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Keeping It Real with Tina Fey

Interviewing Tina Fey is sort of like interviewing Liz Lemon, which is sort of like interviewing ourselves. We watch her (Tina or Liz, take your pick) every Thursday on 30 Rock, because in the shiny, pretty world of network television, she's the lone real person — the black pants, oxford shirt, and comfortable-shoes-wearing everywoman. Like us, she's a 30-something workaholic too busy to manage a relationship, never mind tiptoe from club to lounge in high-altitude Louboutins. Like us, she's funny on purpose and only fabulous by accident. We asked her about it all, even though we already know.

MC: Most sitcoms feature blue-collar housewives in Christian Dior. How do you get away with such an average wardrobe?
TF: Not only is my wardrobe totally average, my body's totally average. I love all the candy-fantasy fulfillment of Sex and the City, but this ain't that. It's a workplace, people.

MC: How much of Liz Lemon is you, and how much is Mary Tyler Moore?
TF: Almost all of it is me, except I don't live the single life and never really did. But I hope we're like Mary Tyler Moore. It's one of the best shows ever. It's about your coworkers being your family, so in that way, we're very similar.

MC: And will Liz ever have a real family?
TF: I wonder. We don't really have it mapped out. But she'd better get going....

MC: Why the episode about Cleveland?
TF: The Cleve! My husband is from outside Cleveland, and he's the composer on the show, so we came up with that. The Cleveland song — I can't believe they didn't give us the key to the city for that.

MC: Will you find a way to work Alec Baldwin's infamous phone message to his daughter into the plot this season?
TF: I want nothing to do with that one ... he can save it for SNL.
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sarah wexler

Sarah

I'm an Assistant Editor for Marie Claire, have an MFA in writing, and live in New York City's smallest apartment with New York City's largest dog.

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Eileen

Eileen Conlan is an assistant editor at Marie Claire. She lives in New York City, and loves cooking, reading and reviewing new books, and shopping the city for the perfect deal. She also has an affinity for traveling, and anything vintage, making the Hell's Kitchen flea market her favorite weekend haunt.

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jihan thompson

Jihan

I'm an editorial assistant in the features department, I'm addicted to the New York Times crossword puzzles (Monday only!), figuring out how to save a little money in the country's most expensive city and bad reality television.

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Abigail

Abigail Pesta is a journalist who has lived and worked around the world, from London to Hong Kong. A highlight from her travels: bar-hopping in Shanghai with a minor-league Mafioso in his hearse-like limo. A lowlight: getting attacked in Cambodia by swarms of flying cockroaches, each one the size of your thumb. She writes short-short stories for her website, Fine Words Butter No Parsnips (butternoparsnips.com)

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Lauren

Lauren is the articles editor at Marie Claire. She loves to obsess over politics, play soccer, and watch movies, not necessarily in that order. She can't imagine any human interaction that wouldn't be improved with a line from The Simpsons or Rushmore. She saved Latin - what did you ever do?

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jessica henderson

Jessica

As Associate editor of the Radar section, I obsess daily over movies, television, celebrities and music. A southern girl at heart and Brooklyn by address, my skill set also extends into witty asides, vintage shopping, planning themed parties, brunching, entertaining, applying eyeliner, dancing, concocting bourbon mint iced tea, gift giving, movie quoting, coffee drinking and Elvis spotting. I love conversations that begin with "remember the time...", am still paying off my student loans (and then some), and have fallen madly in love - with my DVR.

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Yael

Yael Kohen is an associate editor. She loves to argue, deliberate and overanalyze everything from politics to relationships (to the politics of relationships) to books, movies and television.

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