Comedian Amy Schumer mined her own life for new film Snatched

COMEDIAN Amy Schumer and her hero, actor Goldie Hawn, play a mother and daughter team in a risky escapade in her new film.

AMY Schumer has one or two of those holidays where an exotically accented man has swept her off her feet.

“And the lesson I learnt,” says the New York comedian, “is to leave that on vacation. Don’t try to segue that into a relationship — that’s the rookie mistake.

“‘Come visit me in New York …’,” she mimics with a lovelorn whine, “… then it’s like just a complete nightmare. ‘I should have just left this where I was’.”

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In her new film Snatched, Schumer learns another holiday romance lesson — that a girl probably shouldn’t get drunk and ride off into the wilds of South America with a man she just met at a hotel bar.

It results in her character — along with her mother, played by the perfectly cast Goldie Hawn — being kidnapped, held for ransom and having to fight their way out.

The Queen and the Queen Mother! In London talking about @Snatched_Movie on @loosewomen pic.twitter.com/EtqNQAFesO

— Goldie Hawn (@goldiehawn) April 27, 2017

In this instance it’s all in the name of comedy, of course, yet Schumer reckons she’d be too cynical to succumb to such peril.

“Emily is so glass-half-full and thinks everything’s going to work out,” she says of her character. “I’m way more of a realist and I have a lot more self-awareness.”

Schumer, 35, has had a whirlwind past two years, her sketch series Inside Amy Schumer propelling her to feminist first lady of comedy status and Trainwreck — a rom-com ripped largely from her own life — launching her film career in brash, hilarious style.

While promoting Trainwreck in Australia in July 2015, Schumer’s last minute Melbourne stand-up show sold out in minutes; but a full tour scheduled for last December was cancelled just days before the comic was due to land.

Stand-up comedy is still a major priority for Schumer despite cancelling a 2015 Australian tour due to illness.

Still, she insists stand-up (which she’s done since 2004) isn’t just something to be squeezed in between film commitments nowadays.

“It really isn’t like that for me. Stand-up is a major priority. I got really sick, or I would have been there (for the Australian tour). I have every intention of coming back … My boy, my baby boy Chris (Rock — who produced Schumer’s HBO stand-up special) is coming out there. Everybody loves performing in Australia. I love it, so I hope I get to come out there soon.”

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That said, it lately seems every second week brings a new movie project that Schumer is (I Feel Pretty) or is no longer (Barbie) attached to.

“People keep giving me jobs! I don’t know what’s wrong with these people,” she laughs. “But it’s not like, if I can get movie work I’d rather do that than stand-up.”

It’s may not be as literally personal as Trainwreck, but Schumer and her sister Kim reworked Snatched to inject more Amy: “The part of me that’s in here is the relationship with the mum,” Schumer says. “There is a lot that I took from my real mum.”

As she wrote in her book The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Schumer has had a strained relationship with her mother since she left the girls’ father for a family friend when Amy was 13.

There was plenty of beach bonding for Schumer and Goldie Hawn while filming Snatched in Hawaii. Picture: 20th Century Fox

Schumer and Hawn look a little wary in the drinking company of three men on their holiday. Picture: 20th Century Fox

Schumer and Hawn gon from being poolside to being scared witless in the jungle. Picture: 20th Century Fox

Snatched, which is released in May, has an 85 per cent want to see rating on website Rotten Tomatoes. Picture: 20th Century Fox

Hawn — the ’80s comedy icon back on the big screen for the first time in 15 years in Snatched — made for a great substitute on set in Hawaii.

The pair’s down time was filled with plenty of beach bonding; Hawn’s real-life daughter Kate Hudson joining in, too.

“Goldie’s the best not-real mum a girl could ever ask for,” Schumer laughs. “Working with her was a life highlight — you don’t think anything like that’s going to happen for you. She’s such an idol for me that I’m still trying to come to grips that she treated me as an equal on set. It was just incredible, every day.”

It’s great when a hero doesn’t disappoint you.

“Totally,” Schumer agrees emphatically. “I’ve been on the other end — I’ve been the hero that disappointed people. No, I’m just joking. I’ve been disappointed by meeting heroes, but she surpasses what you could possibly hope. She’s the least disappointing person I’ve met, ever.”

For those needing an introduction to Hawn, Schumer suggests Overboard, the 1987 rom-com that co-starred her partner Kurt Russell.

“Overboard is one of those movies where if it’s ever on, I’ll watch the whole thing. That’s my favourite.”

Schumer’s go-to Goldie comedy is the 1987 gem Overboard, with Hawn and partner Kurt Russell.

Schumer jokes that the 71-year-old Hawn endured all the action in Snatched far better than she did. But Schumer has a growing knack for action — when she can get up from her cuppa.

“I went into it kind of not knowing how it was gonna be but I loved all the action. It was fun to get dirty. It’s fun to actually do something … In my TV show I got so lazy with it I was like, every scene: this is me sitting in a room drinking tea.”

Schumer will no doubt surprise a few people with her next film, the drama Thank You For Your Service, based on a nonfiction book about soldiers struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after returning home from Iraq.

Yet its not as though Schumer has traded on mere silliness in her comedy — Inside Amy Schumer has taken smart swipes at everything from rape culture in sport to ageing women in Hollywood, and she sees stand-up as a “great vehicle to communicate” about “injustices” she sees in the world.

Schumer and her cousin US Senator Chuck Schumer teamed up to speak out against gun violence. Picture: Andrew Burton

And after a gunman killed two people in a Louisiana cinema showing Trainwreck, she campaigned for gun control alongside her cousin, US senator Chuck Schumer.

Sticking her head up for the cause has made her a target for online trolls.

Nevertheless, she persists.

“I was moved that they wanted me to even audition,” she says of Thank You For Your Service. “It’s cool when people can see behind the corner you’re in and give you a chance. It’s not that I set out to find an award-winning role, I just loved the script and have such admiration for people in the military. And this is an important story to be told.”

SNATCHED OPENS MAY 11

Originally published as Comedian Amy Schumer mined her own life for new film Snatched