Keeping It Real with Tina Fey

Interviewing Tina Fey is sort of like interviewing Liz Lemon, which is sort of like interviewing ourselves. We watch her (Tina or Liz, take your pick) every Thursday on 30 Rock, because in the shiny, pretty world of network television, she's the lone real person — the black pants, oxford shirt, and comfortable-shoes-wearing everywoman. Like us, she's a 30-something workaholic too busy to manage a relationship, never mind tiptoe from club to lounge in high-altitude Louboutins. Like us, she's funny on purpose and only fabulous by accident. We asked her about it all, even though we already know.

MC: Most sitcoms feature blue-collar housewives in Christian Dior. How do you get away with such an average wardrobe?

TF: Not only is my wardrobe totally average, my body's totally average. I love all the candy-fantasy fulfillment of Sex and the City, but this ain't that. It's a workplace, people.

MC: How much of Liz Lemon is you, and how much is Mary Tyler Moore?

TF: Almost all of it is me, except I don't live the single life and never really did. But I hope we're like Mary Tyler Moore. It's one of the best shows ever. It's about your coworkers being your family, so in that way, we're very similar.

MC: And will Liz ever have a real family?

TF: I wonder. We don't really have it mapped out. But she'd better get going....

MC: Why the episode about Cleveland?

TF: The Cleve! My husband is from outside Cleveland, and he's the composer on the show, so we came up with that. The Cleveland song — I can't believe they didn't give us the key to the city for that.

MC: Will you find a way to work Alec Baldwin's infamous phone message to his daughter into the plot this season?

TF: I want nothing to do with that one ... he can save it for SNL.