Amy Poehler Says Life Is Like “Being Attacked By A Bear”

We can never get enough of Amy Poehler's life advice. Whether bingeing on her endearing Smart Girls at the Party Ask Amy segments, her must-read memoir Yes Please or watching Leslie Knope take over the world – or at least the Pawnee city council – on Parks and Rec, women have plenty of empowerment lessons to learn while cackling along to Poehler's comedy. She's been sharing gems of Poehler-brand wisdom during her press tour for the Pixar feature Inside Out, which she stars in as the emotion-turned-adorable-character Joy. “I see life as like being attacked by a bear,” Poehler told The Guardian's Hadley Freeman. “You can run, you can pretend to be dead, or you can make yourself bigger. " It's not hard to guess which of the three options Poehler chooses. "So, if you’re my stature, you stand on a chair and bang a pan and scream and shout as if you’re going to attack the bear," she continues. "This is my go-to strategy." For that reason, the 5-foot-2-inch powerhouse especially loved being pregnant because it allowed her to take up more space. (Follow-up question: is Amyspreading the feminist counter-position to manspreading?) And when success strikes, Poehler sees no need to shrink oneself down to make other people more comfortable. For instance, in response to a Cannes reporter who inquired whether she ever expected to find herself at the prestigious film festival, Poehler simply responded, "Sure I did." “I know it was not the journalist’s intention to be insulting, but it’s also OK not to apologize for where you are,” she later told The Guardian about the exchange. “I can’t pretend to be more coquettish than I am.” And what's the payout for so boldly being herself and sometimes even bigger than herself? That's what seems to excite Poehler most of all. "It's fun defying people's expectations about me," she said. "It's a nice secret weapon."