Success has always felt better shared, says Amy Poehler

Amy Poehler struggles to be funny in a "dysfunctional" environment.

The 52-year-old actress has very fond memories of her time on 'Saturday Night Live', the long-running TV comedy show, and that's created a blueprint for her entire career.

Amy told The Independent: "You do not need to have a chaotic or dysfunctional work environment to be funny or to be creative.

"I don’t do great with people who want to fracture that feeling.

"I either get really defensive or really protective - I’ve got my stuff to work on. But I think once you prove that it works, it’s pretty hard to go back.

"I’ve sometimes gone to other places and I’m like, ‘Babe, it does not have to be this way - I’ve seen the other side, we don’t need to kill each other to make great stuff.’"

Amy has enjoyed a hugely successful comedy partnership with Tina Fey during her career, and the actress admits that she loves working in a team environment.

Amy shared: "Success for me has always felt better shared. It feels bigger and more satisfying. And also, let’s be honest, it’s nice to fail with someone, too."

Meanwhile, Amy previously claimed that 'Parks and Recreation' suffered from being "mislabelled".

The actress - who played Leslie Knope on the hit TV series - believes the series struggled initially because it was mistakenly described as a spin-off of 'The Office'.

Amy told The Independent: "In the beginning we were fighting for survival.

"We had a really bad launch, in my opinion. We were kind of mislabelled when we first came out, as an 'Office' spin-off, which we were not."