It’s pretty easy to be occasionally funny. It’s like a low-barrier hobby: a well-timed bon mot here, a clever pun there, maybe the occasional wry observation, and you get consistent laughs out of friends and acquaintances. Being professionally funny is hard. It requires talent, consistency, and a willingness to work for as long as it takes until that big break comes...if it ever does. There are far more aspiring full-time comedians grinding it out on stages across the country than there will ever be successful celebrity comedians, and those who are consistently successful are a rare breed.
Amy Poehler certainly didn’t go from cracking jokes straight to the top of her profession. No stranger to grinding it out, she spent her early years waiting tables in Chicago while honing the improvisational skills she picked up during her time in college. From joining a Second City touring group with longtime friend (and fellow comedy legend) Tina Fey to helping found comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade, she paid her dues long before she ever became a household name.
After joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2001, Poehler spent years drawing laughs as a variety of characters and contributed to the increase in female driven sketches in the show after she and Fey became the first female co-anchors of Weekend Update. In 2008, she left the show after giving birth to her first child, only to return to the screen as the star of Parks and Recreation in April 2009. The beloved show ran for seven seasons, earning her a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for one of the several episodes she wrote for the series.
It should come as no surprise to anybody familiar with Poehler’s work ethic that she branched into acting, directing, and producing during the time she was on stage with SNL and Parks and Rec. Pairing up again with Tina Fey, together they starred in comedy movies Baby Mama and Sisters. Poehler has also done voiceover work for a number of films, including The Secret World of Arrietty and Inside Out.
With an extensive list of nominations and awards to her credit, she’s still going strong on and off the stage. While there are countless success stories about people who worked hard, took risks, and were the children of millionaires, Amy Poehler’s fame has come from good old-fashioned grinding it out.