Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Tina Fey on "Mean Girls," Writing for SNL and Comedy Fame (January 2024)

Episode Date: August 24, 2025

One of comedy’s most influential voices, Tina Fey has left her mark on entertainment in countless ways. In this sitdown from January 2024, she and Willie discuss her experience writing, producing, and starring in the Mean Girls reboot, and look back on her days writing and performing on Saturday Night Live, the launchpad that made her a household name. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. I am thrilled to bring you my conversation this week with the true comedy icon, Tina Faye. You know, we've been doing Sunday today on NBC for almost eight years. She has been near the top of our list of people we wanted to have on as a guest, and we found the perfect opportunity here with the new Mean Girls movie that is just out to sit down with Tina. We got together, appropriately, right near 30 Rockefeller Plaza, in a room bathed in pink, because on Wednesdays, we wear pink. We conducted the interview on a Wednesday.

That's a line from the classic 2004 movie Mean Girls. I'm not going to bore you with Tina's entire life story because you already know it. Grew up outside, Philly, obsessed with comedy, loved SNL, dreamed of it. How was she going to get there? And then one day she was sitting in an office with Lauren Michaels being interviewed for the job in the place where she was. would become head writer and so much more. So she wrote, of course, Mean Girls, the 2004 movie that starred Lindsay Lohan, becomes this iconic movie, still quoted, still a touchstone for teenagers, and now she's out with the movie musical version of it. In between, there was a Mean Girls

Musical on Broadway, written along with her husband, Jeff Richmond, a great composer and musician who did the music for it. And this movie, the new one, kind of brings those two together. The original movie and the musical. So I'm just getting out of the way here. You don't need a big wind up. You know Tina Faye. You love Tina Faye. So sit back, relax, and enjoy Tina right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thanks for doing this, Tina. Thank you for having me. It's nice to see you. We're very pink because it's Wednesday. Thank you. Right. This will air on a Sunday, but just know this was filmed on a Wednesday. Exactly. And on Wednesdays, some of us were pink. I'm sorry, I didn't have anything. I mean, you know what? We will add it in

Post. We can make your short pink in post. We can colorize it. It's so fun to be sitting here talking about this movie, which I absolutely loved. Thank you so much. It's so good. People are going to just be obsessed with it as they were with the original. Is it odd for you to be sitting here 20 years later talking about this idea you had all those years ago?

It is a little odd. You know, in some days I feel like it was a minute ago. And some days I'm like, no, it was about 20 years ago. I didn't have kids. and now I have kids that are very large. So it makes it, it's been about 20 years, but I definitely didn't think when we were making it the first time that we would still be talking about it now.

So for people who love the original, it's that, but it also adds the beauty of the musical, which was so popular here on Broadway for a couple of years. So how did you approach writing this screenplay? Obviously, the music adds a different layer to it, but differently than 2004. Well, a couple of different ways. You know, it was fun to take the,

the stuff we learned from the musical and kind of the tent pole songs of the musical and bring them back into a cinematic form where you can play things in a close-up. You can have visual jokes and you can cut different places fast because so much of learning to write to adapt the original movie for the musical was technical. It's like, okay, movies are three acts, musicals are two acts. You know, we need something here because the girls have to change their outfits. It's a very practical. process and then it's like now we can take all the things we wanted to do and move faster and you know um it definitely doesn't feel like a filmed uh broadway show it feels like a movie for sure yeah and it's also nice to get the chance you know so often with comedy comedy is such a living thing and you write something that you go oh boy that's yeah that's a that's a problem now she probably shouldn't have said that or done that and it's nice to it's a real gift to get the opportunity to to go back and and and update things and tweak things And that's all in there. The music is one thing that's different, but also we live in a world. In 2004, we'd never heard of Instagram or Twitter or Snapchat or TikTok or any of that stuff. So you did layer all of that into it because the high school experience clearly is much different now than it was 20 years ago.

