The part of Jack Donaghy was written for Alec Baldwin. Unfortunately, I did not have the courage to introduce myself to him and tell him that at the time, so for several months I met with some of the best actors in New York, and also some that are only okay. And with each meeting I had in an attempt to cast Jack Donaghy, it just became clearer and clearer that this part was for no one except Alec Baldwin. And so I knew what I had to do: I got pregnant and I stalled for a year. And then when I came back from my maternity leave at SNL, Alec was hosting the show, and he was having fun with it that week and the sketches were not terrible, thankfully, and so Lorne and I said to each other, ‘Should we ask him? Maybe we should just ask him.’ And so, I hid and Lorne asked him, and here we are five years and almost a hundred dollars later.
Last night, Alec Baldwin was honored by the Museum of the Moving Image, with many of his friends and contemporaries giving speeches complimenting/mocking him. One such toaster was Tina Fey, and Vulture transcribed her entire speech. She opened by talking about how afraid she was to ask him to star in 30 Rock: