Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Paula Pell were interviewed by The Advocate to talk about ‘Wine Country’. They discussed the lesbian storyline with Paula’s character in the movie and more. Read the full interview below!
Wine Country, the heartfelt Netflix comedy about female friendship through the years that was inspired by the real-life friendships of several Saturday Night Live alumnae, including its director, Amy Poehler, more than passes the Bechdel Test, which calls for two women in a movie to be in conversation with one another about something other than men. There’s no name yet for a film that stars primarily women in their 40s and 50s who talk mostly to other women and in which no men talk to each other — call it the Poehler Principle, perhaps.
Not only does Wine Country delve into the ins and outs of female friendship built up over decades, the only possibility for romance in the film — which juxtaposes the experiences of a couple of generations of women — occurs between women a generation apart. And Poehler and her collaborators are proud to have included those stories in their movie.
“It’s very cool to be talking to The Advocate about it,” Poehler says in a phone interview with costars Maya Rudolph and Paula Pell (the SNL writer and lesbian who penned the Poehler-Tina Fey starrer Sisters).
“What I’m very proud of is the only kind of love interest in the film or love story is between two gay women,” Poehler says. “There’s a lot of interesting dynamics of young and old, but also there’s no discussion about it. There’s no hiccup or hesitation or even discussion about it, and I find that’s still unusual, in comedies especially — that somebody’s sexuality isn’t their joke or isn’t their story.”
