Superstar Amy Poehler Tries Her Hand at a Type-B Character: Here's Why It's Amazing
Amy Poehler is finding her chill.
Saturday Night Live alum Amy Poehler has had a glittering career filled with fantastic projects. She led the show Parks and Recreation to mass success; She has starred in several incredible films - like Baby Mama and Inside Out; She has also produced several - like Broad City and Russian Doll.
Through everything she does, we have come to recognize Poehler as the energizer bunny of modern media, finding ourselves constantly asking the question: Could she slow down if she wanted to?
The answer? Yes: in an amazing and creative way.
Very different from the usually loveable type-A characters the star plays, Poeher is now voicing the part of chill fifteen year-old boy, Duncan, in the animated series Duncanville, and the new role has been a welcome and exciting challenge for the actor.
She spoke about it in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, reflecting:
"There's a great pantheon of women, whether it's Nancy Cartwright or Pamela Adlon, who played young boys in this really great way. And I do play a lot of characters who, like you said, are the engines that make things run. It's reeeallly nice to play someone who likes to just stop momentum in its tracks. Teenage boys are like that - they're not interested, for the most part, in listening, helping out the team, making things happen. It's super fun to do that energy as the character."
Even though the personality type differs from that of the character that Pohler usually takes on, the heart that emminates from every role she plays remains powerfully true in Duncan. This heart comes hand in hand with the thoughtful decision to make the character fifteen years old.
"At that age, you couldn't believe how much like a kid people were treating you, and when you look back now it's like, 'I can't believe how young I was.'
Kids who are 15, they don't feel young. So when he's with his buddies and he's online, gaming, he's king of the world. But because his frontal lobe hasn't finished growing, he [messes up] and his whole life is destroyed.
It's so fun to play a character that ages because they make these big mistakes, and they have big, grandiose thoughts about themselves. They're not fully formed, which is what always makes [them] a funny character to play - at any age, I guess."
We can't wait to see Poehler in this fresh form in the new season of Duncanville.
