Tina Fey Illuminated

The New York Times discusses the marvelous Tina Fey.

From the piece...

"There’s a sharpness, there’s an extra little jab of intelligence to what she does,” said Adam McKay, the director of “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights,” who taught Ms. Fey in one of her first improv classes in Chicago and later hired her at “S.N.L.,” where he preceded her as head writer. When she joined the show in 1997, “she just could go as hard funny as anyone in the room, could go as dirty as anyone in the room, could go as acerbic as anyone in the room and as absurd,” Mr. McKay said. “There’s no wilting to her game at all.”

The cauldron of “S.N.L.” prepared Ms. Fey for the rigors of her current TV gig, she said in an interview in her “30 Rock” office, surrounded by show mementos like a mock-up of Sabor de Soledad (“flavor of loneliness”) discount cheese puffs, and a framed photograph of herself sitting on a toilet and holding a rubber chicken (“from an episode of what happens when a comedy writer gets to do a photo shoot”). But the book was unexpectedly daunting. Her writing process always has ups and downs, “and this one was a much higher, steeper roller coaster,” she said, sitting on a couch with her leg tucked under her. “I kept saying, ‘This is going to ruin me. I’m ruined!’ ‘Well, I hope you’re all happy’ — like, to no one in particular.” She laughed, a little, at herself — a habit. “No one forced me to do this, but I kept acting like I had been forced to do it.”

She decided to write a memoir, she said, after considering book offers for years; turning 40 made a difference. “I felt like, I guess I’ve lived enough to have some experiences,” she said, with no hint of underembellishment. Among those experiences was her ascendance to the anchor desk at “Weekend Update,” eventually alongside Ms. Poehler, another milestone for female comedians, and her impression of Sarah Palin, which enthralled and later befuddled her Republican parents.

Terry Gross interviews her, as well, here.