Chasing Amy
''Saturday Night Live" star Amy Poehler visited Boston College last weekend during BC's annual Arts Festival. A Burlington native and BC '93 graduate, Poehler picked up an arts award, spoke to students about her career -- launched in Chicago with her brilliant work in improvisational comedy -- and later joined her old BC troupe My Mother's Fleabag for a performance. Accompanied by her husband, actor Will Arnett, Poehler chatted with Pop! about returning to campus and other topics.
JOSEPH P. KAHN
Q. What advice do you have for today's college students?
A. With improv, it's about not being afraid to look like an idiot. In terms of my BC experience, it's about creating your own kind of art. About acting and reacting. About -- gee, I'm not sure I have any advice, because everybody's path is different.
Q. Were you a happy, well-adjusted BC student?
A. I'd like to pretend I was entrapped in my own angst, the artist that nobody understood. I was kind of a good girl, though. There were so many opportunities here, you can really do well if you just get out of bed.
Q. Were you funny in high school?
A. I kept going out for serious roles and getting cast for comic relief. I wanted to be the brooding, complicated brunette, but I guess that wasn't me.
Q. You were the fizzy blonde, then?
A. Hey, I did not use ''fizzy." Hold on. Fizzy?
Q. Fizzy in a good way. Not ''dizzy."
A. No, but you're close there. And no ''bubbly," either. Please describe me as a complicated brunette.
Q. Ever dream about taking a biology exam you never went to class for?
A. Always. That's a typical stress dream, isn't it? The good thing about improv, though, is you're never unprepared. Or rather, always unprepared.
Q. Did growing up here shape your approach to improv?
A. Definitely. Boston has a scruffiness to it, a blue-collar work ethic that I can relate to. You have to be able to take it on the chin and keep proving yourself. Plus I come from a very funny family.
Q. What's the best thing about working in comedy?
A. It's allowed me to have a 15-year delayed adolescence.
Q. Popular opinion holds that ''SNL" was much better in -- pick your era. Do you hear that a lot?
A. It's a show you fall in love with at a certain age and place in life. So there are 15-year-old kids who'd say the show today is better than ever. When you're older and can't stay up that late, you get mad and say, ''It [stinks]."
Q. But now there's
A. True, but comedy is not always so good Sunday morning. Speaking of TiVo, if I could rewrite this interview I'd make it funnier.
Q. Present cast aside, who are your all-time favorite ''SNL" players?
A. I couldn't even start. The halls of that place are filled with crazy talent.
Q. Any characters you've particularly enjoyed playing?
A. There's one, a girl named Caitlin, who's my weak homage to Gilda [Radner]. Actually, Gilda would be the one player on my all-star team. She's the first woman I saw on television who could really hang with the boys.
Q. Ever imagine ''Weekend Update" might become the template for how young people get their news?
A. News and entertainment are getting all smushed together -- look at Jon Stewart. Besides, I can think of worse sources than ''Update" to get your news from. Like Fox News, maybe.
Q. Many ''SNL" alumni have become major movie stars. Are you hoping to make $15 million a picture someday?
A. Someday? I hope after this interview comes out I'll be making $15 million.
