Sometimes creativity can be derailed by very real events. In her piece, Fey writes about an anthrax scare at 30 Rockefeller Plaza—where the “S.N.L.” offices are located—which occurred shortly after September 11th:
I was reading a thick packet of paper clippings, looking for something fun to say about Afghanistan, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, the anthrax postal attacks: it was grim. Then Lester Holt came on MSNBC on the TV hanging in the corner and said, “Breaking news. Anthrax has been found at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. C.D.C. officials are investigating the potentially deadly substance, which was found in a suspicious package addressed to NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw.”… “Nope,” I thought. “I give up.” I put on my coat, walked downstairs past my friends and co-workers without saying anything. I walked right past the host for that week, sweet Drew Barrymore, without telling her what I had heard. I just went to the elevator and left. Then I walked home and waited to die. Several hours later, Lorne called and said gently, “We’re all here. You and Drew are the only ones who left. And Drew came back a few hours ago, so … we’re ordering dinner, if you want to come back in.” It was the kindest way of saying, “You’re embarrassing yourself.”In her Profile, Heffernan explores how the “S.N.L.” staff reacted to Fey’s rare display of vulnerability, and how she was later able to turn this traumatic episode into comedy.
Others at “S.N.L.” didn’t know how to respond. “I do have to say that it changed the way we thought about her,” Shoemaker said. “That was the first sign of fragility.” Fey told me that she has been systematically imagining—and rehearsing—a knockdown fight with terrorists. She entered a course of psychodrama, a form of therapy that uses acting techniques to banish sadness, anger, and fear. In sessions, she said, she faces down imaginary terrorists, sometimes represented by chairs. She also punches a pillow that stands in for President Bush. Later, she surprised me again by mentioning that she had once been the victim of a violent street crime.
Her anxiety has shaped her work. On a show in 2001, Fey said, “On Monday, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a terrorism warning, asking all Americans to be on high alert this week…. I think I speak for all Americans when I say, ‘Bitch, I can’t be any more alert than I already am. O.K.? I’m opening my mail with salad tongs. I take my passport in the shower with me. I am watching so much CNN I am having sex dreams about Wolf Blitzer.”
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