Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are so simpatico, they say they only really disagree about two things: The first is where to get the best sandwich in Chicago (Poehler likes Potbelly, Fey prefers Jimmy John’s) and the second is whether the movie “Love Actually” is any good or not. Neither will reveal which side of the argument she is on.
On Monday, the comedians — both stars of their own TV shows and former “Saturday Night Live” castmates — were announced as the hosts of January’s Golden Globes. While it’s too early to know exactly what will go down during the show, one thing is for sure: Poehler, 41, and Fey, 42, will do things their way, in their own wacky, audacious style, as they always have.
PHOTOS: FEY AND POEHLER THROUGH THE YEARS
“They were just instantly brilliant,” says Charna Halpern, the co-founder of Chicago’s ImprovOlympic, where Poehler and Fey first met in 1993 and began performing together. “They were not the typical women who get steamrolled by men. [They] were no shrinking violets. They were bold and ballsy and fearless.”
And apparently both were clueless about beauty secrets when they met.
“I was 22 or 23, and I had only recently learned that you can pluck your eyebrows or have a lady put hot wax on them and remove portions of them and shape them,” Fey told Marie Claire. “So this was a big thing that happened to me, and I passed that information on to [Poehler].”
Bushy eyebrows or not, the pair have been turning heads since their first days together.
“They were inseparable walking around, and kept trying to get put in casts together,” says Kelly Leonard, executive vice president at Chicago improv theater Second City.
Both landed on various troupes in the mid-’90s, nabbing the three or four spots available for which some 700 auditioned.
Poehler’s comedy was more manic and goofy, while Fey’s was more cutting.
“Tina had a great gift of understanding the female psyche that came through in her material,” Leonard recalls.
In one scene, Fey played a stripper who refused to strip but instead wanted to dance opposite fellow performer Scott Adsit (now on “30 Rock”). In another sketch, she played a professor who has her opinions first dismissed, then slowly adopted by a male professor.
An online snapshot from the time finds Poehler and Fey (who is sporting an alarming bob haircut) wearing fancy dresses and hugging as they stand knee-deep in the waters of Lake Michigan. It appears to be the surprising end to just another night.
Fey and Poehler were both part of Second City’s touring company, which, until 1995, had been made up by four men and two women. A suggestion was made to change the makeup to three men and three women.
“The producers and directors had the same panicked reaction,” Fey writes in her book “Bossypants.”
“ ‘You can’t do that. There won’t be enough parts to go around. There won’t be enough for the girls . . .’ The insulting implication, of course, was that the women wouldn’t have any ideas.”
The teams were eventually made gender-equal, and Fey was among the first female performers of that generation, which also included Rachel Dratch.
In 1996, Poehler moved to New York with her improv group, Upright Citizens Brigade. The troupe and its eponymous theater became a hub for the alt-comedy scene in NYC, attracting performers such as Andy Richter, Poehler’s eventual husband Will Arnett (they separated last month) and Ed Helms. Fey, who moved to New York to write for “SNL” in 1997, also performed at UCB.
“It’s kind of funny because I knew them [before they were famous], and it wasn’t necessarily a matter of when these people would become stars,” says Lawrence Blume, who directed the partially improvised 2002 film “Martin & Orloff,” which featured Fey, Poehler and lots of their comedic circle of friends. “Alternative comedy and improvising wasn’t exactly the path to Hollywood. There were no obvious guarantees, but no one was there for the money or the glory.”
In 2001, Poehler joined Fey on “SNL.” In “Bossypants,” Fey recalls once watching Poehler regale castmates in a crowded conference room with a “dirty and loud and unladylike” joke.
“Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, ‘Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it,’ ” Fey writes. “Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. ‘I don’t f - - king care if you like it.’ Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit.”
The exchange not only further cemented Fey and Poehler’s friendship, it put everyone on notice that female performers were just as tough and versatile as the males.
The two went on to become stars — with their own sitcoms on NBC, “30 Rock” and “Parks and Recreation” — and remain friends. Both are also moms: Fey has two girls, 7 and 1, while Poehler has two boys, 3 and 2.
“I want [him] to marry Alice Richmond, Tina’s daughter,” Poehler joked to USA Today of her eldest son, Archie. “We’d make a lovely mother and mother-in-law of the bride.”
The parents’ chemistry will be on full display in January during the Golden Globes, and the show should mark a departure from the last three years, when Ricky Gervais spent most of his time acidly winging zingers at the audience. If recent appearances on other awards shows are any indication, the Poehler-Fey turn should be kinder and gentler.
At the 2011 Emmys, Poehler, who was nominated for comedic actress, pulled all the other nominees onstage, then crowned the winner, beauty-pageant style. The idea was talked about for shaking up a normally staid evening.
Whatever happens in January, one thing is sure: The comics are inspiring young women.
Second City hosts a youth program for teens, and recently, for the first time, more girls participated than boys. And nearly every young woman named Fey as an influence.
“Tina has given permission to a sea of young women who didn’t see themselves in comedy or didn’t think they could be accepted at it,” Leonard says.
That’s no joke.
Additional research by Tim Donnelly