Tina had an enormous level of responsibility on 30 Rock. The roles of writer, producer, and star are a lot to handle. Over the life of the show, she was honored for all of them. But Tina will tell you she is a writer at heart. Beyond dressing up for red carpets, hosting awards shows, or starring in films, Tina, I believe, is more comfortable in a room full of clever people doing what she does so well. Our characters, Liz and Jack, never consummated their relationship. There was, in place of that, a genuine respect, fondness, and, ultimately, love for a trusted and irreplaceable colleague. For Jack, the only thing better than good sex was a good hire. Over the years, I had bitched and moaned, as only actors can, about being tied to a contract for a show that would never be my own. After season five, I wanted to quit. I came back for season six, had a great time, and was ready to sign for five more years. But a wise decision was made to shoot a tight thirteen episodes and go out head high. As we shot the series finale, on a December night in lower Manhattan, my building rush of nostalgia for the show hit its peak. Freezing my ass off on a boat floating in a marina in Battery Park City, Jack groped his way toward telling Liz he loved her. “Lemon, there is a word, a once special word, that has been tragically co-opted by the romance-industrial complex.” That night was tough. The best job I ever had, that I will ever have, was over.
I was lucky to win several awards for 30 Rock. I think the audience for Tina’s writing was more discerning. When people paid a compliment to me about the show, it always began with “I never do this, but . . .” When actors can honestly believe that what they are doing is working, it’s a great feeling. 30 Rock gave me a level of confidence that had been missing in my work for quite some time. I owe that to Tina and the other cast and crew. I owe it to the incomparable Robert Carlock, Tina’s right hand. I owe it to the other writers like John Riggi (the most lovable writer in the WGA), Jack Burditt, Matt Hubbard, Kay Cannon, Ron Weiner, Tracey Wigfield, Vali Chandrasekaran, Josh Siegal, and Colleen McGuinness, to name a few. Most of all, I owe it to Lorne. There is a saying in show business, “No one knows anything,” an attempt to convey the inscrutability of show business and particularly the key to success. That line should be amended to read “except Lorne.” Lorne is wise and discreet. He has walked a path in the industry that has made him one of the rare people I’ve met whom you would be lucky to know and blessed to receive advice from.
When high school ended, I didn’t feel appropriately moved. I wasn’t about to break out into a rendition of “Nothing” from A Chorus Line, but I didn’t feel that this was the end of something important to me. It wasn’t important. Same with college. I left GW for NYU, and as I said good-bye in DC to my graduating friends before I headed to New York, I felt detached and anxious. I didn’t graduate with my class at NYU either. I went off to work as quickly as possible. But when 30 Rock ended, all of the feelings one associates with the end of something seminal—feelings that I had missed or squandered earlier, that come from truly investing in an experience—finally came out. That was my graduation. I graduated from the University of Tina. Lutz and Grizz and Kevin and Judah and Katrina and Scott and Keith and Sue and Maulik were my classmates. I wanted to sing “To Sir with Love” to Lorne. Carlock gave me my diploma.
The year 2012 ended with the finale of 30 Rock. I crossed into 2013 feeling good about myself, my work, and the future for the first time since 2007 and the voicemail issue. I had crawled out of a well and now wanted to enjoy my life in every simple way. 30 Rock afforded me a lot of creative freedom. I wanted 2013 to be a new year filled with productivity, happiness, and success. And when things didn’t go as planned, I could hear the voice of Joe Zarza saying, “Xander Baldwin . . . you’re gonna learn everything the hard way.”
14
So Long as I Know
When 30 Rock ended in December of 2012, I was about to turn fifty-five years old. The show had provided me with a much-needed stability, not only in terms of work but also in terms of the goodwill that came with it. The consistency of my schedule became more precious to me as I got older. I had made a few movies between 2006 and 2012, while making 30 Rock. Some were worthwhile, like It’s Complicated. Working with Meryl Streep had always seemed like an unattainable wish, almost a dream. When that opportunity came around, I was overjoyed. Meryl is nine years older than me, so when Nancy Meyers offered me the role of Meryl’s ex-husband, I thought about that for a bit. But Nancy pointed out that the leading men in Hollywood have no qualms about casting someone much younger as their love interest. Why should it be any different for the greatest actress of her generation? The notion of age didn’t matter to me. It became clear, and more so once we began shooting, that my character was a man who was once in love with his ex-wife and who discovered that he was still in love with her. My job was to be in love with Meryl. That is not a difficult thing to do.
I made a movie called Lymelife with a wonderful writer-director named Derick Martini. The cast included Jill Hennessy, Cynthia Nixon, and Timothy Hutton, whose career I had long admired in films like Sidney Lumet’s Daniel (see this movie) and The Falcon and the Snowman. The making of the film itself was an ongoing saga, where the cast was told to get ready to go to work, only to have the financing drop out at the last minute. The principal cast, which also included Rory and Kieran Culkin and Emma Roberts, stayed committed to the project through three such rounds of hope and eventual disappointment. When the money finally came through, I realized that this was the direction that much of independent filmmaking was going in. With their dreams of doing the creative work they had set out to do on the line, actors, directors, producers, and writers were calling it a victory simply when the movie got made.