Published by
IGN
On August 27, 2007 | Written by Travis Fickett
The writer and actress talks about the growing popularity of the show, as well as what to expect in the second season.
Tina Fey was the first woman to serve as head writer for Saturday Night Live. When it was time to fill the anchor seat for the venerable “Weekend Update” segment, the job went to Fey and co-anchor Jimmy Fallon. It was here that Fey first established her affable, brainy and sexy on-screen persona. SNL producer Lorne Michaels, clearly impressed with the work she was doing on that show, backed Fey in the pursuit of her own series, 30 Rock, which happens to be a behind the scenes look (albeit a greatly exaggerated one) of a late night sketch comedy show.
Serving again as head writer, but also producer and star, Fey is the unequivocal driving force of 30 Rock. Together with co-stars Tracy Morgan and Alec Baldwin, she has – in only one season – created a comedy team that is perhaps the most buzzed about of the year. While it was not a ratings smash in its first year (the same can be said about Seinfeld and Cheers), NBC showed faith in the Fey/Michaels project and renewed it for another full season.
We had a chance to talk to Tina Fey at the recent Television Critics Association event held in Beverly Hills. This particular party was held for Saturday Night Live and was a smaller affair than the following night’s more extravagant “All-Star” party. Fey seemed comfortable and at ease in this smaller venue and surrounded by many of her former SNL colleagues, and she talked to us about 30 Rock‘s upcoming season.
On SNL‘s “Weekend Update” Fey did a lot of political humor. Given the fact that it’s going to be an election year, we asked if that is something she’s thinking of working into 30 Rock. “Yes. I think we are actually,” she said. “I think we should keep it open, because we do shoot the show a while before they air. But we have talked about Jack Donaghy getting a call from the crumbling Bush administration to help out, I think we’ll do that.”
When asked if she missed the immediacy of the “Weekend Update” format, Fey replied, “It sort of still feels like a vacation of the responsibility of it, because it’s hard work to turn the news into jokes. I respect people who do that and it’s such hard work that it still feels like a vacation.”As for whether she follows the news as closely, Fey said, “Not as much as a did when I was on ‘Weekend Update,’ but that’s partly because I’m almost always at work. I know it’ll be a big year though, with it being an election year. That’s always good for them. Sometimes I’ll see something and then turn to my husband and say, ‘Oh, I bet Lorne is calling people in on a Friday night and saying ‘Write this,’ instead of what they wrote.'”
30 Rock has featured several references to the game Halo, including Liz’s slacker boyfriend playing the game into the wee hours of the night. When asked if she played gamers herself, Fey said, “My husband used to play Halo. He used to have a bunch of SNL writers come over and play Halo. In my apartment they had this thing where they rigged three or four TVs together. They had them on a rolling cart and they’d play, and play online. Then guess what happened? I had a baby. That shut it all down.”
Last year the cast of 30 Rock was constantly asked about Studio 60, and how their show had a similar premise, and whether there was room for both. She was asked in the TCA Panel if she thought she’d be the one left standing. “And I of course ran my mouth,” Fey recalled. What she actually said was that she had always believed if one show had to survive, it would be 30 Rock. As for the constant comparisons to Studio 60, Fey said, “It never really bothered me that much. It may have even been a bit helpful to us.”
On the subject of the second season of 30 Rock , Fey said, “A lot of what we’ll be doing is to reset to where we were, for people who are coming to the show for the first time. That way they can meet these characters for the first time and still enjoy them. I’ve been watching a lot of The Mary Tyler Moore Show lately to…steal stories. No! I’m kidding. I’ve just been trying to see how that kind of ensemble grew and evolved and what are the different ways you can handle it. It’s actually amazing the difference in sitcoms from that long ago. They did one story. We have to do an ‘A story.’ a ‘B story,’ a ‘C stoy’ and a tag. Whereas they had one story, told at a lovely pace. Their half-hour was maybe 27 minutes long, whereas now a half-hour is 21 and a half minutes.”
Fey also thinks the show will increasingly become more about the characters, with the setting being secondary. “I think that has happened,” she said. “A lot of times, in the beginning people kept saying, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a show about show business.’ But I kept saying it’s really not, it’s going to be a show about these people and relationships, and I think they thought I was lying. But once again, we aspire more to the style of Mary Tyler Moore, where you didn’t really deal with the news. It was in a news room, but they didn’t talk about the news all the time. That’s our biggest hope, to get people to like these characters in the world that they exist in.”
30 Rock made some news with their recent announcement that comedian and television icon Jerry Seinfeld will be making a guest appearance on the season premiere of the show. “We’re really very flattered and honored that Jerry that would want to come on the show and we’re going to try and show him a good time.” As for how Seinfeld’s involvement came about, she said, “We got word from [NBC President] Ben Silverman’s office that they were talking to Jerry and that he would be willing to come on our show. Obviously everyone on the NBC side jumped on that immediately, and he may regret ever having uttered it, I don’t know. So they called us and we were like ‘great, yes, absolutely.’ And they came up with the pitches really fast and it’s all worked out.”Fey was asked the inevitable question asked of all the talent involved in NBC’s Thursday night line-up. 30 Rock shares the night with My Name is Earl, The Office and Scrubs, all shows that are critically acclaimed and have dedicated audiences. However, none of these shows are the kind of monster hit that NBC has had in the past in the Thursday night slot. Fey explained her take on it by saying “I think it takes time a little bit with comedy. But I think the more people that are watching NBC in general, the better it’ll be for everybody. More people are watching Heroes, put the promos in Heroes. But I don’t know. I think all of the Thursday night shows are pretty smart, but there’s nothing about them that is inaccessible.”
As for whether or not she thinks the fact that 30 Rock is a “show about show business” might be holding it back in the ratings, Fey responded, “It never occurred to me, but I had confidence in this group of characters from the beginning. Maybe it’s because they’re drawn from people I knew, and maybe it took a while for viewers to feel like they got to know the characters. The phrase ‘after a rocky start’ gets used a lot for our show. But I don’t know, I thought it started out okay. My husband scores the show, and he likes to attribute the change to when he started scoring the show. So maybe that was it.”