Poehler's in it for the long program
“From what I can see, I think you can smoke while you [curl] and I enjoy any sport where you can sit and yell at the people that are performing and also smoke,” she says with a laugh. “And my husband [Blades of Glory co-star Will Arnett] and I really got into curling and watching it over the Olympics. I don't know how to do it, but it looks like a lot of fun and it's a crazy-looking sport.”
Blades of Glory, unfortunately, isn't about curling, but rather figure skating. Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) are two champion figure skaters whose behaviour at a competition gets them banned for life, but thanks to a loophole in the rules, they discover that they can still continue as a pairs team. And they do. This infuriates Fairchild (Amy Poehler) and Stranz Van Waldenberg (Will Arnett), the brother/sister reigning champs who spend the movie trying to bring down the new pairs team.
“My character, Fairchild, is like that evil girl who would sit on the top of a cake. She looks sweet, but inside, she's very sour,” Poehler says. “What I [thought] about were prima ballerinas and ice queens, really rich mothers and also super villains where you think . . . they look very together, and inside, they're kind of like maniacal crazy people.”
Thinking it would be fun to play a villain is really the only reason Poehler took on her character; however, this rational approach to picking a role was very different than the more unconventional way in which she normally narrows down her job offers.
“As far as picking roles, I don't know if this is wise, but I just take scripts and I just throw them up in the air and whatever one lands [in the place I want] is where I go,” Poehler describes, her comedy roots in full force. “So right now, I'm in real trouble because I have to play a 45-year-old black janitor and I don't think I can pull it off, but that's what landed so that's where I'm going to go next.”
Poehler doesn't do any sweeping in Blades of Glory, neither as a curler nor as a janitor. But in order to play Fairchild, she did have to learn to skate.
While she admits that her husband and Ferrell had to prop her up on the ice at times, she currently can skate backwards and do different tricks and jumps. It was nice working with her husband as her on-screen skating partner, Poehler explains, because she was able to rehearse her moves with someone she trusts.
Blades of Glory features the new skating abilities of Poehler, and also showcases a number of Olympic athletes like Nancy Kerrigan and Peter and Kitty Carruthers, the brother/sister 1984 Olympic silver medallist pairs team who hail from Poehler's hometown of Burlington, Mass.
“I like to think that I'm going to try to represent those people who spent their whole lives working at their craft by pretending to do it for two hours in a movie,” Poehler says with a laugh.
Along with learning to skate like the Olympic athletes, Poehler and her co-stars also had the honour of dressing in the outrageously flamboyant costumes ubiquitous in the figure skating world.
For example, one item that Poehler wears in the film lights up like a Christmas tree, while another creation makes her and Arnett look like thugs -- outdated thugs, at that. Ferrell and Heder don't miss out on the costume fun either, Poehler notes.
“[They] sport some really special looks that I think [are] going to start sweeping the campuses and be the next trend,” she says with mock seriousness. “It's very, very tight lycra outfits and lots of jewels and feathers and stuff. We'll see if that catches on.”
Along with predicting fashion trends, Poehler also envisions her plans for the near future.
“I'm going to go on a curling tour, and I'm going to do a fierce curling regimen of drinking beers, packing butts and yelling at my fellow players,” Poehler laughs.
