Shrek's Princesses

In the much-anticipated animated comedy Shrek the Third, there is more than one princess in the land of Far Far Away. Yes, you've got Fiona but she's joined by Cinderella, (Amy Sedaris), Sleeping Beauty (Cheri Oteri), Snow White (Amy Poehler) and Rapunzel (Maya Rudolph) as well as some ugly step-sisters but we won't get into that. Three of these ladies are "Saturday Night Live" performers. We sat down with Amy and Maya to learn about the recruiting process; did the filmmakers just go down the SNL roster to pick their princesses...and how hard is doing live comedy like SNL anyway?

Snow White and Rapunzel, as voiced by Amy and Maya, are two feisty and very funny gals who also sing in the film. You might have just seen Amy as part of a twisted bro/sis skating team in Blades of Glory. Maya just did a very funny SNL episode with guest host Shia LaBeouf. The two hilarious gals came bouncing into our interview room ready to make us laugh and they were quite successful. Get ready to rumble with the silly princesses of Far Far Away...

TeenHollywood: Was there some kind of application process that maybe you needed to be part of SNL to be a princess in this movie?

Amy: Oh yeah, there's a there's a lot of ex-SNLers, [Mike] Meyers and [Eddie] Murphy too.

Maya: That's because it's a comedy farm. It's the top banana.

Amy: It is. It's comedy camp. And a lot of people don't know that Julie Andrews was the original conehead. [laughter]

TeenHollywood: Amy, when they first asked you to voice Snow White, did you think of chirpy little birds and forest animals? Did you know that she gets to kick butt?

Amy: Yeah. That was exciting! She's such an iconic figure that I wanted to try to do some new take on her and I thought it would be fun for her to be real bossy because she has a lot of people and animals that she takes care of. She's always played so sweetly that I thought she could be a real type "A".

TeenHollywood: Did you get to do a little interpretation of your characters? It wasn't just 'do it this way'?

Maya: We did. These characters are obviously established already so it was the movie's job to give their funny, tongue-in-cheek idea of what everybody is. For Rapunzel, I really don't remember much other than the tower and the hair but then you get the other side of her. She's kind of like betraying her friends. Playing a little dirty and maybe her hair is not her own. [laughter]

TeenHollywood: Was it fun to play Fiona's BFFs?

Amy: Yeah. It was fun to play friends of Fiona. Cameron is great. We've worked with her on the show [SNL] and she's really a great lady, friendly girl. So, it was really nice to be part of her kind of gang. And, with the pregnancy storyline, the ladies gather around and do baby showers and there are a lot of opinions.

TeenHollywood: But didn't you all work separately doing the recording?

Amy: Oh yeah. Maya and I refused to be in the same room.. [kidding]. We were in solid gold booths and we recorded in four different parts of the world.

TeenHollywood: Solid gold....right. You are both very physical comics. Was it freeing or a challenge to just use your voice?

Maya: They tell you that there's a little camera up in the corner watching your every move but I think they are studying your facial gestures and your movement. You're sort of hoping that, when you see [the film], you'll see some sort of thing that you do. I don't really know how it works but it's really incredible. When I saw the baby shower scene, we were all talking to each other and it was like 'that's what we did'?

Amy: [explaining to Maya] Animation is amazing. What they do is they take all this stuff and they throw it up in the air and it falls back down and it's done.

Maya: [innocently] Is it called 'magic'?

Amy: Yeah, it's called magic [fluttering her eyelashes].

TeenHollywood: When you two were little girls, what fairy tale princess or fairy tale story did you like most?

Maya: Well, it's not fairy tale but the only princess I remember is Princess Leia. My brother was really into Star Wars and there weren't really a lot of girls to play. I wasn't gonna be like a wookie.

Amy: I think I related more to boys in fairy tales at the time like 'Jack and the Beanstalk', I really liked that story. I remember relating to Jack at the time. Sometimes the ladies in fairy tales are being rescued or they are tired or sleeping or they're in some kind of beauty mirror where they're trapped or whatever.

Maya: But, Cinderella I like because she's an underdog.

Amy: Yeah. She was. I was always more of a little Muppets gal myself. Miss Piggy was one of the first like bossy characters. Maya's daughter Pearl loves her.

Maya: She loves Miss Piggy but she's in love with Kermit in this crazy way. It's really funny and cute. I was watching recently and was like 'oh yeah, Miss Piggy and Kermit were marred and somebody was like 'uh, she liked him but he didn't go for her. They were never a couple'. And my whole life I thought they were married. What's wrong with me?

TeenHollywood: So, when you finally saw your Shrek characters, did you notice any mannerisms and say 'oh, that's me'?

Amy: Maybe, there was a physical thing or two that I noticed but I've been lucky enough to do a little more animated stuff recently and it is a bit of a challenge. The fun thing is you can go really BIG and get kind of pulled back which I've never [gotten to do]. I've always been [of the opinion] 'go big or go home'.

Maya: But, it's not like soap opera acting where you [ she strikes a frozen, big-eyed pose indicating a long pause, holding an expression and we crack up].

TeenHollywood: Maya, was there anything you said and the director said "Too big. Pull it back"?

Maya: Because my character ends up being kind of a bitch to her friend, I didn't know how to go so we did everything different ways. It was interesting to see, 'okay, this is what they stuck with' and then went from there. She actually sounded like me. But there was an idea that it was going to be more of a vixeny [woman] because she's trying to get her friends away and get to the guy.

TeenHollywood: Amy, you said your Snow White is 'type "A". What did you do to give her more edge?

