The husband and wife play brother and sister in the Will Ferrell comedy
They're married in real life, but in Blades of Glory, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett are brother and sister. They play the ice skating pair, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg - the rivals of the newly formed team of former rivals Will Ferrell and Jon Heder.
In kind of a weird way, the two comedians give sibling love a whole new meaning - in an Angelina Jolie and James Voight style. Their comic timing is brilliant, though; and sitting down and chatting with them is even funnier. If you thought Will and Jon's interview was hilarious, here's what they had to say:
Will Arnett: I just want to make a quick, short statement.
Amy Poehler: I know if we're ever in this situation again we've done something wrong.
Have you worked together before?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: We did briefly on Arrested Development; I did a couple of episodes of that, Will's show on Fox, but no, not really other than this film. We've done a few other little things here and there, but nothing in this capacity; we've never played brother and sister before, I'll tell you that.
He could skate and you can't?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: That's right, I couldn't.
Did you help her or did you just let her fall down?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Will Arnett: I think I helped; I tried to be a positive influence as much as a could -
Amy Poehler: Yup, there's a lot of trash talking going on between us and Ferrell and Heder, so we had to stay a team.
Will Arnett: We let our skating do the talking, right?
Amy Poehler: Right, yeah, sure. If that's the case then I have a terrible speech impediment.
Will Arnett: That's not true; Amy learned to skate - basically, you'd skated a few times before, but essentially learned how to skate for the movie and did a really good job.
Amy Poehler: Thank you.
Did you guys get this together, or did one of you get on first and then the other?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: We came in pretty much the same time. We woke up one morning and there was a tap at our window -
Will Arnett: A really lonely tap -
Amy Poehler: Yup, it was a really quiet, lonely tap, and we looked out at Will Ferrell in his bathrobe crying -
Will Arnett: Streaming, holding the script.
Amy Poehler: And he said, 'If you don't do this, it isn't going to happen.'
Will Arnett: Please, yeah, please - begged us to do the movie, and we said, 'We're going to need three weeks. We need three weeks to think about this.'
Amy Poehler: Our salary came out of his pocket.
Will Arnett: We demanded that, we wanted him to really feel it.
What was it like meeting Scott Hamilton?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: It was exciting.
Will Arnett: It was very exciting.
Amy Poehler: I grew up watching skating all the time in the Olympic stuff, and he's a delight.
Will Arnett: He really is, and he also lends an air of legitimacy to what we do, potentially he's a piece of insurance that will prevent us from being assassinated by the skating community.
Amy Poehler: Yes, I will put Hamilton up against anybody, any day.
Will Arnett: Well, we shouldn't be putting him up against anybody -
Amy Poehler: But I would love to watch him fight someone -
Will Arnett: Ok, we don't need to have some sort of fight pit with Scott Hamilton.
Amy Poehler: It's a good idea.
Did you guys base your characters on anybody you might have seen in the skating world?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: We did actually, we kind of based our - I know I based the character of Fairchild on like those really put together, almost like prima ballerinas or gymnasts, like really focused gymnasts, or like the ladies on the top of cakes.
Will Arnett: One of those; yeah, there are moments in the movie we're definitely - inspirational moments that we witnessed watching some skating, luckily the Olympics happened right before we started shooting, and as we were sort of prepping and getting ready, and I don't know if anybody remembers last year from Torino, but the ice-dancing couples, the pairs, there was an Italian couple who were incredibly -
Amy Poehler: Remember them?
Will Arnett: The guy screwed up -
Amy Poehler: And he dropped her -
Will Arnett: He dropped her, and they were about to win it all, they had come out of retirement and they go to their final thing, they freeze at the end, and she won't let it go, like standing there 30 seconds. And then they go to the 'kiss and cry' area, which is after the -
Amy Poehler: That was one of the things we learned -
Will Arnett: We learned the kiss and cry, they're sitting there and he's like ahhhh, just waiting for the scores, and she's boring a hole through him - 'Whoa, wonder how we did.'
Amy Poehler: And the announcer was like, 'She will not forgive him.' We were like, 'That's good, we have to remember that,' real life drama.
What about those costumes -{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: Aren't they insane? Our characters in this film always think that they're on, always think that someone's watching, hoping someone's watching.
Will Arnett: Even at home.
Amy Poehler: Yup, even at home; so every time we put one of those on, including our hip-hop outfits, really off the mark, we thought they were hip-hop, they were really off the mark, so they always believed that they looked pretty good.
Did you have spandex fittings?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: The gentlemen had more spandex in many ways than the ladies, which is a nice twist, isn't it? Usually the ladies have the spandex. We did a lot of fittings and I had costumes that plugged in and jingled and jangled.
Will Arnett: The costuming on the movie was very elaborate and at a certain stage when we were getting ready, before we started shooting, they were doing camera tests and things like that, and we realized after having watched the Olympics that you can't go too far in this area. Nothing is over the top -
Amy Poehler: We had to pump it up -
Will Arnett: It really needed to be pumped up, and that's how we ended up going to the place with the so called hip-hop outfits or the Marilyn and JFK -
Amy Poehler: And Julie Weiss, the costume designer, she's amazing, she's also worked on such amazing stuff as Brazil, and she gives you an example of actually out there -
Will Arnett: Truly just eccentric and really thinks outside of whatever the box is in, it's outside of that.
Did you have a favorite.{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: I don't know, I kind of liked my hip-hop outfit the best just because it was disgusting.
Will Arnett: I liked the JFK and Marilyn stuff too though -
Amy Poehler: Yeah, and you got to wear a little JFK skirt, didn't you?
