Q. and A. With Tina Fey

What’s the opposite of blerg? Whatever it is, Tina Fey has been enjoying it recently.

Tina Fey's new book, Chad Batka for The New York Times Tina Fey’s new book, “Bossypants,” is expected to be at the top of the nonfiction best-seller list later this month. Her secret to success: “No pigtails, no tube tops. Cry sparingly.”

Ms. Fey, the creator, writer and star of “30 Rock,” released her much-anticipated memoir, “Bossypants,” to mostly rapturous reviews. She went on Oprah – or Miss Oprah, as she calls her in the book – and announced that she was pregnant with her second child. And as a member of a recent panel of former “Saturday Night Live” stars, Ms. Fey also talked about being that show’s first female head writer.)

For a profile in Arts & Leisure, Ms. Fey discussed the unexpected challenges of writing her book, being a working mother (“juggling” is perhaps her least-favorite term)  and what she learned from playing Sarah Palin. But all Ms. Fey’s Liz Lemonisms cannot be contained in one place. Here are some additional excerpts from my interview with Ms. Fey in which she addresses being a boss, why there aren’t more funny movies built around women and how working at “30 Rock” is like working in a 19th-century industry.

Q.

Let me start by saying that I don’t think being bossy is a bad thing. Little girls are often called bossy. Were you bossy growing up?

A.

I was a little bit bossy but I don’t think I had that many people that I could boss. Mostly I was just, like, very rule-abiding. I’m still the kind of person, if I see someone cutting in line, it’s like, excuse me, what are you doing? I’ll get in fight in, like, the Easy Spirit on the Upper West Side, on someone’s behalf.

Q.

So how do you go from being so rule-abiding to being a leader?

A.

Well, trying to be a leader in a sort of very atypical workplace like “Saturday Night Live” forces you to realize that no one wants you to be their leader. If you can help them get their thing on TV or whatever, they want that. But no adult is looking for a role model.

Q.

But you’re definitely the boss here.

A.

It’s technically true. I think, like I say in the book, I learned, if you are ever in a position where you are asserting yourself as the boss, you’re dead. It’s like, if you’re ever in a restaurant saying, “do you know who I am?” No. The answer is no. “I’m the mom!” Like, no. You’re already dead in the water.

Q.

So you don’t have a management philosophy?

A.

It’s just about assembling people who are talented and then hopefully inspiring them to have a work ethic similar to yours. I do like to start on time, I like to set the bar high for people. Robert Carlock [an executive producer] is actually a big defining force in the way it works here. He’s incredibly civilized and genteel so it’s a very genteel workplace. There’s a lot of cursing and stuff, but just in terms of the way people deal with each other, nobody is lying, nobody is talking about people behind their back.

Q.

That doesn’t sound like TV at all.

A.

It’s not TV at all.  It’s 1890s shipping.

Q.

How much of the relationship between Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy is based on you and Lorne Michaels?

A.

Only a little. The thing that we talk about sometimes in the room is that Lorne does have this thing with all of us of just, [in pinched Lorne Michaels voice] “you should get a big apartment.” “You know what you’d like? St. Barts. You would like it.” I’m like, I know I would like it. He wants everyone to have a great life. He’s like, “yeah, have another kid!” That like, pulling you up out of your grimy little writer world. Like: “You could buy a nice jacket! You don’t have to wear that jacket.” So that kind of aspect of Jack Donaghy trying to enlighten Liz about the world. If you were to ask Alec [Baldwin] he would find other things. But also the character of Jack Donaghy is so much more of a corporate guy.

Q.

In comedy circles there was a lot of talk this week about Tad Friend’s profile of Anna Faris in The New Yorker, where he talks about the difficulties of funny women in movies. Why can we have so many funny women on TV and not in movies?

A.

I have actually been very lucky. I’m sort of mouthy about it in the book, about the state of movies for women in general. But I’ve been lucky. I got to make a movie with Amy [Poehler], and I got to make a movie with [Steve] Carell, and it was a delight both times.  And the only movie that I wrote ever, so far, was “Mean Girls,” and I had such kind of a charmed experience, because I went into it with Lorne as a producer, and Lorne is very protective of writers and he had such a long history with Paramount. That script was never taken away from me, it was never given to other writers to rewrite. And I didn’t know what I was doing, I had to learn on the job and because I had Lorne producing for me, I was given that chance, and I was given access that first-time writers are never afforded. I was allowed in on casting sessions, and I was allowed to give notes on cuts of the movie. I’ve had a really pretty charmed experience in the movie business so far. I think if I were only in the movie business, I think it’s really hard.

Q.

Why is that?

A.

I feel like it’s harder to get women to show up for movies. They can get it together: “Sex and the City,” once a year, all their ladies, they can get together, but just as a mom, you don’t get that out much. And I feel like, just anecdotally, a lot of times when you get out, it’s that point of purchase moment at the theater, if you’re with your boyfriend or your husband, and they go, “Well I want to see ‘Transformers’,” and you go, “O.K.”

In TV, certainly daytime and “Grey’s Anatomy,” all the big shows are watched by women, and at the theater, men dominate that point of purchase sale, for whatever reason. And I think if that changed, the producers, they just want to make money, they don’t care.

Q.

So how do you think we’re going to change that?

A.

Ladies gotta say no to their husbands at the movies. They gotta say: “No, we are watching back-to-back cancer movies. And then this movie about a cat.”

Q.

Do you go to the movies?

A.

I don’t! I never get to go to movies, because I’m a mom. I’m part of the problem.

Q.

There’s a really funny part of the book where you talk about that, about getting alone time, like, “make sure you’re the only person who gets to go to the post office.”

A.

My daughter is much bigger now and it’s easy, but it’s still like: “Oh, we need milk? I’ll get it! I’ll get the milk!” You get to hear one song on your iPod, and you come back like: “I was outside! By myself!”