Amy Poehler had a fun time working with her then-husband, Will Arnett, on the film Blades of Glory — even though they played brother and sister.
“That was really fun,’” Poehler, 53, shared on the Wednesday, April 23, episodes of the “Las Culturistas” podcast. “And here’s a fun story about that. Will Arnett and I played brother and sister, but we were actually married in real life. And they tested that movie and the testing, they were like, ‘We hate Stranz and Fairchild.’”
Blades of Glory, which hit theaters in 2007, follows Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) as they look to restore their reputations by making a figure skating comeback as a pair. Poehler and Arnett, who split in 2012 after nine years of marriage, played the main duo’s rival figure skating duo, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, in the sports comedy.
News that test audiences weren’t fans of the characters came as a surprise to podcast hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. “What do you mean?” Yang, 34, asked. “They’re the villains.”
Poehler agreed with the Saturday Night Live star while recalling how she and Arnett, 54, reacted to the dislike of their characters. “We were like, ‘Well, we’re the villains!’” she stated, “But to the directors’ [Josh Gordon and Will Speck] credit, I think they kept a lot of it in. But yeah, we did tons of photo shoots and DVD extras.”
In addition to Blades of Glory, Poehler and Arnett also shared the screen on their respective hit sitcoms, Parks and Recreation and Arrested Development. The exes are also the parents of two kids, welcoming son Archie in 2008 and son Abel in 2010.
In September 2012, a rep for Poehler and Arnett announced that the pair had called it quits. Arnett filed for divorce nearly two years later and the exes finalized their split in August 2016.
The two have remained friendly over the years. Arnett even showed his support for Poehler’s new podcast, “Good Hang,” earlier this year. “So you’re doing a podcast, huh? That is awesome,” he said in a February Instagram clip of Poehler’s celebrity friends giving her advice for her new project before joking, “Would you happen to know my blood type? I’m gonna put it down in this form.”
Poehler made a surprise appearance on the Monday, April 21, episode of Arnett’s “Smartless” podcast, which he cohosts with Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes. “Our youngest saw my schedule on the kitchen table and said, ‘You’re doing ‘Smartless?’ Does Dad know?’ And I said, ‘No, don’t say anything,’” she quipped during the episode, to which Arnett replied, “And also, Amy and I were texting last night about something else. Zero [clue].”
During the podcast, Bateman, 56, jokingly asked the former spouses when their marriage began to “fracture.” Though they didn’t dive into details about their breakup, Arnett used the episode to gush about his coparenting relationship with Poehler.
“Of course, things take a minute because everybody is sort of adjusting to what it is. I’m also very proud of, certainly as parents, what we’ve been able to do. That has been really important to both of us. I’m really, really lucky to have her as a partner in this way,” he shared. “There aren’t many people I speak to more than I speak to her, which is weird, you know what I mean. But it’s great. I feel really lucky.”
He added, “She is somebody that I still run a lot of stuff by. … She’s the person that I go like, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about doing this.’ Whether it’s life or work and I really seek her counsel because it’s important to me because I trust her. She’s awesome.”
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