INT: Poehler/Rudolph

Truth be told, I haven’t watched “Saturday Night Live” for many
years. When I do watch it, I
tend to prefer the classic “not ready for prime time players”
such as John Belushi,
Chevy Chase
, Gilda Radner and such. But
there do seem to be plenty of talented people working their way
through SNL and sometimes on to bigger and better things.
SHREK
THE THIRD has quite a few of them, including Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Cheri Oteri
and a couple fresh faces including Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler.
They both have done a handful of movies here and there, and
it seems they may continue along that path.
Amy who has appeared in BLADES OF GLORY and will soon be seen
in MR. WOODCOCK. Maya, in
IDIOCRACY and A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION and now, along with Amy, can
be heard as modern day princess’ in SHREK THE THIRD.

When Amy and Maya stopped by The Four Seasons in

Beverly Hills

, I was pleasantly surprised. They
are not only very funny but they were also energetic and happy to be
a part of the SHREK world. Although
they seemed to think that if Shrek, or someone that looked like
Shrek, barged into the room, it might be a bit freaky.
It could happen. They
also spoke about Saturday Night Live and the talent that has come
from the show, and some future plans including MR. WOODCOCK and
HORTON HEARS A WHO. They also
had a taste of fun with the Shrek pens handed out, you know the
ones, push a button and Donkey talks.
Fun stuff folks. Nothing
like hearing Donkey sing… “Someone’s in the kitchen with
Donkey…” It was a blast to
talk to the princess’ and what else can I say, check out what Snow
White and Rapunzel had to say.

Amy Poehler	Maya Rudolph

Is
there a certain childhood fantasy thing about doing something like
this?

Maya Rudolph: I’ll be
honest. We’ve been
asked that question all day and I was like, I don’t know and then
I was like, it’s kinda nice. They
are like, “hey, you’re a princess.” Well, thank you very much.

Amy Poehler: Totally.
I’m not too cool for it, I’m super psyched to be in a
film that will stand the test of time, I really believe that.
And to play the iconic figures we get to play.
It’s really neat. And
to be with funny ladies and be among like an amazing cast, it’s
really great. I’m a
fan of the films; I can honestly say I really like them; as opposed
to when I lie all the time. [Laughing]

Was
it fun to kind of turn the whole princess thing on its ear, I mean,
princess’ are huge with modern little girls?

AP: They are, they’re
really big right now. I
was trying to tell that other dude.

MR: …I know, he wasn’t
listening.

AP: But they’re huge right
now and so it was kind of nice to play a version of those classic
princess’ who kind of end up saving themselves.

How
much leeway did you allow yourself with the whole improv thing?

AP: I allow myself a hundred
percent, other people don’t allow… no… [Laughing]

MR: I mean there is
definitely an open invitation but they know what they want and
it’s written and it’s already written very well.
You know, it’s already funny.
Then there’s this really nice… okay, let’s try this
and… that didn’t make any sense did it?

AP: We got to improvise a
little bit.

MR: Thank you.

AP: We got to create our
characters a little bit, but they had a really solid script coming
in. So we knew that we
were gonna get to… [the table shakes and a journalist jumps]

MR: Don’t worry, it
wasn’t an earthquake. You
just jumped.

AP: You guys… Shrek is
here! [Laughing] That
would be awesome if someone came barging in dressed as Shrek.

MR: That would scare the
living shit out of me. [Laughing]

It
would?

MR:
I don’t know, like a large…

AP: A giant green person…

MR: Like real?
Not a costume?

AP: I think I might jump.

We
don’t really know how big Shrek is.

AP and MR:
Yeah…

He
might be a little man.

MR: Might
be teeny tiny?

AP: He
looks quite big, compared to…

Have
you guys seen the movie? The
whole thing?

AP and MR:
We saw it in New York.

MR: [To
Amy] I’m gonna say everything that you say at the same time…

Did
you see it in a screening room with Julie Andrews like one of your
members did?

MR and AP:
No.

With
an audience?

MR: No
it was just us and Amy Sedaris…

AP: And
Maya’s daughter… Pearl. [Both
say daughter Pearl]

Well,
there’s an audience.

AP: She
was an audience.

MR: But
she’s only a year and a half, so she was like, ‘what the hell is
going on?’

AP: Tell
them the story about pointing to you.

MR: She
watched it and she got a little scared and she was doing this to me
[hiding with her mommy] with the trees.
And then at the very end of the movie she pointed to Princess
Fiona and she said, ‘mama’.
[Laughing] No that’s Cameron Diaz.

How
does it feel to be in a big summer movie?

AP: Yeah.

MR: It’s
cool.

AP: It’s
thrilling. I’m so
excited… I’m so excited that it did well.
And I think it’s great.

Will
this success lead to other things now?

AP: It
leads to debauchery, it leads to egotistical mania.
Right?

MR: Drinking…

AP: Lotta
drinking.

Normal
behavior then?

AP: Yeah,
normal everyday behavior. [Laughing]

MR: Everyday
life.

The
voice acting, did it prepare you for “Horton Hears a Who”?

AP: Yeah,
I got to do that as well, which… I don’t know when that’s
coming out, but that was really fun.
Again, great cast of people and a classic story.
I play the wife of the mayor of Whoville, I’m Steve
Carell’s wife. [She has trouble remembering her character’s name
in the film] Ah, my
characters… but in this one [Shrek the Third] I play Snow White.
I’ll tell ya that. No,
but it’s been really fun to get to do a lot of animation and
stuff. It’s really
cool. Again, we do late
night television so we don’t get to do a lot of things that are
age appropriate for children. So
it’s nice to do something that…

MR: It
actually is fun. It
wasn’t like, ‘Oh, God. I
gotta do Rapunzel.’ It
was fun.

