Describing Amy Sedaris (born March 29, 1961 in Endicott, New York), tonight on a very special At Home With Amy Sedaris:
Amy Louise Sedaris is an American actor and comedian, best known as Jerri Blank on the cult TV series Strangers with Candy. She also voiced regular character Princess Carolyn on BoJack Horseman. From 2017-2020, she hosted her own show, At Home with Amy Sedaris, which is an Affectionate Parody of cooking, DIY, and home-crafts programs. She also plays mechanic Peli Motto in the Star Wars franchise, beginning with The Mandalorian Chapter 5.
She has written two books focused on crafting and hospitality, with a humorous twist, entitled I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (2006) and Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People (2010) (with her ex-boyfriend and frequent collaborator Paul Dinello).
She is the younger sister of the humorist and This American Life contributor David Sedaris. Despite being either the Butt-Monkey or a Troll in several of his tales of the Sedaris family, they are said to be very close friends as adults; they're certainly close enough to write plays together as "The Talent Family".
Film Roles
- Elf (2003): Deb
- Chicken Little (2005): Foxy Loxy
- Strangers with Candy (2006): Jerri Blank
- Shrek the Third (2007): Cinderella
- Space Buddies (2009): Gravity
- Puss in Boots (2011): Jill
- Super Buddies (2013): Betty
- Chef (2014): Jen
- My Life as a Zucchini (2016): Aunt Ida (English dub)
- The Lion King (2019): Guineafowl
- Save Yourselves! (2020): Jack's mom
- The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021): Tina Templeton
- Clerks III (2022): Dr. Ladenheim
- Ghosted (2023)
- Theater Camp (2023): Joan Rubinsky
TV Roles
- Strangers with Candy (1999-2000): Jeri Blank
- Sesame Street (2006): Snow White
- BoJack Horseman (2014-2020): Princess Carolyn
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil (2015-2019): Mina Loveberry
- Steven Universe (2017): Blue Zircon and Yellow Zircon
- At Home With Amy Sedaris (2017-2020): Amy Sedaris, Patty Hogg, Ronnie Vino, Nutmeg, Hobo, and others
- Star Wars: Peli Motto
- The Mandalorian (2019-present)
- The Book of Boba Fett (2022)
- Harley Quinn (2022): Debbie
Sedaris's work provides examples of:
- Beauty Inversion: In most of her projects she makes an extra effort to look far less attractive than she is. Strangers with Candy turned her into The Grotesque. This actually makes it sometimes difficult to recognize her.
- Cloudcuckoolander: She could give Robin Williams tips in high-speed free association.
- Friendship on the Set: Formed one with the Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal. He reported in interviews that after she permitted him to follow her, he rarely left her side, and that her jokes would make him laugh so hard, he'd Spit Take inside his helmet.
- The Gadfly: To her own family. According to her brother, she had a knack for acting and impersonating people even as a little kid, and frequently used it to mess with her father, at one point posing as a friend of his to the point of propositioning him over the phone. Later in life, she went and bought a fat suit and wore it during an entire week only to reveal the deception at the very end, driving their image-conscious father absolutely nuts.
- Irony: She appeared in a TV advert for a washing machine additive, and is dressed as the perfect Stepford Wife in fifties clothes and hairdo. It is obvious she's exaggerating the stereotype for laughs; and the pose becomes hilarious when you discover she is also Jeri Blank...note
- Refuge in Audacity: A lot of her work and her humor relies on this. She once posed for a New York photoshoot and asked the makeup artists to make it look like she'd been beaten half to death, then walked around town as if nothing had happened. When asked about it, she'd make a wild statement about "being so in love".
