After Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s final season was released on Netflix in January, Ellie Kemper was Gloria in the live broadcast of All in the Family and provided the voice of Katie in The Secret Life of Pets 2. Right now, though, she is getting ready to give birth to her second child! Her first child, James, turned three in July. Ellie told Kelly Ripa and Ryan Secrest in June that James wants to name the baby “Marshall,” which she thinks may be because his friends watch PAW Patrol. She said in June that she was in her third trimester, so I’m guessing that she’s going to be giving birth any day now.
Last fall, one of the surprising things that we learned about Ellie was that she used to spend about $500 a month on SoulCycle classes. I remember reading that and thinking that I wished I had $500 a month to spend at a gym. Ellie chatted with Us again for “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me.” A few of them are silly or fun. You can tell Ellie enjoyed coming up with these tidbits about herself.
1. A jog around the Central Park Reservoir always revives me.
2. My family calls me Smelly Ellie. But I want to be very clear: I don’t actually smell. “Smelly” just happens to rhyme with “Ellie.” My family’s sense of humor is very sophisticated and evolved.
4. I regret how I used to lie out in the sun for hours on end as a teenager. I was so convinced I could get a tan.
7. My first job was working at St. Louis Frozen Custard Factory.
8. The first concert I ever went to was U2. I was convinced Bono was looking right at me.
10. The greatest piece of advice I’ve ever received is “Bet on yourself.” Weirdly, this was said to me by an agent who wouldn’t sign me.
12. I wish I’d recorded “MMMBop” by Hanson. Love that song.
18. I fanned out meeting Laurie Metcalf at the Emmys. I started waving wildly and mouthing “I love you.” I mean, I totally lost control. I really hope she’s nearsighted and missed the whole thing.
20. The hardest lesson I’ve had to learn is that eating an entire pint of ice cream at night will make me feel sick in the morning.
I couldn’t help but wonder whether Ellie had started jogging around Central Park more after she cut back on her SoulCycle classes. (I, too, feel better after I exercise, so my wondering isn’t a meant to be a knock on her former SoulCycle habit.) I can relate to a few of her other comments, too. It’s always nice to know about other people who can’t tan. I have very fair skin and only burn. I gave up attempting to tan at an early age, and if I burn, it takes a long time to fade.
I love what she says about swearing that she made eye contact with Bono during a U2 concert. I saw President Obama at an event when he was running for reelection. I was standing fairly close to him and in one of the pictures I took, he seems to be looking directly at me, though I hadn’t really noticed that when I was taking the photo. I was just trying to get a couple of good pictures of his face! Finally, I will also happily sing along to “MMMBop,” and I know how easy it is to eat a pint of ice cream. In college, I used to sit down with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, and it would be so easy to eat most or all of it in a sitting because A.) it was so good, and B.) it would start to melt, so it just seemed to disappear faster. I hope that Ellie is enjoying the end of her pregnancy and that her baby’s birth goes smoothly!
photos credit: WENN and Backgrid
I didn’t know she was pregnant again, congrats!
I have several friends who were into tanning in younger days and now have skin cancer on their face- in their early 40s! Protect yourselves!
I have skin likes hers – pale and freckley, naturally. Pretty much the only message I got as a middle and high schooler was that my skin was unattractive by American standards. So we sunbathed! And now as we get older, we will pay the price.
Ugh me too. I’d put on tons of makeup to try to cover my freckles ugh it looked as bad as you can imagine
Last summer I decided to get a little more sun on my face. Normally I wear a wide brimmed SPF 50 sun visor (which is the very best protection for your face). It wasn’t that much sun, a few minutes here and there, but I ended up with actinic keratosis and had to have a 21 day chemical peel. The sun is not your friend.
It’s that irish skin… it is the most beautiful skin on earth when you are 16, 18, 21. Then it starts to show all the wear and tear from sun damage…
I’m 36 now and I have lots of the fine lines like Ellie. My skin is insanely sensitive to the sun, I don’t even know how I used to lay out without burning and feeling sick immediately. Now on the beach I’m covered in long sleeve linen, huge hat, under an umbrella, covered in sun screen and I only emerge to swim and then go back under my many layers of protection again lol.
I have the same regret. I wonder if my skin would be less sensitive now and look less aged if I hadn’t always tried to get tan when I was young (and ended up just burning pretty often because skin like mine and Ellie’s DOESN’T TAN anyway!)
My mother frequently told me in the 1980s-onward that I would regret tanning because of the damage it would later cause. I only figured that out within the last 10 years.
One of my classmates passed away at 42 after a second bout of melanoma. While not a sunbather, he played outdoor sports.
I thankfully had a mother who read W and Vogue in my teens so although I got some bad burns before age ten, after that I was heavily into daily SPF, hats, antioxidant creams, etc. At 31 I thankfully still have pretty smooth skin but I’ve fallen off the skincare bandwagon out of laziness, need to get back on.
I have pale Irish skin. Luckily for me I never enjoyed the beach very much – which since I was a teenager before the advent of sunscreen (just “tanning” lotions!) has been to my benefit. I did go to the beach once when I was 19 and got an awful sunburn, despite being covered up. I actually thought about what this meant, remembered that I had a grandfather and uncle who had skin cancer and decided then and there to embrace being pale. I’m now in my early 60s. I have the natural sag that time brings, but very few real lines. When my daughter was younger and teased for her awful “pale” skin, I had to give her many pep talks – which thank heavens she listened to – she is now pale and proud too!
Yeah, Irish/Swedish skin and grew up in Los Angeles before SPF. I remember my parents would put zinc oxide on my nose when we go to the beach or pool. So embarrassing. I always joke that I should have grown up in Dublin or Stockholm, where you see the sun about 20 days a year…
Also I loved Kimmy Schmidt and was so sad it only last 4 seasons. I miss Titus, Lillian, Jacqueline and even the Jon Hamm character was hilarious. Wait, I just read that they’re releasing some kind of special in 2020. Yay! Her book is also very good.
I have the same skin as hers and the only reason why I didn’t tan was because I COULDN’T. I was desperate to have tanned skin (pale, Irish person here) but had to wear really high factor whenever I left the house because I burned so easily. I’m in my 30s now and I can really tell the difference between my skin and my friends’ (who all tanned) skin
She just has a gorgeous smile! She is super pretty. I like her a lot
I love her!! She seems like a lot of fun.
Love her! She’s incredibly smart and articulate, and so talented!
Love her.
Number 12 made me laugh out loud remembering the Mmbop parody she sang on Kimmy Schmidt. (Shanson’s “Yumbip.”)