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Despite the awkward persona Amelia Dimoldenberg projects in her decade-old YouTube interview show \u201cChicken Shop Date,\u201d the 32-year-old Londoner expresses wonderment that her little web series that could has taken her all the way to the Academy Awards red carpet<\/a>, where she\u2019ll be returning as a correspondent next month for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n \u201cI do often take moments to be like, it\u2019s mental,\u201d Dimoldenberg exclaims via Zoom two months out from the March 15 ceremony, a period she\u2019ll be using to cram the Oscar contenders in order to come up with hundreds of questions to have in the metaphorical back pocket of her designer gown.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, poor me, I have to watch all of these incredible movies and learn about amazing actors and the real-life people they were inspired by and the intricacies of the casting in \u2018Marty Supreme\u2019!\u201d she tells The Envelope with her trademark dry wit. \u201cI would watch them anyway because I love movies.\u201d<\/p>\n Though digital creatives often get a bad rap, underestimate Dimoldenberg at your peril. In the more than 10 years since she first shepherded \u201cChicken Shop Date\u201d from a column in a youth publication to a viral phenomenon fetching millions of views and securing the likes of Cher, Jennifer Lawrence and Billie Eilish as guests, Dimoldenberg has put a lot of work into her artfully inelegant celebrity courtships.<\/p>\n Her standing as one of the go-to promotional tour stops means Dimoldenberg has a contact list of celebs and, crucially, their publicists to call ahead of Oscars night.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m able to prebook quite a few of them because of people knowing my work from \u2018Chicken Shop Date\u2019 and wanting to be a part of it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard as an independent creator to get people to come your way. Because of the success of \u2018Chicken Shop Date,\u2019 out of the people on the carpet, I will get nearly everyone. The only other people who are doing that are E! News or whoever.\u201d<\/p>\n It also comes down to physical placement on the carpet. Three years in, Dimoldenberg likes to have a vantage point that allows her, as a producer for her company Dimz Inc., to scope out which celebrities are coming her way, catch their eye and \u201cdraw them to me while I\u2019m talking to someone else.\u201d All the while, she\u2019s mentally organizing her questions \u2014 memorized more like a script, rather than written on her device or note cards \u2014 and juggling the \u201cChicken Shop Date\u201d persona that brought her to the dance.<\/p>\n TV series, a Super Bowl spot, now a rom-com: Amelia Dimoldenberg is plotting moves beyond the red carpet.<\/p>\n (Laura Schaeffer)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n \u201cThe beauty of my interviews is that they look so off the cuff,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that\u2019s what people like about me: I\u2019m not going to be doing an in-depth look at their career or ask a very sincere question, but I will have done all my research so that I can ask them something that\u2019s related to their movie or themes of their work or their interests that maybe catches them off guard. I don\u2019t have to take the style of other reporters; I can do it in my own way.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Dimoldenberg feels like more of her personality is able to shine through on the high-stakes Oscars red carpet than on her dates.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe if it\u2019s an actual date,\u201d she explains as to why the intimacy of her show spotlights the real Amelia less than the glare of the awards-season spotlight. \u201c\u2018Chicken Shop Date\u2019 is a performance,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m playing this character \u2014 a hopeless romantic who\u2019s actually scared of romance. That\u2019s where the comedy comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n Dimoldenberg takes her work seriously and hopes to parlay her notoriety into more traditional performances, such as a role in Season 4 of \u201cIndustry,\u201d<\/a> currently airing on HBO, a part in Uber Eats\u2019 make-your-own-Super-Bowl-ad<\/a> campaign and a rumored part in \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d<\/a> later this summer. She\u2019s also developing a TV series with BBC and recently announced a deal with Orion Pictures to develop, produce and star as a version of herself in a rom-com based on \u201cChicken Shop Date\u201d alongside Will Ferrell and Adam McKay\u2019s production company, Gloria Sanchez Productions.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just interested in storytelling \u2014 that\u2019s what \u2018Chicken Shop Date\u2019 is: telling the story of a date. Will it go well? Will it not?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n