Amy: Snow White, in this film, she's really bossy and she acts like she's got it all together and then, when things fall apart, she's the first to freak out. She's on edge a little bit. She's the arm folder of the group [notices that she is sitting there with her arms folded and laughs]. So, there you go!

TeenHollywood: You did your own singing of course.

Amy: I did. But, I know if must have been sweetened because it sounded way too good. The [Led] Zeppelin stuff I got to sing. I've been asking them every year if I can sing 'The Immigrant Song'. It's something I do and they finally said 'yes'. [laughter] This happened to fit. They were like 'fine', 'fine'. Then that thing [sings sweet Snow White soprano, 'la, la, la la'] that thing, I did do it but I think it must have been sweetened because it sounded really nice.

Maya: [frowning] Maybe they sweetened my stuff.

Amy: Maya sings her song really well and I don't think any of those songs are on the sound track.

Maya: That sucks.

TeenHollywood: Maybe on the DVD you could all comment over that baby shower scene and finally all be in the same room together.

Maya: Yeah! That would fun.

Amy: That would be fun. Today's [press day] is kind of like the baby shower where were all in the same room together talking over each other but there's no baby [we're trying to keep a straight face].

TeenHollywood: So Maya, has all the success of Blades of Glory made Amy a diva?

Maya: Misserus Poehler. No, she's the same lady I know and love. She hasn't changed. Everything's great [she makes faces].

TeenHollywood: Maya, you were in a sketch on SNL like a week ago with Shia LaBeouf which was called "Sofa King" which I personally found quite funny. Is that something that, with the censors, you have to be very specific when saying these words?

Maya: Yeah, that was actually one of those weeks at work that was really fun because we got called into [Producer] Lorne's office and he was like 'alright, look, if you guys don't say sofa king as two words, we're gonna get fined a million dollars every time' so it was really scary and I guess standards and practices didn't want us to do it and Lorne really wanted to do the sketch. I was genuinely nervous that I might say what I wasn't supposed to say because that's all you can think about. We don't have a delay or anything but it was really fun.

TeenHollywood: The Maya and Shia skit was great. At the end it looked like you totally got him to crack up.

Maya: I think I scared him. We had to cut fifteen seconds out of it fifteen seconds before I was supposed to go out there. Lorne walked by and said 'we're gonna do that sketch. We're gonna cut fifteen seconds'. Then he walked off and I was 'uhhhh'. They I had to find the writer 'okay what should we cut?'. We made it go faster because we didn't want to lose a couple of things and I think when I threw the salad bowl, that scared him.

TeenHollywood: For both of you, do you ever try to get the host to laugh?

Maya: No. That's cheatin'.

Amy: You usually like the host. It's too nerve-wracking. You've got so much stuff going on. You're thinking about what you just did. You're running from scene to scene so to really throw people off like that would almost be not cool.

Maya: It would be mean. What comes with that job is the host gets thrown into it. As a lady who has been there for seven years and Amy's really good at this, [we think] part of the job is to make the host feel comfortable because they really don't know what's going on. They're being whisked around. I find us kind of going like 'are you doin' okay?'. I don't want to be the one being really mean. They're nervous.

TeenHollywood: Maya, you've been on seven years and Amy's been on six so are you still as excited now about doing it each week as you were when you started? How long do you think you'll want to continue doing it?

Maya: Probably 45 more years. It's amazing how you feel like you have nothing left. Especially if you do like a few shows in a row and on Sunday you're like 'oh, I've gotta order Chinese food. I can't move'. But somehow you manage to come in on Monday and meet the new host. You have no ideas but you just end up figuring something out because it always changes. It's always fresh and changes, literally, until the last minute. So, that part about it never goes away and that's what's makes it so amazing and kept people going at it for so long.

Amy: And, to bring [the conversation] back to Shrek, you get time to go and do other stuff which is really great; time to go and work on films and do other stuff. That schedule, as an actor, is a really nice schedule to have. You can have your job there and it's an exciting and unique job.

TeenHollywood: What are each of you doing on your summer breaks?

Amy: I'm going to work in a film with Tina Fey called Baby Mama that's shooting in New York starting soon. Tina plays a professional woman who is ready to have a baby but can't so she hired me as her surrogate and it's like a Planes, Trains and Automobiles odd couple. I'm the blue collar gal that she hires to have her baby for her and I move in with her.

Maya: I'm going to try to go somewhere with my family and not work and spend some time with my daughter because I feel crazy. I never imagined what it would be like to do 'Saturday Night Live' and have an infant and it's been incredible but I have two fulltime jobs. It's been really gnarly but it's been great because, someday, she can enjoy it.

Amy: It's really cool to be in a film that your kids can eventually watch. We watched it with Pearl watching Maya which is really cool.

TeenHollywood: Was she saying 'that doesn't look like you, mommy'?

Maya: She did point to the screen and say 'momma' but she was pointing to Fiona. [laughter] But she knew I was in there somewhere. She heard me. She's only a year and a half.

TeenHollywood: So, Amy, will there be a Blades of Glory 2?

Amy: I hope so. Might was well. Minus the skating. Maybe then they went surfing.

Maya: Boards of Glory.

TeenHollywood: There are a lot of rumors out there that they'll do a Shrek 4.

Maya: Great. Where do I sign?

Amy: I think these ladies are really funny and we'd love to bring them back. It's great to be part of a gang of tough broads. Sure, sign me up.

Maya: As long as I don't piss the ladies off in the movie so they're not still mad at Rapunzel.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.