Jeff Richmond and Tina Fey pose at the opening night of the new musical based on the film "Death Becomes Her" on Broadway at The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 21, 2024 in New York City

The Mean Girls director is the executive producer, writer and star of The Four Seasons

Tina Fey is getting candid about the highs and lows of marriage, with help from her new Netflix show.

The Saturday Night alum has been married to composer Jeff Richmond since 2001, seven years after they started dating after meeting at the famed Chicago improvisational theatre troupe Second City, where she started her career and where he was musical director.

The Mean Girls director has now taken lessons from her own marriage and the writing of Alan Alda’s 1981 comedy The Four Seasons for a new version of the film, a Netflix series, which sees the decades-long friendship between three married couples get tested when one divorces, complicating their tradition of quarterly weekend getaways.

Lang Fisher, Erika Henningsen, Colman Domingo, Tina Fey, Alan Alda, and Tracey Wigfield attend a special screening of the 1981 Original The Four Seasons Film at Paris Theater on April 27, 2025 in New York City© Getty
Lang Fisher, Erika Henningsen, Colman Domingo, Alan Alda, Tracey Wigfield, and Tina attended a special screening of the 1981 original The Four Seasons in April

In an interview published in HELLO! Magazine, Tina first shared: “We talked about the show being a love letter to long-term relationships, both platonic and romantic.”

Giving her two cents on marriage, particularly long-term marriage in your 50s, she said: “Your life is ideally more than just the person you’re married to. Sometimes, when you’re struggling with something with just your spouse, you need a group of friends to bring humour to it.”

“Those friendships really help marriages, I think. Having a person who fulfills a part of you that your spouse can’t quite fulfill, is important,” she emphasized.

Tina Fey, writer and her husband Jeff Richmond during "Mean Girls" New York Premiere - Inside Arrivals at Loews Lincoln Square Theatre in New York City, New York, United States, 2004© FilmMagic
The actress with her husband at the premiere of Mean Girls in 2004

The Four Seasons, of which Tina and her husband are executive producers as well as Alan, follows six old friends who reunite for a relaxing weekend away, only to learn that one of the couples is about to split up.

As the three sets of partners — portrayed by Tina and Will Forte, Steve Carell and Kerri Kenney-Silver, and Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani — go on four vacations over the course of a year, viewers see how the shake-up brings issues, old and new, bubbling to the surface.

Tina Fey; Amy Poehler, "Dig" on Peacock at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Monday, May 12, 2025© Getty
The SNL alum is going on tour with her good friend and former co-star Amy Poehler

It’s not hard for Tina to write candidly, and not overly romantically, about marriage. “Seriously, once you’re married, you stop even celebrating Valentine’s Day. Maybe I’m bitter, but I think that’s strictly amateur night,” she joked.

Tina, who is a mom to daughters Alice, 19, and Penelope, 13, also spoke to HELLO! about the perks of having achieved much of her fame later in life, in her 30s. “Having become a public figure later in life than most has helped me deal with the aspects of intrusion into my private life.”

Tina Fey and Jeff Richmond attend Netflix's "The Four Seasons" Los Angeles Premiere on April 24, 2025 in Los Angeles, California© Getty
With her husband at the The Four Seasons premiere

“People do treat you differently, so it’s nice to come into it a little bit older, because you know not to believe it 100 percent.”

“The beauty of impostor syndrome is that you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh God, they’re on to me!'” she also shared.