It's super different. And even, you know, when I was writing the movie for 2004, I was thinking about 1988 because that was bringing my experience to that movie. So now it's really updated. And I've always, I think our director, art and Sam did an amazing job of incorporating social media into the movie without letting it take over. Right. Because I think young audiences, too, they're like, yeah, we get it. We live it. You don't have to, you don't have to explain it to us too much, but they were able to mind it for jokes. And I think that, yeah, I think it's, they tap it nicely in the movie. Yeah, it's not overwrought, for sure. It's just, it's there as a part of the movie. What's nice, too, is you have consultants inside your own home, whether it's your husband on the music.

Yes. Or your daughters on what it's like to be a teenager or about to be a teenager right now. Yes, yeah. I have pre and post teens in my house. I have 18 and 12 in my house and I try not to bother them too much. But I do run things by them occasionally. And I do get clear answers. I'm like, no, that's corny.

Or like, yeah, that's okay. Interesting. And they both are very smart comedy fans and film fans. So I do trust them. So you're sitting there saying, should this burn book be a burn book? Should it be something else? Right. So at one point, the directors early on were like, maybe the burn book should be like a private Instagram page. And I was like, I don't think so, but let me check. And they were like, no, it should be a book.

And at one point, my one daughter was like, don't let those millennials overthink it. Wow. Like a studio executive. It's amazing. Get a hit her with a little back end maybe. Yeah, a little, some points. Half a point. Was there any hesitation about going back to something that has become such a class. that is so iconic to tempt fate in some way and mess with it. Well, first of all, that's so nice of you to say. And I do think so much of what people respond to in the original movie are the performances,

you know, and like Rachel and Lindsay and Lacey and Amanda are so good. And it's no surprise to me that they went on to such amazing careers, all of them after that. And I think they took their part so seriously and played them so committedly. I think that's so much to do with why the original movie works. So when we first were adapting for Broadway, it was like, wow, can other people play these parts? And then it became clear that, like, yes, they can. And audiences are excited to see other people do it and to see people who don't necessarily even look like the people you saw the first time. You know, the longer the Broadway show ran, then we went on tour, it was really kind of thrilling to see different people bring different things to those parts.

And so once that Band-Aid was kind of ripped off, the other thing with the musical is I did realize in the five years that we were developing the musical that millennials especially, they feel real ownership of the movie. And they were sort of like, you can't, we own this. And I was sort of like, well, no, it's my thing. But they're like, no, it's our thing. And I was like, okay, fair enough.

We'll share it. And I'll be very careful. I'll work very carefully. But I think it's okay. Yes, I think it's okay that we're back in the same universe. Is it wild to you to hear that that this 20 years later, it really is a touchstone for so many people. And the term mean girls has become part of the lexicon and people identify groups in the lunchroom at high school. Like that is what high school is at America.

Does that blow your mind? It is so weird. It is so weird, yes, that how kind of how sticky those characters ended up being. Again, I think it's a lot to do with those women. Yeah, it's weird. But I believe if we can have 12 Spider-Man's, I'm not actually counting. How many Spider-Man's are we up to?

You're asking the wrong guy. I don't know. A lot, animated, different Spider-Men through the years. Yeah. I believe the plural is Spider-Man's. Oh, is that what it means? No, I don't know. Like Lego.

But even the terminology, right, that people use Mean Girls, a shorthand. And it means something to people. Yeah, you see it in like articles about Congress. Yeah. Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah. It's weird. And is it true that when you were first making it, there was no guarantee that number one would be made? He thought, okay, this is a cool concept. Or forget being this iconic film that it's becoming. Yeah, for sure. I was, you know, a writer at SNL at the time. And I guess maybe I was, I guess I was doing update with Jimmy, right? Maybe. Yeah. 2000. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And well, 2003, right? So I don't remember anything.

It might have been Amy by then. Yeah. There's no way of knowing. How will we ever know? And I just had seen this article in the New York Times about this book called Queen Bees and wannabes, which is a nonfiction sociology book about relational aggression, which is what they call it when girls mess with each other. you know, boys maybe like fight it out, punch it out, whatever, and then they're done with it. But girls, they've sort of realized find ways to torture each other that are just behavioral. And I thought it was fascinating. And I thought it was funny inherently because some of the things that these young kids were doing were sort of insidious and genius in their own way.

