Amy Poehler’s ‘Sky High’ ‘Inside Out 2’ Salary ‘Driving Out’ Other Stars: ‘Pretty Stupid of Her’

Amy Poehler has always had a healthy sized ego, but lately friends and costars say she’s become insufferable – and they’re running away from her in droves. A business source who has worked with Amy numerous times explains the situation exclusively for In Touch.

“It’s been an open secret inside Disney for a while that Disney and Pixar had to break the bank and give Amy a huge salary to return for Inside Out 2, essentially driving out other key members of the original movie’s cast, like Bill Hader, who used to practically worship Amy, because her asking price took up such a huge chunk of the budget,” the source explains.

Back in March 2015, Amy, 53, and Bill, 46, gushed to Ellen DeGeneres on her show about how much they adore each other, with the Barry star telling the former host, “Amy is a giant reason I actually got [Saturday Night Live].”

While the Sueprbad actor may owe his comedy stardom to Amy, the insider notes that she was essentially responsible for him getting the boot from the second installment of the Inside Out franchise.

“Inside Out was a franchise built for her and her voice to shine and be in the middle of everything, but it was also shortsighted of her to ask for so much that other actors couldn’t come back and audiences definitely noticed Bill wasn’t in the second film.” 

The first Inside Out, released in 2015, made Amy around $2 million for her voice work. After the shock hit drew in huge numbers at the box office – totalling over $850 million worldwide – the source explains, “It’s understandable that Amy would drive a hard bargain.”

The Emmy Award-winning actress leveraged the success of the first installment to secure an even bigger bag for the second – which came to around $10 million. 

However, as the saying goes, you can shear a sheep many times but only skin it once. The newly-minted diva may have unintentionally set her career back with the power play.

The source continues: “Nevertheless, it’s the biggest movie of the year and Amy wants to be treated like an A-list movie star again – in fact, she’s insisting on it. And it’s really leaving a bad taste in people’s mouth and it’s not leading to her getting cast in more movies despite Inside Out 2‘s $1.6 billion in ticket sales.” 

“In fact, I’d argue that Amy’s pay raise and appearance in this movie damaged her reputation, at least in the industry, more than it helped her in her long term goal to become a big comedy star again,” the source adds. “I don’t think she can blame anybody for that but herself.” 

Instead of helping other comedians reach new heights along with her, like she did with Bill at his SNL audition back in 2005, the Parks and Recreation alum is being short-sighted, according to the insider.

“There was a more delicate and diplomatic way to approach this job, but Amy just big-footed in and demanded a sky-high salary without thinking about the long term consequences. Pretty stupid of her.”