TORONTO — After an eight-year, Emmy-winning run as creator, writer and star of TV’s “30 Rock,” joining the ensemble cast in Friday’s “This Is Where I Leave You” is a welcome stretch for Tina Fey.
She plays Wendy, daughter of Hillary (Jane Fonda) and sister of Judd, Phillip and Paul (Jason Bateman, Adam Driver and Corey Stoll), who’ve all reunited for a weeklong memorial to their recently deceased father.
“I play a lot of characters who are defined by their work — or they work too much. This is a lady who doesn’t work,” said Fey, “That alone was interesting to me. I had a lot of fun talking to the costume designer, ‘Nothing she owns should have buttons or closures, or anything you could ever wear to work.’ ”
Of course, this family gathering airs out everyone’s eccentricities and neuroses, as tempers fly and old issues resurface.
“I like human stories,” Fey, 44, said at the Shangri-La Hotel. “About human people that never turn into cars no matter what happens. I love the premise here, of this ensemble of people being stuck together.”
And her character’s story “was one that I hadn’t seen before, particularly.”
Wendy’s great love, Horry (Timothy Olyphant of “Justified”), was brain damaged in his 20s and still lives across the street from where Wendy grew up.
“She lost the love of her life, without really losing him, early on. She tried to stick with Horry and at a certain point it just became impossible. She had to go off and make a more pragmatic life choice, to marry the successful guy.
“From the outside, her life seems perfect yet she’s the person who’s not really happy with the choices in her life. This was an interesting thing to try and play, a character I could work with in ways that I could identify with her, because thankfully I don’t have those direct experiences in my own life.”
As for a “30 Rock” reunion TV movie anytime soon, Fey smiled.
“I’m happy that it’s on in reruns at night and I’m genuinely very, very proud of the work we did. But I don’t miss it.”
(“This Is Where I Leave You” opens Friday.)
