Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Talk Friendship

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler both sat down for an interview with Glamour magazine, where asked each other the questions. Here is an excerpt:

Tina Fey: [Singing, as she rifles through hat.] Dah dah dee, dah dah dum, trying to find a juicy one! [Pulls out a question.] What do you consider the biggest breakthrough moment in your career?

Amy Poehler: Probably saying my name on SNL. I remember when we did “Update,” Lorne [Michaels, the creator of SNL] saying, “Once you say your name, it’s going to change.” That and winning the Eurovision Song Contest—

Tina Fey: You won that two years in a row. [Pulls out a question.] OK, Glamour’s Instagram follower @formerly_flores asks, “What is the life accomplishment you are most proud of and why?”

Amy Poehler: Why don’t I tell you what I think is one of your accomplishments and you tell mine? I feel weird talking about my own. I think one of your greatest accomplishments was transitioning from the captain you were at SNL to creating a show [30 Rock]. That is so hard—extricating yourself from a place you were so comfortable and successful, then doing something else so well. That, and the fact that you invented the word flerm.

Tina Fey: [Laughs.] It’s hard [to graduate from SNL]. You have so much autonomy at SNL. So for people who come out of there…it’s only natural that you would want to take the plunge [to create a show]…to try to keep making something that you have a say in. 

Amy Poehler: You can frame [a transition like that] two different ways. You can think, Oh my God, what’s next? with a fearful sense of what’s around the corner. Or, Oh my God, what’s next? Isn’t that exciting? I didn’t have any kind of map as to what my life was going to be. So the idea that here we are in our forties—I wouldn’t even be able to predict what’s ahead. So maybe [the key to new challenges is] a bit of improv training, denial, enthusiasm—and having a nice place to land, where you feel supported if it all goes to sh-t, which feels like it’s about a year away. [Laughs.]

Tina Fey: I would say that one of your greatest accomplishments, Amy Poehler, is that you have so successfully used your art and comedy as a source of positivity in the world, by creating Smart Girls [an online community for girls, encouraging them to be their authentic selves], by making [Leslie in] Parks and Rec not only a positive feminist character but creating a good-hearted worldview within that program.

Amy Poehler: Thank you. Please note that as we talk to each other, we’re holding hands and we’re touching feet. We’re very close.

Read the full interview at Glamour.