'30 Rock' so Fey: She's star, writer, producer

August 23, 2006

BY Doug Elfman, TELEVISION CRITIC

Tina Fey is quitting "Saturday Night Live" to star in NBC's new "30 Rock," a comedy set behind the scenes at an "SNL"-ish studio -- where nimble wit coexists with broad humor and flatulent punch lines.

"One must always have a fart joke," Fey explains grandly in a fake British accent reserved for queens and wayward princesses.

Fey, 36, also is a producer and writer for "30 Rock." She's a mommy, too, who right in the middle of chatting up a reporter spies a child on the shoulder of a stranger. Fey raises both eyebrows and lets out an, "Oh, there's a baaaby. Awww. My baby's bald like that one."

Fey's comic style is to mock such fawning -- also, self-obsessed celebrities, politicians, pop culture and other stupid things, sometimes with personal asides, like when she declared on "SNL's" fake news:

"According to author Sylvia Hewlett, career women shouldn't wait to have babies because our fertility takes a steep drop-off after age 27. And Sylvia's right. I definitely should've had a baby when I was 27, living in Chicago over a biker bar, pulling down a cool 12 grand a year. That woulda worked out great."

When the real news dropped this summer that Fey will not return to "SNL," it was the top story in entertainment news media. Fey repels this validation.

"You know what that's called? A slow news day. It means Britney Spears stayed home," she says.

Fey says this without her signature black-rimmed eyeglasses. The glasses aren't Drew Carey fakes. "I need them to read cue cards."

Glasses-on at "30 Rock," starting Oct. 11, she'll essentially portray herself, a head comedy writer. Some critics don't think she's a great actress. I think she's funny. Fey doesn't think about it, she claims.

"If it turns out I'm the worst [actor] ever, then I'll have that distinction of being the worst actor ever," she says. "I don't think Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Reiser and Ray Romano worried about it, so I'm gonna choose not to worry about it either.

"Some actors are brilliant when they are deep in character. I am never brilliant, and that makes it easy for me."

Pre-'Mean'

Before Fey wrote a movie about "Mean Girls," she was a mean girl in high school, then acted onstage in college. Next, she improvised at Second City and ImprovOlympic, where she met her future husband, the improv piano player Jeff Richmond.

Her average day now is working in a Queens studio all day before she and Richmond go home to their only child. (He's a producer on her show and a musician at "SNL.")

"I come home at 6, and I put my daughter to bed. And then I eat dinner," she says. "There's like a 40-minute window in which I'm awake and then I go to bed."

It's rare to get a glimpse of Fey's personal life. She opened up to a New Yorker magazine reporter three years ago, and there were exquisite explanations of her craft, but less in the way of lifestyle. No explanation about the scar on her face. Not much about her diversions, except for a therapy class where she punched a pillow that symbolized President Bush and confronted chairs representing terrorists.

But there was a quote from friend Amy Poehler comparing Fey to an observant monk: "She's not the first girl to belly-flop into the pool at the pool party. She watches everybody else's flops and then writes a play about it."

Catherine and her horse

The New Yorker also invoked a sketch from a Chicago workshop for which Fey inserted naughty words in the mouth of Catherine the Great: "You can be a murderous tyrant and the world will remember you fondly. But [molest] one horse and you're a horse [molester] for all eternity."

Fey likes to work with her friends, so for "30 Rock," she has hired alumni from Second City and ImprovOlympic -- Scott Adsit, Jack McBrayer and "SNL"-er Rachel Dratch.

Dratch was supposed to be a main "30 Rock" cast member, but her part didn't quite work so it has morphed and apparently shrunk, while the comedy has in the process added "Ally McBeal's" Jane Krakowski.

Friend of Fey and frequent "SNL" host Alec Baldwin plays a buffoonish, overbearing boss who works for General Electric, owner of NBC, making it seem like a million years have passed since David Letterman was an annoyance at the network for sticking his finger in the socket of the corporate parent.

"GE -- so far, I don't think they have any problem with it." Fey says, revealing a Fey-ish half-grin. "They know it's not any of them. Specifically."

While continuing to air "SNL" each week, NBC executives simultaneously have hired Aaron Sorkin to produce a backstage- at-"SNL"-type series called "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," starting Sept. 18. Can viewers handle three hours of "SNL" shows on one network?

"I think we need at least three more hours," Fey jokes. "No, I think they're all very different. We'll find out."