Tina Fey is a hilarious comedienne, an actress, a screenplay writer and an author, but more than anything, she's a mom.
The nine-time Emmy Award winner is being honored with The Hollywood Reporter's Sherry Lansing Leadership Award and chats with David Letterman for the publication, discussing what it means to be a woman in this "increasingly ugly world," how she's on "that kid grind" and the support she gets from her friends in Hollywood.
One of Fey's biggest concerns at the moment is her daughters, Alice, 11, and Penelope, 5, growing up in a society centered around the internet.
"The thing I worry about [more] than actual human interaction is the internet," she told Letterman. "Because that's just despicable: people just being able to be awful to each other without having to be in the same room…It's so easy for people to abuse each other and to abandon all civility."
However, when it comes to her two daughters, she believes they've been given the tools they need to overcome such obstacles.
When Letterman asks if the comedienne fears how her daughters will be treated in the future, especially in a "world is full of jerky men," Fey remains confident.
"I worry, [but] I have confidence that they are both strong enough to fight back," she said. "And I think they will feel empowered to call attention to any wrongdoing in their lives."
One way the actress, 46, stays empowered is through her tight-knit group of girlfriends—mostly from her days on Saturday Night Live!—with whom she participates in daily group therapy-like sessions.
"I have a group of women that I worked with at SNL—Maya Rudolph, Emily Spivey, Paula Pell, Amy Poehler, Ana Gasteyer, Rachel Dratch—and we talk as a group through the computer every single day," she revealed. "Dozens of times a day. And it's very nice. It's something we've come to in our 40s. It was easy when we worked at SNL: You're on top of each other 60 hours a week. So it's nice that we are maintaining this friendship."
Speaking of SNL, Fey divulges that two of her all-time favorite cast members are Will Ferrell and Rudolph.
"[Ferrell is] one of the best that ever lived, and coming from a really specific place, never mean-spirited, just a very warm place," she said. "And in terms of someone who could have been made in a lab to do that show, there's nobody better than Maya Rudolph. She can take things that aren't funny and make them funny."
However, while many would argue that Fey, herself, is one of the best that ever lived, she doesn't necessarily agree...especially when it comes to the moments she's felt she "bombed."
"I find any little thing I do, if it doesn't go well, I just carry that bomb juice on me for days," she admitted. "I had to do something the other night at a charity thing, and I was promised I didn't have to write any jokes, and every year I forget that when I introduce the band, it takes them two-and-a-half minutes to bring the banjos out and stuff. And so it was like, "I'm here. I have nothing." And I'm dying...And then for three days, I was in a bad mood because I bombed."