Amy Poehler, the Saturday Night Live veteran and star of multiple films as well as Parks and Recreation, has spoken out about what she perceives as an anti-comedy bias at the Oscars.
Speaking to Olivia Colman on her Good Hang podcast, Poehler first canvassed Colman’s The Roses co-star Benedict Cumberbatch for questions.
“If you can do comedy, you can do anything. I really do believe that,” Cumberbatch said, to which Poehler concurred, saying: “Of course. You don’t have to tell me, babe!”
She continued: “Every single year at the Oscars, everybody [in comedy] gets blanked and all the serious people get up and accept and accept. It’s some hot bullshit! Because comedy is not easy. And I got to tell you, both you and Olivia can do both.”
Speaking later, Colman credited Paddy Considine, her co-star in Hot Fuzz, with giving her her first chance at drama, after casting her in career-changing abuse drama Tyrannosaur.
The Roses was scripted by Tony Macnamara, who also wrote The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos’s quasi-comedy, for which Colman won the best actress Oscar. Cumberbatch has been nominated for two dramas – 2014’s The Imitation Game and 2021’s The Power of the Dog.
The last comedy to win the best picture Oscar was Birdman in 2014, while recent winners Everything Everywhere All at Once (2023) and last year’s Anora included comedic elements.
Other comedies to triumph include It Happened One Night (1934), You Can’t Take It with You (1938), The Apartment (1960), Annie Hall (1977) and The Artist (2011), while notable snubs include Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019) and Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids (2011), both of which only took screenplay nods.
This year may buck the trend, with contenders including Is This Thing On?, a comedy-drama set in the world of standups, directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Poehler’s former husband and co-star Will Arnett. Meanwhile Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia and Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly also include comedic elements, and Johnson’s third Knives Out film earned some awards buzz after its premiere in Toronto.