So I went to Lorne and said, I think there's a movie here. And he said, you know, could they have cool cars and good outfits and stuff? And I was like, yep, we can do it, you know. Which I get his instinct is so smart because his thing was like, make a movie movie. Like, you don't have to make a tiny little gritty movie. You can make a movie. Yeah. I think the actual thing he said to me was like, it's okay to work in bright sunlight.

Hmm. It doesn't make a movie better necessarily to make it, like, tiny. Right. Which I thought was really good advice. And so we started making the movie. And back then, like I always felt when we made 30 Rock, it was just then it was like, someone's going to let us make it and then we'll have a tape of it. And even if they don't put it, like, we'll have a tape of it. Yeah. It was just that, like, well, they're going to let us make it.

And so that was as far as we got. We shot the original movie in Toronto. And at the time, sometimes I would do update, get into like a truck. I had a bed in the back and they would drive me to Toronto. I think I was a little afraid to fly at that time for a minute, but I did fly sometimes. But you make it sound like you hitched a ride up to Toronto. It was, it was like a kid. It was a guy driving a camper and I would sleep and then I'd get up and go to set. It was so weird. Oh, see, it was a mobile trailer. It was a mobile trailer.

It was a mobile trailer. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, I could have just gone to bed and flown to Toronto. What was wrong with me? In hindsight. In hindsight. It is amazing, though.

I mean, obviously this film is different in high school is different. Yeah. With the themes and you, you know, you talk about diversity and sexuality in a different way they needed 20 years ago. But the core idea of what it feels like to be in high school has been there forever and is still. and is still there today. Yeah, the core idea of sort of, you know, not taking other people down just to make yourself feel better, which, boy, I mean, that behavior, the original movie did not fix anything.

You know, that behavior has only gotten worse. And, you know, the idea, and I think now, like, in the 90s and early 2000s, we would couch it in humor, and now I think people couch it in righteousness. Like, they take people down and make themselves feel better, being like, here's why you're a problem. But it's still the same thing. still like, don't look at me. Look at them. It's like, you know, it's just that panic of like,

don't look at me. I don't want to, you know, make a mistake. I don't know who I am yet. It's a, it's a young person's panic, you know. And I think those, the mistake of like, sort of acting like someone you're not to, to fit in or to feel better, like, those are mistakes we all continue to make. And the mistakes of high school now are memorialized on social media in a way you and I didn't have to worry about. Oh my gosh. We could work. it out a little bit. Absolutely. You could be a jerk once in a while and correct that.

And now with social media, as you know with your girls and I know with my teenagers, it's brutal. Yeah, it's brutal. I mean, obviously, this is different than talking about, like, actual accountability for behavior. But when it's just like, you know, you did your hair and it came out real stupid, no one had a picture of it. Just the low stakes thing or like, you know. Yeah. How do you manage that with your girls, the social media part of it? I mean, I don't, my daughter, you know, my 18-year-old, I feel like I'm letting her, I'm trusting

her core values. And the 12-year-old is so far off. We're not, we don't have any social media. Oh, good for you. Can't at 12. No, 12 is too soon. Yeah. No. Good for you. That's a good, I mean, that's the way to do it. And then let them figure, hopefully you've created a person who, when it's time to have it, can handle it. Can handle it, hopefully, yeah. You know, and then as they must have the extra weird layer of, you know, having a mom who used to be on TV. because nobody wants that either. You're still on TV, but go ahead.

I'm still, I'm on TV right now. Hi, I'm on TV. And you're about to be on TV again, but that's our next interview. Oh, yeah, maybe, yeah. That's very exciting. Thank you. Poor season. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Stick around to hear more from Tina Faye right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Tina Faye. So, okay, so you mentioned your high school years, how it influenced the original. I want to go back briefly. a little before high school to find the roots of your... The roots of comedy. Your comedy.

When I was reading about you, it seemed like, I don't know, in fourth or fifth grade, you knew that this was it. And I was wondering, like, when did she start to know? And it was probably when you, I read that you were reading

Joe Franklin books about comedy stars. And I was like, wow, at 11 years old. Yeah, I think I was in middle school. I think it was an eighth grade project. You could do an independent project, and I wanted to write about comedians.

