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Tina Fey's Movie and TV Roles, from 30 Rock to A Haunting in Venice
Fey recently starred in an Agatha Christie adaptation and popped up on Only Murders in the Building, but many of Fey's best-known roles were written by nine-time Emmy winner herself.
Elizabeth Stamatina Fey—or, as most of us know her, Tina Fey—is an acclaimed writer who's earned Grammy, Tony, and Emmy nominations, winning nine of the latter. In 2023, the Bossypants author took her comedy material to the stage, embarking on The Restless Leg Tour alongside friend and longtime collaborator Amy Poehler.
It was Fey’s talent for writing that first propelled her to fame: She was head writer on Saturday Night Live prior to co-hosting “Weekend Update” as a cast member for six years. Fey also brought the script for the 2004 hit movie-turned-musical Mean Girls into the world while she was still on the sketch show, taking on the role of Ms. Norbury.
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In the nearly 20 years since, Fey’s continued to be as much a performer as she is a writer, with 50 (and counting) acting credits under her belt. That number includes her numerous returns to SNL, such as her famous appearances playing vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and six turns as Host, as well as the starring role of Liz Lemon in her SNL-based series, 30 Rock.
And lest Fey be pigeonholed as a mere brilliant comedic actress, her body of work includes several dramas—and, in 2023, a period murder mystery. Fey portrays a novelist named Ariadne Oliver in A Haunting in Venice, Kenneth Branagh’s latest adaptation of an Agatha Christie story.
Let's take a look at Tina Fey's many movie and TV roles.
Mean Girls and early post-SNL
Fey's very first screen appearance was on a 1999 episode of Upright Citizens Brigade, a comedy sketch TV series co-created by and starring Amy Poehler (the two women met while doing improv in Chicago in the early 1990s).
Quite busy on SNL at the time, Fey's Mean Girls role as Cady Heron's mentor Ms. Norbury was her only non-bit-part screen appearance outside the show until she departed to make 30 Rock in 2006.
How many movies are Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in together?
Six.
The two appeared in 2002's Martin & Orloff, which starred Poehler's Upright Citizens Brigade co-founders. After Mean Girls, Fey and Poehler appeared as themselves hosting "Weekend Update" in the 2006 Robin Williams movie Man of the Year. Next, in 2008, the friends shared top billing in Baby Mama, where Poehler played the titular foil as a surrogate mother hired by Fey's character (SNL friends Fred Armisen, Will Forte, and 16-time-Host Steve Martin were fellow cast members).
Fey and Poehler's fifth film was 2015's Sisters, another movie rich with SNL-connections: Written by Paula Pell, who wrote on the show from 1995-2020, it also featured Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Bobby Moynihan, and Kate McKinnon.
The Netflix film Wine Country was Fey and Poehler's most recent film together, co-written and directed by Poehler. Fey plays Tammy, the quirky owner of a house rented by friends (Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Paula Pell, and Emily Spivey).
30 Rock and other TV roles
Tina Fey brought her years of Saturday Night Live experience to making 30 Rock, and starred as head late-night comedy show writer Liz Lemon for seven seasons from 2006-2013. The NBC series co-starred SNL alum Tracy Morgan (playing a exaggerated sort-of version of himself, Tracy Jordan), and 17-time SNL Host Alec Baldwin as Lemon's boss and mentor, Jack Donaghy.
Fey appeared multiple times on the Netflix comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, co-created by Fey and starring The Office's Ellie Kemper, playing both real-life lawyer Marcia Clark and Kimmy's unhinged therapist Andrea Bayden. She's also guest-starred on Modern Love, Great News, Girls5Eva, Mapleworth Murders, and Only Murders in the Building, recurring as a true crime podcast antagonist named Cinda Canning.
Tina Fey's animated TV and movie voices
Fey has racked up an astounding number of voice credits since 2007, when she voiced a burrito in Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. She provided the English dub for the character Lisa in Hayao Miyazaki's 2008 animated film Ponyo, and voiced a character version of Tina Fey in a SpongeBob SquarePants special the following year (Fey has also played herself in episodes of Difficult People, Maya & Marty, Inside Amy Schumer, and iCarly).
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Fey has lent her pipes to episodes of The Simpsons, Phineas and Ferb, The Awesomes, Bob's Burgers. In the Netflix cartoon Mulligan, Fey voices Dr. Farrah Braun, one of the humans tasked with rebuilding society after an alien invasion. She played Roxanne Ritchi in the Will Ferrell movie Megamind, a sarcastic soul named 22 in 2020's Soul, and you might've detected Fey's voice in Ryan Reynolds live-action movie Free Guy, where she can be heard as a gamer character's mom.
A Haunting in Venice and other film roles
Fey's headlined two films in 2023: A Haunting in Venice and Maggie Moore(s), a dark comedy co-starring Jon Hamm (who played a love interest of Liz Lemon's on 30 Rock). Her previous films include the rom-coms Date Night (2010) with Steve Carrell, and Admission (2013) with Paul Rudd.
Fey's more dramatic roles include starring in 2016's Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, based on the memoir of real-life war reporter Kim Barker, and Wendy Altman in the 2014 ensemble dramedy This Is Where I Leave You. In 2014, Fey had the much less dramatic chance to play Russian prison guard Nadya in Muppets Most Wanted, which she called "a bucket-list sort of item."
“I met Lorne Michaels. I met John McEnroe. And now I have met the Muppets," she told Entertainment Weekly at the time. "There is no one left from my childhood [to meet] except for maybe Dr. J.”
Where can I watch 30 Rock?
Stream 30 Rock anytime on Peacock, NBC's streaming service.
