Don’t make Ellie Kemper add up how much her SoulCycle “obsession” has cost her over the years.
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star, 38, has booked classes at the boutique cycling studio up to four times a week since 2014, and at $34 each, her fitness fixation isn’t cheap.
“I’m not going to put a number out there,” she told Us. “It’s so mortifying when you see that number!”
But Kemper says that the physical and mental benefits she gets out of her classes are well worth the cost. (And she’s not the only one who is willing to spend big bucks, Busy Philipps’ husband has spent nearly $30,000 at the cycling studio.)
“I happen to love it because it makes me feel young again,” she said. “It makes me feel like I’m at the club again, but also it makes me feel like an athlete. I played field hockey and I ran track, and I really like the idea that someone is coaching me. It takes me back to a time in my youth when I was thriving. So that’s why I love it. And I don’t work for SoulCycle.”
The actress loves SoulCycle so much that she wrote an entire chapter about the spin studio in her new book, My Squirrel Days. Kemper said that her body totally transformed when she first started.
“My arms got more defined. Some people don’t like this, but my legs got bigger. I like that because I feel strong. I feel like a beast, and I enjoy that feeling of being a strong beast,” she said.
But Kemper knows that not everyone is a fan — “I am careful in my proselytizing because I think it’s not for everyone,” she said — and learned the hard way that her showrunner Tina Fey isn’t quite as obsessed. Kemper accidentally went on for “like 20 minutes” about SoulCycle after the former 30 Rock star politely asked her about it.
“She didn’t talk much,” Kemper said.
But since becoming a mom to son James, 2, Kemper has had to reel back her SoulCycle classes just a bit.
“There are studios near me but I go to one specific instructor. It takes me 40 minutes to get there. I don’t want to blame it on my son, James, because he is the treasure of my life — but having him makes it a little more difficult,” she said.
Plus, taking care of another human has added quite a bit of fatigue to her life.
“You’re so physically fatigued after taking care of a child, you just don’t have energy. I did not anticipate that,” she said. “I’m sure some people will say, ‘Well, you have to find time!’ Sometimes, that time is better spent taking a nap.”
