Tina Fey and Will Smith Photos by Ruben V. Nepales
LOS ANGELES—Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg shared with us how they plan to celebrate the coming New Year’s Eve.
Will Smith: New Year’s Day is our anniversary so we always have a wonderful anniversary party. We will have been married for 20 years (in 2017).
Amy Poehler: I’m going to be back in the East Coast with my family and my boys. I really like being in the cold and snow (for the holidays).
I’m not a big New Year’s resolution person, but I do like to make a list of detailed wishes or things that I’d like to manifest—very detailed, because I find that the more detailed you are, the more likely they are to come true. I do make that list usually at about 11:58 p.m., very furiously on a cocktail napkin or something.
When we were studying in Chicago, our guru, comedy director Del Close, used to say that you’re not a professional if you aren’t working on New Year’s Eve. So, there’s always a part of me that feels like, should I be working (laughs)? But I will not be working on New Year’s Eve so, therefore, I’m not a professional.
No, I don’t (go to Times Square for the New Year’s Eve countdown). No f***ing way (laughs). New Yorkers stay far away. As a New Yorker, you often don’t. You’re bemoaning that the streets are busy.
On people who do go: Bless their hearts. I don’t know who they are. I know they’re freezing and they’re wonderful. Yeah, but good for them! My kids are getting old enough that they are excited about that. So maybe I’ll try it this year.
Tina Fey: I go to a wonderful party every year in New York and partly because they (the party hosts) are geniuses, the party is over at 11 p.m. That’s the greatest thing ever—you go to a nice party that ends at 11—then, I am home with my children so we can blow the noisemakers!
Mark Wahlberg: On New Year’s Eve, my wife always tells me that it’s only 8 o’clock—why am I going to bed (laughs)? I say, “Look, it’s midnight somewhere.”
The last time we stayed up past midnight, we were in Las Vegas for the opening of the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Jay Z performed with Kanye West. I had a good time, stayed up, drank and did all that stuff. My wife doesn’t drink. She just kept drinking Red Bull, then we got back to the hotel at three in the morning. She couldn’t sleep. She had so much Red Bull.
She was up till like five or six in the morning. I got up to go to the bathroom, and she was still up watching TV.
Last year, we were in Barbados. I didn’t make it to midnight (laughs). It was a long day in the hot sun!
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