In their new comedy film the pair play estranged sisters who must go back to their childhood home to pack up their old bedroom when their parents sell the house to retire – prompting a spontaneous high school reunion party that loses control. The pair has been best friends since they met in Chicago in the Second City comedy troupe, also continuing their professional relationship on the variety show Saturday Night Live and hosting the Golden Globes together for three years in a row. Tina, 45, has a large group of close-knit girlfriends she’s collected over the years and she shares her tips with us on how to do it.
Keep your old friends
My best friend at home is my friend Marlene, who I met in high school, and there’s also a really close group of friends I met years ago when we were all working together at Saturday Night Live and we are still in touch literally every day.
Make room for new friends
I think the nice thing is that you don’t have to stop making friends and I have met great women through my daughter’s school and from working on (the show she produces) The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. They are all fantastic women who I hope to be friends with for the duration as well.
Work with friends
The huge benefit is you already know each other and with Amy and I it worked out great. In movies when you come together with someone for eight or twelve weeks, you spend so much time figuring each other out but working with Amy, I know how she likes to work and if she’s grouchy in the mornings or needs her coffee. It’s also probably something that women care about more than men because everything I just described is very like female and caretaking, like, ‘how is my co-star feeling today?’
Choose friends carefully
I think the same goes for male and female friends but it starts for me with thinking they are a good person and kind and trustworthy. Of course they have to have a good sense of humour – and a nice car, let’s face it (laughs).
Choose a husband that gets along with your friends!
Jeff (Richmond) knows so many of my girlfriends so well because we met at Second City and he worked at Saturday Night Live as one of the musical directors for years too So he blends in fully with all these ladies and is very beloved by all of them as well. He gets it, the idea that we all need to huddle up sometimes and complain to each other and have girlfriend time, so he is a very “lady friendly” gentleman!
Choose friends who didn’t peak in high school.
Amy and I both feel very lucky to be late bloomers and not be people who peaked in high school, like maybe the way my character is in the movie. I’m grateful my friends and I seemed to all be late bloomers and now fabulous but I do feel that my face at this point is like an apple that you have had on the counter for a while and you go, ‘I think I can still eat it but it’s a little mushy’ and then you go, ‘no, I’m just going to make applesauce instead!’ What else can you do?
Sisters opens in cinemas in Australia on January 7, 2016.
By Jenny Cooney Carrillo
