Tina Fey

A lot of times we talk about the politics of it, the unfairness of it, which is all true, but I think it’s clearer to people when you go, ‘Hey, that hurts my feelings.’

I have a suspicion that the definition of “crazy” in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to f*** [sleep with her] anymore.

When humor works, it works because it’s clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real. You don’t just decide to destroy a person by making up stuff, and no one at SNL is writing to go after someone.

I remember failing my Princeton interview. My mom wanted me to apply because ever since I was a kid she had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, but it was just not happening.

I like to delude myself that I’m in the old-Hollywood mode. I just tailor my clothes well and try to keep my skin clear. While it would be great to work out an hour a day, there is something inherently sort of selfish about it. I can’t do it.

If you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the Internet, and you can find a lot of people there who don’t like you.

I always choose roles that are, you know, hopefully different from the last role. I don’t wanna do the same thing over and over again because that’s, well, first of all that’s no fun.

You do not send me to Brooklyn to get a cheesecake and then I come back and you’re gone.

I’ve been very lucky so far. I haven’t had any bad experiences as far as fan encounters. They don’t really recognize me. I think it has to do with my hair. I change it all the time. I like changing my hair color and sometimes it’s just not for a role. Usually, I just do it for me.

I don’t really see the point in washing your hair. If you don’t care if your hair’s clean or not then why would you wash it?

I really had to think and learn about musical intervals.

I’m keeping the pixie. I hope I inspire people… it’s really cool to have short hair.

I’ve got to the point now where I can poke some fun at my old image and really enjoy letting go when a juicy role comes along.

[on “The Cell”] I didn’t really want to do it, from reading the script. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It was (Cell director) Tarsem (Singh) and his visuals that made me want to do it. It’s almost like you walk through a museum exhibit of an artist in a dark period of his life.

I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don’t. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.

I think that passion and love and pain are all bearable, and they go to make love beautiful.

Then I got a call the next day from the assistant director saying that they were putting me on a personal training programme. I thought that would be pretty cool, because it would make me take it seriously. It was run by one of the stunt team, who are the most absurdly fit guys inthe world. I can’t even do 10 press ups. I did about three weeks of that, and in the end I think he got so bored of trying to force me to do it that he wrote it all down so that I could do it at home.

I was singing a lot of waltzes. And I was with Jerry Kennedy, my producer, and he was playing me some songs, and he said, hey, I want to play you this song that I’m going to get Jackie Ward to record.

[On his belief in soul mates] I hope there is such a thing. I guess it would be quite scary to find a soul mate when you’re young because you’re probably going to mess it up.

I grew up watching fantastic mainstream comedies like ‘Porridge’ and ‘Rising Damp’. There are some mainstream things I love.

[on Edward Cullen in ‘Twilight’] He’s a poet, and very deep and profound. He’s just extraordinarily troubled.