THR Cover: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Spill Golden Globes Secrets
The "Saturday Night Live" BFFs reveal who gave them advice, how they'll deal with the ghost of Ricky Gervais and when Fey's daughter will be Miss Golden Globe.
This story first appeared in the Jan. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
At last year’s Golden Globe Awards, Tina Fey sat nervously in the audience at the Beverly Hilton as host Ricky Gervais fired barbs at the crowd. “I remember thinking of like five comebacks in my head in case he said something about me,” recalls Fey. Now Fey, 42, and her buddy of two decades, Amy Poehler, 41, can say whatever they like Jan. 13 as co-hosts of the 70th annual Globes.
The former Saturday Night Live colleagues represent a coup for the NBC telecast, which last year lured about 17 million viewers, behind only the Academy Awards and Grammys. Fey in particular has been courted to host the Oscars in the past, and both appeal heavily to the female demographic that powers awards-show ratings (a trait somewhat lacking in this year’s Oscars host, Seth MacFarlane). Both nominated for Globes as best actress in a comedy series, the duo got on the phone together Dec. 21 —Fey from New York on the morning after the series wrap party for her NBC comedy 30 Rock and Poehler in Los Angeles as she raced to the set of her own NBC comedy, Parks and Recreation— to offer some Globes drinking-game rules and reveal their laid-back approach to the show. Says Poehler, “I feel like there are enough pills in the room that nobody really pays attention.”
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The Hollywood Reporter: You both must get asked a lot to host awards shows. Why say yes to the Globes this year?
Tina Fey: Well, Amy, you’ve been asked to perform at the Super Bowl a bunch of times.
Amy Poehler: That’s right. But I told them my show is too big for that venue. And I was actually one of the people carrying stuff at the Olympics Opening Ceremony, but nobody noticed. [Laughs.] No, we’ve fortunately been to a few of these awards show things now, and we’ve had some fun while we were there. And then the Golden Globes is just quirky and weird enough, I think that it’s up our alley.
THR: And it’s an awards show known mostly for its drinking.
Fey: When you get a bunch of people in a room who don’t eat much, and you give them one drink, it gets good fast.
THR: Ricky Gervais has set a weird standard for hosting the Globes in the past three years. How will your approach be different?
Fey: I don’t think anybody has to be afraid.
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THR: So no Scientology jokes?
Fey: Well, I can’t promise you that.
Poehler: Ricky did a great job, and I feel like, how it is different will be an answer for somebody else, not us.
Fey: Because we haven’t planned anything yet. [Laughs.]
THR: Who are some awards-show hosts who have done a great job?
Poehler: Well, we were both talking about Jimmy Fallon the other day because he crushed it at the Emmys. And I was trying to think of great old awards-show hosts.
Fey: Bob Hope.
Poehler: Yeah. Did Johnny Carson ever host any awards shows?
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THR: He did the Oscars five times in the 1970s and 1980s.
Poehler: I was watching Bette Midler sing to Johnny Carson on his last [Tonight Show], and I thought: Maybe we should just sing to each other, Tina, like a really sad goodbye to each other?
Fey: At the beginning of the show. [Laughs.]
THR: And then just drop the mic and walk off?
Fey: But at the beginning. And just a long, slow, indulgent song where we do a lot of inside jokes.
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