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

Tina Fey remembers a rough start to her time at Saturday Night Live.

Appearing in SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, Peacock's new four-episode docuseries looking back at the late-night show's storied past, the writer-turned-star recalls being surprised by the attitude around rewrites.

Fey admits that the sketch show is, in part, driven by competition.

"Even though everyone at SNL is 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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"People would take the rundown of the show and just go sketch by sketch and make fun of it, like the title and make fun of it, goof on it, goof on it, goof on it. You would leave the room fully knowing that that writers' room was taking a s--- on it while you were gone, and that’s just kind of the way it was."

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 at SNL for Fey, however. Her early days presented her with another tough task: giving a note of correction to Sylvester Stallone.

“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.' "

"But it's a great trial by fire," Fey says. "Mr. Stallone was very nice about it. Clearly not the first time in his life he had received that note." Fey joined the show's cast in 2000, leaving in 2006. She has since returned to host the show six times, making her a member of the series' Five-Timers Club.

Learn more about the history of the late-night staple by watching SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, now streaming on Peacock.

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