And at that time, with no internet, no YouTube, you could not even really a VCR to tape things. All I could find was a Joe Franklin's encyclopedia of comedians, the only book that I could find. And it was stuff, it was about things, it was about like vaudeville. You know, it was like Joe E. Oh, God, Joe E. Brown and all these people that, I was like, okay, I'm going to read about Fannie Bryce.

Let's do this. I just wanted whatever material. And that was all I could find. You couldn't even watch SNL, right? It was on too late. There's no DVR. Eventually, you probably did. I think, you know, my brother used to act out.

My brother was eight years older than me, and he would watch it and then act it out for me the next day. And then I think I did start staying up late. I feel like I have memories of SNL that I couldn't possibly really have of staying up, seeing those early things. Like, I don't know how I remember Wolverines because I was five. Right. But I feel like I saw it.

But you knew at an early age comedy is my thing. Was that part of high school and the way you felt you fit in there? Yeah, for sure. I mean, SNL was such a big deal that, you know, everyone, I think everyone attaches to whatever cast of SNL was the first ones that you stayed up for. And I'm so lucky because it was like Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman. And it was, you know, it was like, Dana Carvey. I think I also maybe started staying up a little bit in the kind of that Marty

Short, Eddie Murphy. Like, even though I was, that's 1980 though, right? Yeah, that's early 80s. So I was 10 or 11, but I definitely, you know, synchronized swimming. I know that, all that stuff. And then at some point, SCTV used to come on after SNL three weeks out of four. And then the fourth week, it would be wrestling. And we'd be like, oh, so sad when it was wrestling.

The 1 AM wrestling circuit. 1 a.m. wrestling circuit, yes. But yeah, SCTV was huge, huge Monty Python. I started watching Monty Python when I was really small, which makes, doesn't make it, because they would show it on PBS, and Benny Hill. That's right. They would show Benny Hill on PBS. I remember that.

I know, I know. And then so you know this is kind of your thing. You go to UVA, you graduate, and you're like, I've got to go find where I can be funny and be a comedian. So you move to Chicago, land your dream job at the front desk at the YMCA. That's right. Right. But then, of course, Second City is there. Is that what brought you to Chicago?

Yes, absolutely. I moved to Chicago from Charlottesville, Virginia, where I went to college. I went to Chicago just because I thought, well, that's where the second city is, which I probably knew from maybe the last four pages of Joe Franklin's book of comedians. I was probably like, The Future, 1970. So I went there to try to take classes at the Second City and at a place called Improvillimpalimp. And that's where I met my wife, Amy Poehler. We were on a team together.

That's where I met my friend Rachel Dratch. We all came up through Chicago. And that was an amazing time. I guess I was there for five years. And what a great city, great place to live. I did theater there, too, like little teeny tiny theaters where the rule used to be like, well, we'll do the show if there are more people in the audience than in the show. And I was in this two-woman play one time.

And we had the dilemma of like, well, there's only two people in the audience. Let's do it. And we just did this whole dramatic play for two people. Isn't that amazing? But you loved it so much. You didn't care. I loved it. And you got to, you know, take risks and learn.

And it was so beneficial to live there. And not, you weren't like trying to get your TV show made. I think things move so fast, you know, if you go straight to New York or to L.A. And also, like, I was a dork. Like, I wasn't going to book any. I wasn't going to book a commercial. I wasn't going to ever get cast in like a TV pilot. It took a long time for me to cook to figure out what it was that I could maybe offer to any professional institution of any kind.

Well, part of the cooking then, I guess, was Adam McKay, who was here at SNL and had been at Second City, said send in some stuff. Yeah, Adam McKay was just a powerhouse at Improv Olympic and Second City, just one of the funniest improvivalent. you'd ever see in your life. And I knew him and he had come and he was already a head writer at S&L and I said, yeah, can I, and SNL had come through the Second City scouting for performers

and seen me and were like, not interested. And I understandably, they were correct. And so I asked Adam if I could send a packet in as a writer and he was like, for sure and he's, you know, he's hired me basically. And then did, so you do the interview, not the audition, is that true?

