Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
Baby Mama's stars on the absurdities of city parenting.
by Gwynne Watkins
April 22, 2008
Obviously, Hollywood has this trend of picking the strangest names for their children, but Tina, you picked a very traditional name for your daughter.
Tina: I like interesting names. My daughter's middle name is sort of unusual, but they're all family names. I do think when you have a kid, you've got to try and think, okay, when this kid is an adult, how is this name going to fit the person? I like the name Apple.
Amy: I'm just gonna name my kids numbers. New Dude, Little dude, Old Dude . . . and Eight.
Tina: And George Foreman.
Could you talk about working with Sigourney Weaver? And Amy, do you have any interest in becoming a mother yourself?
Amy: To Sigourney Weaver, yes. I would love to cradle Sigourney Weaver at night and tuck her in, and whisper to her quietly and sing to her. I would love to sing to Sigourney Weaver every night. And give her a bath.
Tina: She was incredibly delightful. We were so shocked and pleased that she agreed to be in the movie. Onscreen she plays a lot of strong cold characters, but she is very warm.
Amy, in the scene where you're in labor and being wheeled into the hospital, was there a lot of improvisation going on?
"I would love to sing to Sigourney Weaver every night. And give her a bath." — Amy Poehler
Amy: There's always a lot of birth scenes in movies that never really talk about how foul people's mouths get during it.
That was all one long shot, so as Tina was pushing me down the hall, there were real extras who were genuinely startled by me yelling stuff. So that was fun.
Tina: The take that's in the movie was the last take of the night. We had done several and Amy asked Michael, "Is this the last take?" and he said, "Uh-huh." So she pulled the Christmas tree down, ripped an IV out of someone's arm. She wanted to make sure she was enough of an obedient good girl that she didn't want to wreck the props until the last take, and then she tore the place up.
With Knocked Up and Juno and now this, there have been a lot of pregnancy movies lately. Why do you think that is?
Tina: It's a universal experience. There may be a generation of comedy writers that are hitting that age where they all have kids, and they're guys who would have written dating fantasy comedies fifteen years ago. It might be a generational thing.
Amy: And I think Juno is very different from Knocked Up, and I think our film is very different from that too. Our film is more in the vein of Knocked Up — it's a straight-up comedy. With jokes.
©2008 Gwynne Watkins and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Gwynne Watkins was Babble's founding Senior Editor. She has written for a variety of web and print publications, and her theatrical work has been produced throughout the New York area. Her new family musical, Tea with Chachaji, will premiere in early 2010. |
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