Poehler siblings take on life in Sweden
Get ready to hop aboard the Poehler express. Greg Poehler, brother of Saturday Night Live vet Amy Poehler, is about to take viewers on a trip abroad via his new comedy series, Welcome to Sweden.
Loosely based on Greg’s life, it follows New York accountant Bruce as he quits his job and moves across the Atlantic to live with his Swedish girlfriend. Though Greg is the show’s creator and star, he’s an executive producer along with big-sister Amy, who plays a bratty version of herself.
The show’s first season has already aired on Sweden’s TV4 — it’s the first Englishlanguage series on the network — and there’s a second season on the way. The siblings, it seems, have been genetically blessed with a strong funny bone. But, argues Greg, it’s just as much a case of nurture as nature.
“Our childhood consisted a lot of us sitting in the back seats while our parents were driving, putting on two-person plays and creating characters on long car rides,” he says, on the line from Stockholm. “I think that was the origin of our comedic talents.”
Born in Boston, Greg practised law in New York for years. He began his own Swedish fish-out-of-water journey six years ago, when he moved to there with his girlfriend, who’s now his wife. Two-and-a-half years ago, he tried standup comedy and was hooked.
“I always thought I could do stuff like this, but I had never really given it a shot. Once I did and got a taste of laughter, it led to me writing the script (for Welcome to Sweden),” he says, noting that there are distinct differences between him and the character he plays.
“I think (Bruce) is a little more naive than I am, and a little less aware of how American he’s being. I tried to write a character who was as close to my own personality as possible, just because it was my first time acting and I didn’t want to stretch myself.”
Explaining his based-onreal-life script to his relatives, and his girlfriend’s relatives, proved just as easy.
“My wife’s family, I told them that it was purely fiction, that any resemblance to them was unintended. And they seemed to believe that. They don’t recognize themselves too much in those characters. I told the same thing to my parents,” he says, laughing.
Inonescene in the première, Bruce’s potential father-inlaw (Patrick Duffy) takes him to a men’s sauna, where going nude is de rigueur. Greg says the sequence — comprising a few crotch-in-the-face shots, uncomfortable glances and a surprise ending — isn’t exactly what really happened but comes close.
“It’s something similar, I would say. I’ve seen more Swedish men naked in my six years here than I did in my first 33 years in the U.S. It’s a daily occurrence.”
Though Greg says the show tries to be culturally sensitive to both the U.S. and Sweden, there’s one Swedish trait that particularly took him aback.
“Swedes tend not to talk to strangers. They tend to look straight ahead and mind their own business. As an American, I was used to saying hello to people. But when I would say hello to people on the sidewalk or subway, they’d act horrified.”
True, some viewers will tune into Welcome to Sweden because of Greg’s big-name sister, and the promise of guest stars like Gene Simmons. Aubrey Plaza, who stars on Amy’s NBC comedy Parks and Recreation, also pops by, as does Amy’s SNL pal Will Ferrell, who is married to a Swede and speaks fluent Swedish.
“Anything that draws people to the show, I’m for,” Greg says, likening his relationship with Amy to a double-edged sword.
“It’s good because it might get more people to tune in or pay attention to me, but also inevitably they compare us. I think that’s a little bit unfair since she’s been doing this for twentysomething years and is one of the best in the profession, and I’m just starting.”