Amy Poehler Shares How the Inside Out Movies 'Fundamentally Changed My Life': 'I Feel Really Lucky' (Exclusive)

For Amy Poehler, who stars in Inside Out movies was a life-changing experience.

While attending the 12th Annual Bring Change to Mind Revels & Revelations Gala, the actress, who voices Joy in the original 2015 animated film and the 2024 sequel, tells PEOPLE exclusively that the role has sparked significant discussion — as well as personal thoughts — about how we manage our emotions.

“My experience in Inside Out and Inside out 2 has truly, fundamentally changed my life,” says Poehler, 53. “Playing a character like Joy, having big conversations about what our emotions do to us and how they live inside us and how we should experience them.”

“That and seeing how different the past decade has been in terms of not only the resources we need, the conversations we need to have, but who we need to have them with. Tonight is filled with young people and I think we have a lot to learn from them,” she added. is, referring to the organization’s mission to end the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Amy Poehler and her ‘Inside Out’ animated character, Joy.

Miikka Skaffari/Getty; Disney/Pixar

Amy Poehler was ‘a mixture of angst and joy’, ‘wrapped in a Boston accent’ with shoulder pads at 13 (Exclusive)

Back in June, Poehler told PEOPLE that she personally connected with Riley, the 13-year-old girl at the center Inside out 2who is dealing with the confusing mix of emotions that comes with puberty. Joy and the team’s newest member, Anxiety, compete for dominance in Riley’s brain, and Poehler is a dynamic push-pull she says she felt when she was 13.

“I was definitely a mixture of anxiety and joy for sure, wrapped in a Boston accent,” she recalled, joking, “And [I had] lots of shoulder pads and fancy earrings.”

“I guess I felt a lot of what Riley felt, in that your head is full, very noisy,” she continued. “You go from just being—hopefully, if you have a childhood that provides you with security—you go from not being too self-conscious to suddenly really caring about what other people think very quickly.”

Now that she’s a parent of two teenagers — she and ex-husband Will Arnett have sons Archie, 16, and Abel, 14 — Sisters the star said she sees the challenging experience of growing up through their eyes.

Why Inside out 2 Personal to Amy Poehler: ‘Anxiety is a motivator’ (Exclusive)

Amy Poehler at the ‘Inside Out 2’ premiere in Sydney, Australia on May 27, 2024.

Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

“I think that’s why I loved playing Joy so much. In the movie, Joy has to let go, and when you’re raising a child, they’re their own person. You just can’t protect them from pain, and you really shouldn’t,” she noted. “You should let them have all their feelings so they can figure out who they are.”

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The Saturday night live alum also opened up to PEOPLE in April about how stepping into the speaking booth to record Joy’s lyrics sometimes led to intense personal epiphanies as she tackled the emotional material.

“It’s so deep,” she explained at the time. “Because it’s like talking to your inner child, talking to you as a parent, talking to you as yourself, talking to a future version of you.”

“You have to really go there,” she said, but added, “It’s a real pleasure to do it.”

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Source: HIS Education