Tina Fey shares stage as writer, producer, star
These days, if anyone knows about striking television gold — several times over — it's Tina Fey.
Not only did she win Emmy Awards last month for writing, producing and acting on her NBC sitcom "30 Rock," she's made several much-praised returns to the show that inspired it: "Saturday Night Live," on which she's appeared lately as Alaska Gov. and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, a part the droll Fey seemed to win by popular demand before she officially played it.
Don't be surprised if she reprises that role next weekend on NBC's last pre-election "SNL." (In fact, you could almost put money on it.) However, Fey gets back to her main course of current business with the third-season premiere of "30 Rock" at 9:30 p.m. Thursday on Channel 11.
Her alter ego Liz Lemon, the head writer of a sketch comedy series (as Fey was herself during her tenure on "SNL"), opens the new stories by dealing with an ever-present adoption agency representative (guest star Megan Mullally, "Will & Grace") as things go crazy at Liz's workplace.
One factor is sure to be Liz's boss, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin, another recent Emmy winner for the show), just returned from a brief stint with the U.S. government that followed his demotion at the network. Cast regulars Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer and Judah Friedlander also are back.
If not a ratings powerhouse, "30 Rock" has been a critical darling from the start. With its seven latest Emmys, including the one for outstanding comedy series for the second consecutive year, Fey is feeling good about the start of its third round.
Though she lost her purse during the Emmy ceremony (it eventually was recovered), she recalls it as "a great night for us. I feel when the show wins, it really belongs to all of us who make it, which is a lot of people. Being in New York, we feel kind of isolated from show business a lot of the time, so it was nice to receive such a welcome out there."
The series' kudos also include a Peabody Award, but Fey knows viewership is as important a lifeline, proven by her Emmy-podium shout-outs specifying every media platform where "30 Rock" can be found.
"We've been very lucky that the network always has been very supportive of us," she says. "They have such a long relationship with Lorne (Michaels, executive producer of both 'SNL' and '30 Rock'), they trusted me to be a first-time show runner much more than they would have without his involvement."
Another testament to "30 Rock" is the roster of big-name guests it has attracted. Oprah Winfrey (playing herself), Salma Hayek and Jennifer Aniston appear early in its new year, following such notable visitors as Jerry Seinfeld, former Vice President Al Gore, Whoopi Goldberg, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Edie Falco ("The Sopranos"), LL Cool J, Carrie Fisher, tennis legend John McEnroe, and two performing veterans who also earned Emmys for the show, Tim Conway and Elaine Stritch.
One of the sweetest "30 Rock" results for Fey is the wide acclaim for Baldwin and her other co-stars. "There's a different kind of satisfaction you get from coming up with a bit for someone else," she says, "and then to also get your hair and makeup done and be in it with them. Even if it's someone else's joke and they kill with it, you're just as happy."
Still, Fey has won enough of her own laughs by donning Sarah Palin's hairstyle and glasses on "Saturday Night Live" in recent weeks. "It's really fun to go back and do things with Amy (Poehler, also Fey's co-star in this year's movie 'Baby Mama'), because we've known each other a long time.
"But now that I'm on a human schedule, I'll be over there and say, 'Why are we having this meeting at midnight?' It's like being in college. I think you have to be young to live in that world all the time."
"30 Rock" began at the same time as another similarly themed NBC show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Fey admits that seems like "a long time ago. I just knew at the beginning that I had an affection for these characters. I felt that they could sustain themselves, and that you could spend several years doing a lot of stories about them. They had enough juice.
"In the beginning when there was all that stuff like, 'Is it going to be too much like the other show?' I always felt it would be OK once we got past that and really got rolling. That first year was such a runaway train of us just learning what we were doing, we really didn't have time to look (at what was happening with 'Studio 60') much."
And the view hasn't changed, at least not for Fey. Having just added a book deal to her packed itinerary, she still has her stamp on "30 Rock" in every conceivable way — including its music, composed by her husband, Jeff Richmond.