Is the
working relationship, when you do work with former or current SNL
members on another project like Will [Ferrell]
on “Blades of Glory”, is it a different kind of working process
and kind of working relationship then
it was on SNL [Saturday Night Live]?

AP: It’s completely
different. You know,
every experience is different. However,
I will say that I think most SNL people share a similar vocabulary.
There’s something similar in terms of… or there’s like
a sparkle/twitch in the eye that everyone knows.
Like, it’s a very specific camp so when you’ve gone there
or you’re going there, you always have something to talk about.

MR: Yeah,
like when you work on that show you are in sort of the army
together, no matter who you’re with.
And as I’ve met people over the years, you know, alumni of
the show, it’s like you are all in the same fraternity together.
Amy said [that] you speak the same language.
So you know that if you had to go…

AP: To
war…

MR: …out
there, with them, that they’d be there.

AP: If
you were in a comedy war.

MR: A
comedy war. Not a real
war.’

Given
the fact that the SNL people do develop a certain shorthand with
each other, how frustrating is it to be all by yourself
in a recording booth?

MR: It’s
different.

AP: It’s
weird. It is weird.
I mean, the good thing that came out of that is when I
watched the film, I really had no idea what anyone else had done.
So I was watching these ladies who I very much am a fan of,
as well as friends of. I
was excited to see what they had done.
But it is a little isolating.
I imagine that Cameron and maybe you guys no more than me
but, that Mike [Myers] and those guys finesse up until the… I’m
sure they listen back more than probably we did.

MR: Sure.

AP: We
had smaller hits so… we kind of did our stuff separate from them,
so… But, they did a great job of blending it together; like in the
shower scene you really kind of can’t tell that we’re not all
jabbering.

What
are you guys working on now?

AP:
Being a better person. Finding
an alternative fuel.

MR: Good
tan.

AP: Good
tan. And telling the
truth, not telling lies.

How’s
that going for you?

AP: Ah,
great? [Laughing] Ah, shit. BAD!

Have
you seen “Mr. Woodcock” yet?

AP: I
haven’t seen it. I’ve
seen clips of it. You’ve
seen it?

Yeah,
a few minutes…

AP: When
is that coming out? Do
you know?

This
fall…

MR: You
made that forever ago.

AP:
Yeah, that was awhile ago.
They had to redo part because it was the old “The View”.
People from… it was the old ladies from The View.

MR: Oh
really. You’re gonna
have to hurry…

AP: Don’t
put the ladies from The View in your movies because you gotta redo
it again and again.

But
you have a lot, including that movie, that’s coming out.

AP: Yeah,
that’s coming out. I
don’t know when it’s coming out.

Who do
you play in that?

AP: I
play the publicist to Seann William Scott’s character, who kind of
is needling him the whole time about getting back to work, and he
goes to his hometown to sell his book and meet his old gym teacher
who’s boning his mom.

MR: Romantic.

AP: That
was a lot of fun.

MR: And
romantic.

AP: Yeah,
romantic. I haven’t
seen that yet though.

How
much longer do you see SNL being part of your career?

AP: Well,
I know I’ve got one more year.
I’ll be coming back next year.
And then… Maya?

MR: This
is my last year as far as I know.

What
will happen then?

MR: Depression.
More drinking. Moving
to an island. No, I
don’t know, I mean I never say never.
My contract is up but I’ve been there for seven years.

Well
seven years is actually quite a long time isn’t it?

AP: It’s
a very long time.

MR: Yeah,
but it’s standard so, you know, we’ll see what happens.

Maya,
“Idiocracy” came out just a few weeks ago on DVD.

MR: Did
you see it?

AP: I
did. I loved it.

How
did you feel about the way Fox treated it?

MR: It
took me so long to understand what was going on because I never got
a straight answer so it’s like frustrating at first.
I’m like, when’s my movie coming out???
When’s it coming out? What’s
wrong? And then, finally
it was like, oh, I see what’s going on.
No one will say anything and it’s just one of those things
where they had it planned to never put it out.
But you know what? A
lot of people have started to see it which I love.
You know, in that way, like on NetFlix, some many people have
seen it on NetFlix. Because
it didn’t come out… it didn’t come out in New York.
It came out here [Los Angeles] for a week.

They
opened it in seven cities, some of them very peculiar…

MR: They
just buried it.

And I
know Mike Judge had to threaten to sue them unless they gave it an
opening.

MR: Did
he really? It’s one of
those weird things. I
don’t know what happened. I
would love for somebody to say, this is what happened.
It’s sort of one of those weird mysteries kind of.

AP: A
lot of people don’t know that it made like fifty million moon
dollars.

MR: It
made a lot of moon dollars.

AP: It
was huge on the moon.

You
both have been part of this explosion of female talent on SNL and
you probably get more raves than anybody else on the show, and yet
you are not getting the film offers…?

AP: They’re
coming from the moon. I
would argue that’s not the case.

MR: That
is not the case my friend.

AP: I
have to argue that that’s not true.
For example, the biggest star recently to come out of SNL
recently is Tina Fey. So
I would argue that… I don’t know, I think that the bigger thing
is… It’s really been nice to be given the [opportunity] to do
“Shrek” with a lot of funny ladies.
And it is a really nice reminder of how many talented women
there are out there. And
it’s about the constant kind of push to make sure that those
stories get told and you create your own stuff.
But his is a time when Tina’s got her show, the Sarah
Silverman show is great, it’s like there is a lot of good stuff
happening where women are creating their own stuff.
And really at the end of the day, most people have to create
their own stuff anyway so…