Amy Sedaris is stepping back into the kitchen for a fun new HIllshire Farm sandwich campaign. The Emmy nominee is teaming up with the food company to celebrate the universal love of sandwiches with specially made recipes based on various celebrities, including herself.
Sedaris, well-known for her roles in the likes of BoJack Horseman, Strangers with Candy and The Mandalorian, is as celebrated outside of the realm of acting as she is within it, having run a cupcake and cheeseball business out of her home kitchen for years and naming it after a pet rabbit. Notably, Sedaris created and starred in the surreal comedy series At Home with Amy Sedaris, which earned her two Emmy nominations and showed off her cooking and crafting skills along with her acting.
In honor of her latest fun food venture, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with Amy Sedaris to discuss her Hillshire Farm campaign, crafting sandwich recipes based on various celebrities, including herself and Andy Cohen, her Star Wars future, and more.
Amy Sedaris on Hillshire Farm, Her Star Wars Future & More
Screen Rant: I’m very excited to chat with you. I’ve been a fan of your work for quite a while, and I think this Hillshire Farm campaign you’ve got going is a fun expansion of your work in the cooking field.
Amy Sedaris: Yeah, it’s perfect for me!
Where did that first love of cooking come from?
Amy Sedaris: Girl Scouts growing up, and everyone in my family cooks, my mom was a big cook. So, I’ve always done it, it’s in my blood, I cook every night for myself.
And then you’ve released your cookbooks, as well. What was that first conversation like with Hillshire to get this campaign going?
Amy Sedaris: Well, a few years ago, they reached out to me and we were talking about doing something, and I can’t remember why, but at the time, it didn’t happen. I don’t remember why, so I was talking about it with my agent and was like, “What ever happened Hillshire?” I always liked them, because it kind of feels like a mom and pop product still, and I do eat their cold cuts when I eat cold cuts. So I said, “What’s going on with that?” We had reached out and then they happened to be doing this campaign, and it was a perfect fit.
Did they come to you with the format for it, or did you collaborate with them on the ideas?
Amy Sedaris: They [came up with it], they wanted to do celebrity sammies, which — I wouldn’t normally use the word sammies, but then the more I said it, the more I just loved it, because it was a funny word. So, I wanted to make the sandwiches a little bit more comical, like the one I did for my own sandwich with the pickle hanging out as the tongue, and just make it visually a lot more fun. But it was there, they pitched it, and then you get it on its feet and it kind of transforms.
What would you say — outside of your own sandwich — was one of your favorite sandwiches to help create?
Amy Sedaris: I mean, I liked creating all of them. I have to say, for me personally, I like a simple sandwich, and it’s all about the mayonnaise. I’m a big fan of Duke’s mayonnaise, it’s a mayonnaise from the south, I don’t know if you can get it up in New York, but when I go down to North Carolina, I always buy a bunch of it. But for me, I just like mayonnaise and salt and pepper on my sandwich, and maybe a slice of cheese. I’m not one to put peppers and onions and cucumber and all that stuff, I don’t like a whole lot.
Your own breaks out from your normality!
Amy Sedaris: Yes, but it’s fun. It’s funny to just keep plopping it all on the sandwich and try and hold it together with the toothpick, then you bite into it and you bite into the toothpick, and that’s just the way it goes.
I’ve had a few sandwich incidents with that.
Amy Sedaris: [Laughs] What’s your favorite sandwich?
I love a good Italian sandwich, a few different meats, some lettuce, onions, maybe oil and vinegar. That works for me!
Amy Sedaris: That was Andy Cohen’s favorite, he said he’s a sucker for that kind of sandwich.
There’s just something about it that’s nice and hearty. What was it like when you got to actually put some of these together on camera?
Amy Sedaris: It was a blast, and that’s one thing about sandwich-making, I’m always aware of it in movies, when the teenager comes home, and the mom’s like, “Do you want a sandwich?” and she goes to the refrigerator and she gets the stuff out. It’s always so much fun to watch, usually you don’t get everything out. But what I liked about filming is they had everything out there, because they were food stylists, so everything was at our fingertips. It makes it really fun, like a salad bar, you know what I mean? It just makes it fun to play with, I love playing with food.
Once you get that rhythm going, it can be a lot of fun to be in the kitchen. You yourself had your own show, At Home with Amy Sedaris, where you got to cook on camera, as well as dive into your crafts. What was this experience like in comparison to filming your series?
