Celebrity
Tina Fey & Amy Poehler Have Maintained A Sweet BFF Tradition
SNL is part of their friendship in a new way.
Though both Tina Fey and Amy Poehler left Saturday Night Live behind in the 2000s, it turns out it’s still a regular fixture in their lives and their friendship. The two comedians haven’t stopped watching the late-night sketch comedy, and they’ve even found a new way to work episodes into their routine. Sunday Today host Will Geist asked Fey about their ongoing Restless Leg Tour during the Jan. 14 episode, and she revealed that watching SNL is one of their joint habits.
Their SNL Tradition
Fey and Poehler have been traveling around the United States and Canada with their tour since last spring, and their schedule lets them be home during the week and on the road on weekends. After joking with Geist about them being “like rock stars,” Fey admitted that each trip is actually “such a paid moms’ weekend.” She and Poehler go vintage shopping, eat nice lunches, and often, they get to watch the show they used to work on together.
“If it’s a Saturday, we go to our room and we watch SNL from the hotel room,” Fey said. Calling it “a dream,” she added, “We love watching it together. If we’re not together, we’ll, like, live-text during it.”
Leaving SNL Behind
Fey was on SNL from 1997 to 2006 and Poehler from 2001 to 2008, not counting their many appearances since exiting. It was a huge part of their lives, and apparently it’s one that has been hard to say goodbye to. “It’s like someone who played sports, right?” Fey said of still watching it. They both like to tune in and they “root for everybody” who is on the show now.
As SNL vets, they don’t watch the show quite like the rest of us do, it sounds like. Fey admitted that her kids don’t enjoy watching it with her because she is always talking about what the current team is doing and analyzing the sketches. In that regard, it’s got to be nice to have a close friend who gets it.
A Three-Decade-Long Friendship
Fey and Poehler didn’t meet on SNL. They’d already become friends in Chicago, doing improv in the early 1990s. Throughout the years, they’ve been co-workers, co-hosts, “work wives,” and even sisters. “Neither Tina or I have sisters in real life,” Poehler told Entertainment Weekly in October 2015. “We are each other’s chosen sister.”
