It has been 30 years and 45 Emmy Award nominations (including nine Emmy wins) since Tina Fey walked the Lawn as a graduate of the University of Virginia class of 1992. 

But on Sunday, April 23rd, she was back for her second stint as the President’s Speaker for the Arts, headlining a series she inaugurated in 2013 at the Amphitheatre. This year, the venue was a little bigger, as she climbed into a red lounge chair across from President Jim Ryan on the stage of the John Paul Jones Arena to share some UVA memories, reflections on her extraordinary career, the ongoing battle for gender equality in comedy today and more, in addition to taking questions submitted by students.  

For several decades, Tina Fey has been one of the entertainment industry’s most unstoppable creative forces. In addition to her nine years on Saturday Night Live, where she was the show’s first female head writer, and her award-winning run as writer, star, and co-producer of 30 Rock, Fey has served as co-creator and executive producer on hit shows, including Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Great News, Mr. Mayor, and Girls5eva. Additional film credits include Mean Girls, Baby Mama, Date Night, Sisters, and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, to name a few, as well as recently starring as a featured voice in Disney/Pixar’s Oscar-winning animated film Soul. 

In addition, Fey had memorable roles in Prime Video’s Modern Love and most recently was featured in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building with Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez. In 2011, Fey published her first book, Bossypants, which topped the New York Times best-seller list. The book also received a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Album. Currently, Fey is developing the big-screen musical adaptation of her cult classic film and Tony-nominated Broadway musical version of Mean Girls: The Musical. Fey has several projects in development under her production banner, Little Stranger. 

In remembering her days in the Drama Building, Fey offered plenty of shoutouts to UVA Drama mentors, including longtime Virginia Theatre Festival (formally Heritage Theatre Festival) Director and former Drama Department Chair Bob Chapel, as well as her UVA Drama Department mentors Colleen Kelly, Doug Grissom, Betsy Tucker, and Richard Warner.

Fey recalled her own time on stage at UVA, including expressing some relief that her star turn as Sally Bowles in the Drama Department’s production of Cabaret came before the social media age. “Bob Chapel gets mad when I describe this show as an abject failure, but basically, I don’t sing, and I don’t dance. I do speak English, however, and it was kind of like, ‘OK, you have brown hair. You should probably be Sally!’ Once a month, I remember it, and thank God there were no cell phones in those days. That show launched my humility.” 

Her nine years on Saturday Night Live only sharpened her humility. It was a place, Fey said, “where you just fail all the time. Week to week, you are a champion or an absolute failure.” The hour-plus interview, aided by an easy banter with President Ryan, was full of the trademark self-deprecating humor that audiences grew to know and love during her triumphant seven-year-run as Liz Lemon on 30 Rock, remains the record-holder or most Emmy nominations in one season of a comedy series. 

Women in the business of being funny face serious obstacles, she told Ryan. Fey is particularly proud of her close friends' work and accomplishments, including her colleagues and friends Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and Maya Rudolph. She recently began touring with Poehler for a comedy show that she called their “retirement plan,” a show light on preparation and heavy on reliance on their 30-year friendship and the comedy shorthand that has made them the dynamic duo they are.  

Things are getting better for women, she said, though the business remains male-dominated. “I do think things are less binary than they used to be. People can make their own content, and, for once, there are fewer barriers to saying what you want to say. You don’t necessarily have to be hired by a bunch of men just to get on screen and make content.”

After all her experience, one student asked by video, what advice would she give to a student about going into the creative side of the entertainment business. “I would encourage anyone who wants this life to chase it absolutely,” Fey said. “And I would encourage you to have a full and well-rounded education because anything you know about anything will inform you as a writer or as an actor as opposed to being part of a really intensive writing or acting program.” Her final advice: “Try to find a way that you are expressing your authentic self in whatever way you can as opposed to trying to fit into an imaginary mold, because you can tell the difference, and there is always an opportunity for someone who is truly expressing themselves.”