Tina Fey Was Forced to Tell Sylvester Stallone to 'Enunciate More' in Her Very First Week atSNL:'Trial by Fire'

Mar. 15, 2025

Tina Fey on ‘SNL’ in 2000 (left) and 2017 (right).Photo:Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty; Will Heath/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty; Will Heath/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Tina Feyremembers a rough start to her time atSaturday Night Live.

“Even though everyone atSNLis working together to make one thing, no though. It is built on competition. It is built for like, ‘See you at the table,' " she says.

“I have to say as head writer, I came in from Chicago and I was ready to fight whoever but the rewrite tables were tough. They were grouchy,” she recalls of her time behind-the-scenes starting in 1997.

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Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon on ‘Weekend Update’ on ‘SNL’ in 2001.Mary Ellen Matthews/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Mary Ellen Matthews/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Fey adds, “I don’t know if its the same anymore and if it’s not, maybe it should get that way again a little bit.”

Laughing, she admits, “I think it’s good.”

That wasn’t the only challenge about being a newbie atSNLfor Fey, however. Her early days presented her with another tough task: giving a note of correction toSylvester Stallone.

Sylvester Stallone in 1976’s ‘Rocky’.United Artists / Getty Images

“I think possibly my first week as a writer, Sylvester Stallone [hosted] and a note came back that was, ‘Tell him he needs to enunciate more. We can’t understand him.’ And then the writer that I was working with, he was more experienced, and he’s like ‘Okay, you go do it.' "

source: people.com