Amy Poehler Doesn't Always Feel Beautiful, Especially Because She Works in a "Shallow Business"

"I just had to come to terms with being really OK with not being...symmetrical," she says

By Zach Johnson Oct 22, 2014 2:40 PMTags
Amy Poehler Mark Davis/Getty Images

Amy Poehler has never relied on her looks.

Though she's previously been featured in People's "Most Beautiful" issue, the Parks and Recreation actress tells the magazine that she's not a classic beauty. "In a shallow business, I just had to come to terms with being really OK with not being…symmetrical," Poehler, 43, says. "You can either spend your life trying to be [perfect], and you can tweak and nip and tuck, and then be afraid to move your face."

"There's a line between feeling healthy, strong and sexy and feeling good about yourself, and being worried about how you measure up," the Yes Please author continues. "Some days I wake up and I'm just like, 'All right, I'm feelin' really good,' and some days I loathe myself. Just like everyone else." Yes, even Poehler gets insecure. "It's so funny because it doesn't matter what you do, whether you have your picture in a magazine or you don't, there are days where you're just feeling it and other days where you look at yourself and say, 'Oh my god, who is that old woman in the store window? Oh my god, it's me!'"

Poehler credits her family with giving her a healthy attitude about her appearance. "My parents encouraged me, and I did not have a mother who criticized me about what I looked like or wore," recalls the actress, who grew up in the Boston area. "She just never told me that I looked fat, and there was never a huge focus on looks—now what that led to was really terribly documented high school!"

Thankfully, she can laugh at her younger self.

"The older I get, I feel like the better my life has gotten," says Poehler, who began dating Nick Kroll after breaking up with husband Will Arnett. "I like hard work and I don't like pretending things are perfect."

Poehler wouldn't trade her experiences for anything.

"I wouldn't give anything to be back in my 20s at all," she says in People, on newsstands Friday. "Maybe I wouldn't mind the amount of sleep I got then or for my stomach to be smaller, but mentally, no way."