Yes, I never did one of those. to do the thing. One of those terrifying auditions. Right. Yeah. Everyone talks about an interview with Lorne. Seth talks about this and he leaves and he doesn't know if he has the job necessarily. Seth's like, I don't know if I'm working here or not.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so many people in Chicago had gone through the process of almost getting SNL or whatever. And I think someone had given me the only piece of advice was like, whatever you do, like, don't finish his sentences. He doesn't like when people finish his sentences. So I went into the office and I was like out of my body. and there's the nameplate that says Lauren Michaels and there's the guy from TV

and he just sat down and he sat down he was like so you're from and I was like and at the same time he I was like Philadelphia he was like Chicago I was like or Chicago and I was just like and I just thought like I just floated out of my body just turned into a puff of smoke you somehow gave the wrong answer

I gave the wrong answer to my hometown but I but I know I was right You were right. Yeah. But somehow, yeah, somehow survived that interview. And then I remember I got the job. And I remember I called Polar because she was still in Chicago. Oh, no, she had moved.

She was here in New York. She had come to New York for UCB. Right. And I called her and I was like, at the job and I started crying. And she's like, what's the matter? I was like, I'm so overwhelmed. I have to move next week and I have to leave. You know, my male husband was my boyfriend in Chicago, blah, blah.

And then she asked me like how much money I was going to make. And it was, you know, like a start a union, a writer's guild. and starting job and I told her the amount. And I was crying. And she just started live. She was like, ah, ha ha ha. It was the most money any of us had ever made at that time. It was like an adult job. Right. And she's rooting for you. She's, oh, of course. You got in the door. Absolutely. Yeah. And then I pulled her over. Yes. I was like, I know you have UCB, but please, please come talk to Lauren. Thank God you did. Yeah. I mean, people view you as this sort of legend of S&L, but the early. Yeah, that's what it is.

Ask my kids. But like for, as is the case with a lot of people, I think, you can tell me the early years are not always the smoothest when you're trying to find where you fit in there and getting things on the air. You live or die by what you get on the air. I had a, I did pretty okay though. I got things on pretty early. And I think whatever that Chicago kind of armor that I brought where I was like, I'm tough.

I'm from Chicago. Yeah. I just sort of dilutedly wrapped myself in that. And I do think I could. kind of just coming from that improv world, I could hang a little bit, like I wasn't really scared of anybody, except maybe Norm. I was a little scared of Norm. Not that he never gave me any reason to me, but he was scary. And the women really, we sort of really found each other, you know, and we would all kind of stick together and hang out. And anytime three or more of us

were sitting together, people would be like, oh, what is this some kind of meeting? You go to have some kind of ladies meeting? People would be so nervous. They'd be like more and more and more of them. They're plotting against us. What are they doing? So funny. Do you remember your first sketch, the one that got on the air?

I want to say... I might know, but honestly what you say. Was it a thing? Was it I took a gay guy to prom? Was it like a little pre-tape called I took a gay guy to prom? Oh, it might be that. Or maybe the first live might have been Chris Farley, Sally Jessie. Oh, was he a...

Oh, my gosh, when he was hosting? I think so. That might have been. So that was like December of the first year. And was he a baby or something? He was a good giant baby? I think. I completely forgot about that. I think. Don't quote me on that. No, I think that's definitely one of the first ones. I think I did a pre-tape one, like one of the first couple weeks that was like a documentary about girls who took gay boys to prom and didn't realize it. Talk about a throwback. Talk about something you wouldn't write anymore. But yeah, oh, yeah, my God, I forgot about that. It might be that. He's in like a baby outfit. Yeah, it was very odd and hilarious. God bless that. God bless them for committing. So at what point then, Tina, do you make the leap on camera? Or are you encouraged to make the leap on camera? Yeah, a few years in, I know I think Colin Quinn had been doing update,

and I think it was turning over, and they were trying to figure out how to do, who should do it next. And like sort of in the grand Conan O'Brien tradition, Lauren was like looking like no further than the who else is here in the office. And I got to test with Jimmy. I think I tested with Jimmy. Jimmy and I don't know if Jimmy tested alone was a whole day of testing, but it was, it was scary, but it wasn't as scary as the people who come in cold to do the real auditions because at least

