--- title: "Sisters": Watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in Featurette description: Watch "Sisters" costars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler read from the teenage diary of writer Paula Pell, which inspired the movie. canonical: https://time.com/4141195/sisters-tina-fey-amy-poehler-featurette/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-15T15:00:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:46:46.930Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Read From the Diary that Inspired 'Sisters' og:description: Watch "Sisters" costars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler read from the teenage diary of writer Paula Pell, which inspired the movie. og:url: https://time.com/4141195/sisters-tina-fey-amy-poehler-featurette/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3341cdb50e53487c/698875330b72e34d126e73f2/tina-fey-amy-poehler.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler attend the 'Sisters' New York Premiere on December 8, 2015. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Read From the Diary that Inspired 'Sisters' twitter:description: Watch "Sisters" costars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler read from the teenage diary of writer Paula Pell, which inspired the movie. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3341cdb50e53487c/698875330b72e34d126e73f2/tina-fey-amy-poehler.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Read From the Diary that Inspired _Sisters_  by [Eliza Berman](/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 15, 2015 3:00 PM CUT  Tina Fey and Amy Poehler attend the 'Sisters' New York Premiere on December 8, 2015. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler attend the 'Sisters' New York Premiere on December 8, 2015.Gilbert Carrasquillo--FilmMagic  by [Eliza Berman](/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 15, 2015 3:00 PM CUT Tina Fey and Amy Poehler may play wildly different siblings in _Sisters_, out Dec. 18, but it’s screenwriter Paula Pell’s teenage diary that inspired their rapport. The movie, which revolves around a middle-aged rager Kate and Maura Ellis throw in their childhood home, is a role reversal from the _Saturday Night Live_ alumnae’s 2008 comedy _Baby Mama_. Here, Fey plays the irresponsible, inconsistently employed older sister to Poehler’s overachieving, designated-driver little sis. It’s a dynamic straight out of Pell’s adolescence, which found her firmly in the realm of the G-rated while her more sexually adventurous sister racked up diaries full of lurid tales. The adult Ellis sisters are in many ways the grown-up extensions of the young Pell sisters—though their last-hurrah party offers Poehler’s Maura the chance to compensate for the Saturday nights she spent as a teenager recalibrating the settings on her rock tumbler. In this exclusive featurette, Pell—who became friends with Fey and Poehler when they worked together on _SNL_, where she has served as a writer for two decades—reminisces about the prudish past that inspired the movie. Meanwhile, Fey, Poehler and costars Dianne Wiest, John Leguizamo, Bobby Moynihan and Samantha Bee try to keep it together while reading from the diary in which she confided. ### See the Best Impressions on Saturday Night Live  Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child in 1978. 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Dana Edelson—NBC/Getty Images  From left: Tina Fey as Governor Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008. Dana Edelson—NBC/Getty Images  Kristen Wiig as Liza Minnelli in 2012. Dana Edelson—NBC/Getty Images  Kenan Thompson as Rev. Al Sharpton on Oct. 25, 2014. Dana Edelson—NBC/Getty Images  Kevin Hart as James Brown on Jan. 17, 2015. Dana Edelson—NBC/Getty Images  Kate McKinnon as Justin Bieber on Jan. 17, 2015. Dana Edelson—NBC/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4141195/sisters-tina-fey-amy-poehler-featurette/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4141195/sisters-tina-fey-amy-poehler-featurette/"},"headline":"Watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Read From the Diary that Inspired Sisters","datePublished":"2015-12-15T15:00:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:46:46.930Z","description":"Writer Paula Pell based much of the new movie's screenplay on the journal she wrote as a teenager","url":"https://time.com/4141195/sisters-tina-fey-amy-poehler-featurette/","keywords":["movies","Newsfeed","Amy Poehler","tina fey","sisters"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3341cdb50e53487c/698875330b72e34d126e73f2/tina-fey-amy-poehler.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3341cdb50e53487c/698875330b72e34d126e73f2/tina-fey-amy-poehler.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Tina Fey and Amy Poehler attend the 'Sisters' New York Premiere on December 8, 2015.","caption":"Tina Fey and Amy Poehler attend the 'Sisters' New York Premiere on December 8, 2015.","creditText":"Gilbert Carrasquillo--FilmMagic","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4141195/sisters-tina-fey-amy-poehler-featurette/","name":"Watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Read From the Diary that Inspired Sisters"}}]}] ```