Amy Sedaris: It reminded me a lot of it, and that’s what I liked so much about it, because we finished our show, right when COVID started, so we were done and then we edited it and anything during the pandemic. But it was kind of nice just to dip my foot back into that world, you’re talking to a camera, that’s your audience, and you’re talking about food and busywork and can just be funny with the food. It just reminded me of doing the show, that’s why it fit in so perfectly to me. On my set, I didn’t have running water, the oven didn’t work or anything like that, so it was fun working in a real kitchen. [Chuckles]
I know that TruTV was behind your series, but are you still pushing to either bring it back or create a whole new one in a similar vein?
Amy Sedaris: I don’t think so. I thought three seasons was perfect, three seasons of that show was perfect to me. I haven’t thought about it, it’s kind of like, “Oh, we did that,” and that was a lot of fun. That’s the kind of stuff I’m interested in maybe down the line, I’ve always wanted to do something with Greek recipes, even if it’s on PBS and I did five episodes of all my Greek dishes.
It’s fun cooking and talking about it, because even when I cook for myself every night, I kind of still talk out loud, “Okay, now we’re going to do this, and we’re going to do that.” I’m sure a lot of people do that. I would love to [do something], but I don’t know if it would be the show, the show was just perfect in its time, sometimes I don’t like to go back and do that kind of thing.
Looking outside of the cooking realm, what other projects are you really looking forward to diving into in the future?
Amy Sedaris: It’s fun to see what comes my way, opportunity wise. I’ve been doing a lot of voiceovers lately, and I got to do Life & Beth, Amy Schumer’s show, and that was a lot of fun. Julio Torres has a show coming on HBO, and I got to do an episode of his show. I really like being a guest on other people’s shows, because you’re not number one on the call sheet, so it’s kind of fun to go in and be like, “Where do you want me? Where do I stand?”
I’m really enjoying that right now, and then, I don’t know, whatever comes my way. Sometimes, I know right away that I want to do it, and sometimes I’m like, “Absolutely not.” Or things that may be things I would have said no to 10 years ago, all of a sudden now I find myself saying, “Oh, yeah, I’ll do that. Why not? That’ll be fun.” It depends.
What would you say you prefer, live-action or voiceover roles?
Amy Sedaris: I like live-action, it’s more fun, you feel more like you’re playing, you know, and I like play acting. I like that feeling. The voiceovers I like, too, but you never know, you see the show, and you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know there was a lamp behind me, I would have said something about it.” I prefer live-action, I’m a mugger, I like to make faces and do character work, and physical comedy.
On that note, Peli Motto has been an absolute treat for the past few years in the Star Wars world.
Amy Sedaris: It’s a lot of fun, that show, I’ll tell you, I really love working on it.
We got to see you come back for The Mandalorian season 3, and we know that there’s plenty more to come in the future, and I know you can’t necessarily say whether you’ve heard anything. But do you think there is room for more from Peli in the future, and what would you like to see from her in the future?
Amy Sedaris: There’s something I like about Peli not changing. In Boba Fett, she did leave her her garage, and you saw her in the outside world, that was kind of thrilling. But I also like people that don’t leave their environments, I kind of like that things don’t change sometimes, that the action has to come to her, and Mando needs his craft fixed, or whatever. I kind of like having my area it’s like guys, when they’re grilling outdoors, they like to stay by that grill. That’s what they do for the whole party, they’re tending the grill, people come to them and talk to them, but it’s like, “Don’t, I got a job to do.” Peli’s kind of like that to me.
It’s always fun when someone comes to her for help. If you could have any other character from the Star Wars roster come to Peli for help, who would you really like to see?
Amy Sedaris: Oh, wow, all of them, man, bring them on. They’re all so freaky-looking, a lot of them. But in a way, I kind of like that they don’t, I like that it’s Mando and little Grogu, no surprises. [Chuckles] But it’d be like trick or treating if any of them showed up on my set for a week.
About Amy Sedaris & Hillshire Farm’s Sandwich Campaign
Known for her hilarious outlook, Amy Sedaris has teamed up with Hillshire Farm to celebrate people’s universal love for sandwiches with the ultimate badge of honor – having a sandwich named after you. Amy was inspired to craft sandwiches for a handful of iconic individuals and her celebrity friends with Hillshire Farm deli meats.
Her recipes and videos are available on YouTube as well as the brand’s Digital Deli Board on Pinterest.