I had been in there. I knew everybody. I still had a job if it didn't work out. I remember, because I was one of the head writers at the time, and they went out to dinner to have a, they did all these tests, a lot other people tested as well, people from outside tested. And that night, they went to dinner to talk about it. And they called me. me up to be like, Lauren want you to come join the dinner. And I was like, oh my God, I think I got it. So I go down to this dinner and like the palm or something. And I walk in and it was the biggest, most like psychological twist-the-knife, SNL things I got there. And it was not that I got it, is that they were still truly discussing all the options and that they wanted me as head writer

to sit there and help. And I was like, oh, now that's cold. Wow. It was cold. Wow. But then it all ended up working out. It worked out, okay. Was that something you wanted to do, or did it feel like some wild idea that Lauren had and you weren't so sure about it? No, I was psyched. I think, you know, because everyone dreams of being on the show.

And then it was the only way I ever could have possibly been on the show because I'm not, I don't do impressions. I'm not, you know, I don't have characters. I'm very limited. Very limited. But the things you're good at, you're really good. Yeah. And as soon as we find them, we're going to get started. Stick around for more of my conversation with Tina Faye right after a quick break.

Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Tina Faye. And then you did lure Amy over, Jimmy Gouldleaves. Yeah. The two of you come together and it's magic. What did that feel like to be sitting with your old buddy? Did you pinch yourselves and say, can you believe we're doing these shows for two people? Yeah. Now we're sitting here.

I know. We were touring like, you know, we were touring for Second City and like doing shows in Waco, Texas for $75 a show. And now we get to do this. It was great. It was a joy. And it remains a comfort to this day. You know, we're touring now. And it is just like, we really just have such an ease and shorthand working with each other.

And we really came to realize that when we were doing the Golden Globes those years because we were like, update was such good training for that. because we just knew like, this joke, I think this one's good for you. What about this one? You know what? This one's not going to be worth it. Like, just we just, it's such a muscle. You know, it's just like weightlifting. It's joke lifting.

You're like, you just develop some skills of like how to pick them, how to, who gets what, how many you need. You know, it's a great training. And hosting the Golden Globes is very difficult. I mean, it can't, it's not, but it, it, I don't know. Yeah. I know. It's like whatever. Yeah.

I mean, but it's, you have to kind of have a mix of like do the work, get people to help you write good jokes, get your good joke writing friends to give it to you, and then do all that and then not care. Right. So it's a mix. It's a mix of caring but not looking like you're caring that you also learn, you know, look at Joe St. and Che. Yeah. Like, who looks like they care less than Joseph and Chee? But they've been working on that all week.

And that's why it works. Right. That's right. Is the tour a blast? I mean, you guys are selling out, they're adding shows everywhere. I'm just saying that the Beacon Theater here in New York, you're about to break a record for most shows by one act? We maybe will, we may be will if everyone just keeps buying tickets. Yeah, we've been having so much fun. We've been going all over the country. Me and Amy Polar, it's called The Restless Leg Tour. And it started because we were just inspired by Steve Martin and Marty Short because they love each other so much the way we love each other. other. They love just going on tour together, and they kept recommending it. They're like, you should, I should do it. It's so fun. And so we put this tour together last spring.

I was just finishing shooting the Mean Girls movie, which it was a very, it was a hard shoot. Like we had to do it fast and all this stuff. And I'm like, I think the three days after we finished, Amy and I did our first show. So it felt very S&L like, okay, here we go. What is the show? We have two days. Let's go. But we, you know, have this short, shorthand with each other. We work well together. So we put the show up and we've gone to, so far, we've been to Washington, D.C., Chicago, where have we been? Oh my gosh. Cleveland. Going to Portland this weekend. This week, we're going to Portland. This month we're going to Portland, Atlanta, Florida, San Francisco, and Oakland. And then we come into New York and sit down

for a little bit. I was telling you, you're like a rock star. You're home during the week and you do your shows on the weekend and you're all the antics on the plane. We're just out and about. We're just impregnating people and everywhere we go. Because we get there, we do the show. It's such a paid mom's weekend because we go, then we're like, where should we? I hear there's an interesting vintage shopping, whatever city we go to, and then we have like a nice lunch.