Will Arnett: I did, JFK was a one piece, except for - in order to achieve the bottom of the suit jacket, I had to wear essentially what amounted to skirt that I clipped around as the last piece -
Amy Poehler: So every morning before he'd start working you'd clip on your skirt, like you guys do, you clip on your skirt and you started your day.
Will Arnett: It's not emasculating at all.
Was there a full routine for JFK and Marilyn?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: Yes, there was, and I'm hoping that it will be on the DVD as an extra.
You shot the whole routine?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Will Arnett: We shot bigger pieces than ended up in the movie -
Amy Poehler: And then we're going to tour with it too; the studio doesn't know that yet.
Will Arnett: We're here promoting the tour as well. How many nations are there - 185 or something, we're doing all of them, we're doing every country.
Did anyone get hurt, were there any injuries?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: No, no injuries, except for some bruised egos.
Will Arnett: Oh man, that is juicy
Amy Poehler: Just some broken hearts and bruised egos; no, luckily, knock on wood.
Was there a sequence that you were heartbroken it was cut out?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: We did get to do a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that I remember being genius, do you? But we got to play around a lot, we improvised a lot of stuff too so that was fun.
Will Arnett: There are always going to be things that you do that when you see the final cut of the movie that you miss, and Blades of Glory is not about our journey, so -
Amy Poehler: Speak for yourself -
Will Arnett: Obviously it is, but I have to say that.
Amy Poehler: Every time that we'd do something funny Ferrell would accidentally hit the camera or lose the film.
Will Arnett: Hot coffee all over everything.
Amy Poehler: Hair in the gate, all that crap
Will Arnett: But that's Ferrell.
Amy Poehler: That's him.
Was there any time when you were doing this film that you just couldn't get through a scene because you were laughing?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Will Arnett: I have to be honest with you.
Amy Poehler: We did a scene, the scene where we're all in this room when we're giving our sister (Jenna Fischer) advice; Farrell was off camera doing the other side of the phone call.
Will Arnett: He'd clearly been drinking.
Amy Poehler: Clearly, and it was early.
Will Arnett: Yeah, it was early.
Amy Poehler: It was like 8AM.
Will Arnett: No, seriously, he was there on the other side of the room.
Amy Poehler: So that was really fun because we got to improvise together and get ready for whatever his was, because they hadn't shot his side yet.
Was that kiss your guys idea?
Amy Poehler: Those were doubles; those were kiss doubles.
Will Arnett: Those were doubles we used; we don't kiss on film.
Amy Poehler: We don't kiss on film; we just keep it for at home. But our doubles did a really good job.
Will Arnett: Really good, believable.
Amy Poehler: Yeah, they did a really good job.
Is it more fun to play the bad guys?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: It is more fun, way more fun to be evil. We had to look like from the outside that we were all sweet but inside we were rotten to the core; that was really fun to play. We spent most of the film - also Stranz and Fairchild - I think Fairchild is kind of mean to Stranz, too, during the film. It was really fun to play the bad guy because as a woman sometimes you don't get to do that.
When you came out on the ice in the stadium, what did that feel like?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: It was really scary; we were nervous the night before. We were joking that it was the Movie Olympics; we have such respect for the real skaters because it is so terrifying - we couldn't even imagine.
Will Arnett: They're incredible athletics.
Amy Poehler: Going out there and doing that and not being able to screw up and start again; I can't even imagine.
Will Arnett: And as a kid who grew up in Canada, coming out into an arena on skates was just so awesome. It's like a dream come true; every day I got to go work at a rink and that was really exciting.
Amy Poehler: We did have a little thing the night before; we were like 'We can do this. It's going to be really great tomorrow.' We had to psych ourselves up a little bit for it.
How was it spending all day working together and then going home?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: Well, when we got home, we'd just go through a very intense ritual of cleansing ourselves of our characters.
Will Arnett: Yeah.
Amy Poehler: And every day Will and I would go into different decompression chambers until we worked it out.
Will Arnett: Well we sleep in decompression chambers at our house. But, it was fun for us because Amy works on her show and for the last few years I've been working on Arrested Development and then a year ago or whenever it was that we started shooting this movie, we had the opportunity to work for much, much more.
Amy Poehler: I think we started shooting this movie ten years ago.
Will Arnett: Ten years ago; yeah, ten years ago this April. We had the opportunity to work together every day so that was kind of great. It was a lot of fun and obviously to play brother and sister was kind of -
Amy Poehler: Creepy.
Will Arnett: Creepy; awesomely creepy.
Amy Poehler: Awesomely creepy.
Can you talk about your Nickelodeon Show?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: Yeah, it's called the Mighty B. It's about a little skateboarding girl in San Francisco and she's a Girl Scout and she lives with her hippie single mom. When she dreams about being a superhero, she dreams about being this thing called the Mighty B. She's part of the Honey Bees Troup so she dreams about turning into a superhero. It's really, really great and I've got great people doing it. Nickelodeon is really excited about it and I think it's excellent. The creators - myself, Cynthia True and Erik Wiese - worked on Sponge Bob and The Fairly Odd Parents and a bunch of those shows so I'm very lucky to be working with them.
Do you do the voiceover?{@@@newline@@@}{@@@newline@@@}Amy Poehler: Yeah, I'm the voice of her; her name is Bessie Higgenbottom and she's really cute; yeah, it's been super fun. I just wanted to do something positive for girls that doesn't involve being boy crazy or being mean to each other. It's kind of the opposite of that.
Blades of Glory opens in theaters March 30th; it's rated PG-13.