Poehler, Ferrell answer 13-year-old ‘what-if’ in The House

Finally, Amy Poehler has a co-star movie billing with Will Ferrell, a fellow Saturday Night Live alum whose precedent she helped to pick up and sustain early in this century.

In a 2013 interview with Vulture.com’s Denise Martin, Poehler herself said, “Will Ferrell’s really the most talented person in the world. He’s like a comedy Olympian.” She had seen what built that view up close for one TV season when both actors were in their early 30s. After Ferrell switched to silver-screen stardom, she used the same Manhattan platform to sculpt her own A-list foundation.

And now, 13 years after her failed first bid to complement Ferrell in a movie’s core cast, the two (arguably) most influential and accomplished SNLers of this century are starring in tandem in a Hollywood production.

The House, which hits theaters this Friday, has Ferrell and Poehler, now both in the latter half of their 40s, portraying a reckless couple desperate to right a wrong for their college-bound daughter. With Ferrell and Adam McKay — two of the men who fostered the Anchorman franchise — helming The House, it makes for a fascinating measuring pole with a previous period in the three entertainers’ careers.

Poehler’s rookie season at SNL coincided with Ferrell’s seventh and final year in 2001-02. When he, Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Fallon all left in successive springs, the likes of Maya Rudolph and Poehler emerged as the cast’s new all-round torch-bearers. They retained those distinctions until leaving in the winter and autumn of 2008, respectively.

In between, Poehler nearly earned her Hollywood stripes early when she was a burgeoning thirtysomething. Coming off her second year at Studio 8H, she auditioned for Veronica Corningstone, Ron Burgundy’s (Ferrell) rival-turned-lover-turned-nemesis-turned-lover in Anchorman.

Evidence of Poehler’s tryout is preserved — along with Fred Armisen, Steve Carell and David Koechner taking stabs at roles other than those they attained — in the film’s Blue-Ray special features. In his DVDDizzy.com review of the disk, Luke Bonanno singled out “a foul-mouthed Amy Poehler as Veronica.”

Interestingly enough, Rudolph was another Corningstone candidate. In addition, both women did make it in front of the camera, but still not into the final product. In one deleted scene, Poehler portrays a bank teller opposite Rudolph as one of four eccentric would-be robbers.

Of her Anchorman runner-up status, Poehler told Martin in 2013, ahead of her cameo in the sequel, “I was a young gal, hadn’t even got my teeth fixed.”

To be sure, it was predominantly for the better. Christina Applegate, already proven through her Married…with Children background, more than justified her casting as Corningstone. And had the part been Poehler’s, there would have been no joint cameo with Tina Fey in the sequel’s skirmish scene.

On the other hand, portraying a steadfast anchorwoman faced with undue biases could have made for a multifold early glimpse. One element of the character could have presaged the next chapter in SNL’s Weekend Update. Another could have portended the protagonist of a hit NBC sitcom to come at the end of the decade.

Three months after the first Anchorman’s release, Poehler filled Fallon’s vacancy behind the Update desk. This move allowed her to join Fey in unveiling their top-shelf chemistry, honed at Chicago’s ImprovOlympic and Second City, to a national TV audience. The two parlayed their reception to such side-by-side film appearances as Baby Mama and Sisters, plus multiple Golden Globes co-hosting gigs.

In Poehler’s first major post-SNL TV endeavor, she took the front of the stage solo as Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation. Not unlike Corningstone, Knope has no patience for the nonsense, complacency and sexism from her male colleagues.

Of course, if the likes of McKay and Judd Apatow had decided she was ready to convey those characteristics on the big screen in 2004, Poehler might have hastened her graduation from SNL. That development, in turn, might have complicated any hopes of flaunting the Fey-Poehler tag team. Mere mortals have no way of knowing if it might have even taken her career path in a direction other than the one to Parks and Rec.

While a few of them might exist, it is virtually impossible to imagine any fans willing to go back and risk that tradeoff. Such a choice would undoubtedly constitute a gamble on a par with anything that goes on in, well, The House.

If Poehler’s loss in the Corningstone contest was, in fact, a prerequisite to Weekend Update, other SNL starring bits and Parks and Rec, so be it.

With that said, her shared status with Ferrell as an all-time SNL gem, let alone one who worked with him at a time of transition for the show, generates an itch of curiosity. How much would their collaborative history, dating back to their time under Lorne Michaels’ watch, help them fare as an onscreen couple?

Come Friday, filmgoers will finally find their answer in The House.