Just like Rock and Chappelle. And then we do our show, and then after the show, I say, I don't want to have a drink to you. And she goes, I don't want to have a drink either. I'll see you tomorrow. Or like, or sometimes if it's a Saturday, we go to our room and we watch SNL from the whole. hotel room. Oh my gosh. That's a dream. It's a dream. Right? Yeah. You don't feel obligated to do the thing

after the time. Oh my gosh. No. No, because we're so psyched to be in a hotel room, will he? Away from your family. Oh, hate my family. That's the clip we're going to use for PR. Isolate it. Get it out. Get it out to TMZ. Okay, last thing. Tina Faye claps back at our family. Exactly. Last thing before I let you go, we're at the building that you helped to make so famous with 30 Rock. Yeah, that's me. That's why people know this building because of me. When they hear 30 Rock, they associate it with your show.

What a leap that must have been for you to create a new show, to star in a new show, and to have it succeed the way it did must have been so gratifying. Yeah, it was a crazy time. And I look back on it, talk about a throwback now because, you know, my daughter was one. She was six months old when we did the pilot, and she was one, that September that we started. and we worked so hard. We've worked so hard. And thank God it, like, paid off

because we really tried. And that's why you were asking me if I used your daughter's 18 and 12. I said, yeah, they're on either side of 30 Rock because I didn't dare try to have another kid. I just kept assuming we would get canceled. And then it just kept not getting canceled. And now, you know, Alec would win a prize

and be like, here we go. We're back. We're staying. We would win an Emmy or something, be like, all right, they want to cancel us so bad and they can't. So my kids are six and a half years apart. That's amazing. You needed the time. You needed the time.

Even during COVID, my kids watched 30 Rock start to finish. Do you feel the endurance of that show? You still hear about it when you go out, people quoting it to you? I like it when people put things online. They're like, did 30 Rock predict this? because weirdly, there's a weird number of, because we had so many jokes. There was a weird number of jokes that seemed timely years later. But nobody in my house watches it.

We don't watch it. What? Really? You don't watch it. Wait, your girls haven't seen 30 bucks? Not really, because this is what I tell people. Imagine if your mom, think about your actual mom, made a show about things that she thought was funny. Would you watch that, Willie?

I'd watch some of it. You would not. You'd be like, good job, mom, great. I have homework. So Amy says the same thing, though. She's like, no, my boys don't want to watch parks. But my kids have seen park all of parks nine times. So it's about you, not the show.

It's absolutely personal. And so I believe as long as their comedy education is good, they know the office. They know parks. Yes. They know S&L that I'm not in. They, you know, it's all good. So they're not watching like you as Sarah Palin and be like, that's awesome. No, no, they've never seen that.

But they don't know who that lady is, so they wouldn't get it. But they do, that aside, they have good. comedy instincts, which is all you can ask for. Their comedy schooling is like some people, the way they would treat like the violin or whatever. I was like, we're going to watch things that are funny. That's a good education for life. Okay, so Mean Girls comes out in a couple days.

You're still on tour. What else is coming from Tina Fey? People always want to know. My friends, Tracy Wiegfield and Langfisher and I are going to adapt. There was a movie in the 70s called the, or 1980, called The Four Seasons. Alan Alda and Carl Burnett. It's one of my favorite movies. And we are going to adapt that.

as a series for Netflix. That just got announced yesterday. And we're getting started on that. So I'm very, very excited about that. Mean Girls, the stage program is going to London in the spring. Nice. So come see us in London. And that's mostly it for now.

You got like a beauty line, anything else you want to plug? Amy keeps telling me. She's like, why do you not have a line of glasses? Why do you not sell glasses? I go, it's too late. I can't. I can't sell glasses. You know what?

She's kind of right about that. That's a layup. money sell glasses. Can you pull it right again? This is why the partnership works. Thank you, Tina. So much fun to talk to you. You too.

Appreciate it. My big thanks again to Tina for a great conversation. You can see the new Mean Girls movie in theaters now. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today. every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist.

We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sitdown podcast.