress up in sexual costumes for people. I would wear that for free. You would not have to pay me to wear that.
Poehler: Oh eww, I don’t want to even answer this question. Pass. Next. […]
There was some carping about Seth MacFarlane’s Oscar hosting performance last year. What did you think of the “boobs” song?
Fey: If Seth MacFarlane answered a question about how he thought my bit was, I’d be furious. So I would never weigh in on somebody else’s bit. It’s not my burden to defend it or attack it. It’s not my problem.
Poehler: It’s so hard to host. I don’t want to comment on anybody else’s performance. Why would you think that we would say anything about anybody’s performance if we’re getting ready to do our own? It’s a hard to job to host anything. Period.
After a lot of public criticism, SNL has added an African-American women to the cast. Do you think that criticism was warranted?
Fey: I think Kerry Washington did such a great job on the [Nov. 2] show [in a sketch that addressed the controversy]. And you saw how great it was for Jay Pharoah to have someone playing Michelle Obama opposite [his President Obama]. So I feel like they registered that really quickly and they’ve acted on it really quickly.
Poehler: Ugh, I don’t want to talk about this. Pass.
I love that. I love it so much. Celebrities who are out promoting stuff usually fall all over themselves to give safe, diplomatic answers to any question anyone throws at them, and Amy Poehler just does not give a f*ck, Golden Globes or not. It reminds me a little of my favorite Amy Poehler story ever, from Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants:
Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers’ room, waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start. There were always a lot of noisy “comedy bits” going on in that room. Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can’t remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and “unladylike.”
Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said: “Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it.”
Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. “I don’t f*cking care if you like it.” Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit …
Anyway, yes, Amy Poehler is still the greatest.
