Hollywood actress and comedian Tina Fey is speaking openly about the physical realities of growing older, describing the experience of aging in her 50s as a kind of 'reverse puberty' — complete with unexpected bodily changes she never anticipated until she lived through them.

What Fey Said

In a candid conversation with Today, Fey, who turned 56 on 18 May, offered a wry take on the process. 'I feel like it's a reverse puberty in a way,' she said. 'It's like your body starts to change and be disgusting in new ways. When you're 12 or 13, you're like, 'Why am I so oily?' And now you're like, 'Why am I so papery?''

The actress acknowledged that she did not fully grasp what aging into her 50s would feel like until she was squarely in the middle of it — and that it came with more than a few surprises, according to People magazine.

How It Shaped Her Show

Fey's personal experiences with midlife aging directly informed the writing of her series The Four Seasons. She noted that the writers' room was composed of collaborators who were 'all pretty much the same age', making it easy to draw on shared, lived experience.

'Almost all of us have known each other a super long time, and so all the writers are really good about sharing their own things,' she said. 'Then sometimes our spouses are like, 'Is that me?' And then we'll usually just be like, 'No, no'. We'll just lie and say, 'That's so and so'.'

According to People, the show even features a joke about Will Forte's character being married to a middle-aged woman with dry skin — a detail drawn from the writers' collective experience.

The SNL 50th Anniversary Story

Fey has also been candid about how getting older has reshaped her relationship with late nights. Recounting her experience at Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary afterparty, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she had spent the entire week preparing to stay up late — drinking water, sleeping early, and conserving energy.

'I've never been able to get over the fact that I left the 40th afterparty before Prince's surprise set. So the whole week leading up to the 50th, I drank water, I went to bed early, I saved it all up,' she said. But the effort ultimately fell short. 'When I got to the afterparty, I couldn't find any of my friends, and obviously there was no chance of Prince, so I thought, 'Actually, I'm out',' she added.

The Bigger Picture

Fey's willingness to discuss aging with humour rather than anxiety places her among a growing number of prominent women in entertainment who are reframing midlife publicly. Her remarks resonate at a moment when conversations around menopause, body changes, and visibility for women over 50 in Hollywood are gaining mainstream traction. With The Four Seasons drawing on these themes directly, Fey appears to be channelling personal experience into creative output — a pattern consistent across her career.