Steve Carell and Tina Fey have been on-screen partners for years, but off-screen friendship took them far longer than fans might expect. Fifteen years after playing a married couple in 2010’s Date Night, the two comedians say they only recently became “real” friends, because they’re both, by their own admission, extremely shy.
Fey explained that Date Night wasn’t some miserable set or a clash of personalities; it was simpler and, frankly, more relatable: two introverts doing their jobs well and then retreating back into themselves. In comments reported from her interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fey said she and Carell made an entire movie together without “breaking through” socially, adding that without anyone forcing conversation, they’d often sit in “polite silence.”
Carell backed that up with the same self-deprecating tone that’s made his career. At the premiere for their new Netflix series, he joked that it “only took 15 years” for them to become “super tight besties,” and he attributed the delay to the same issue: both of them are “super shy.”
What changed wasn’t time, it was the environment. The pair reunited for Netflix’s The Four Seasons, and they say working within a larger ensemble finally cracked open the dynamic that never quite formed when it was mostly just the two of them carrying scenes. Fey’s point is basically: when there’s a group energy (and more people naturally talking), two quiet people don’t have to do all the social “initiating” themselves, and the friendship can finally happen without it feeling forced.
The timing also matters. The Four Seasons is a relationship-and-friendship comedy built around interconnected couples, adapted from Alan Alda’s 1981 film and co-created by Fey alongside Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield. In other words: the whole job requires the cast to function like a believable friend group, which tends to create more off-camera bonding than a single two-hander comedy might.
In the new series, Carell and Fey aren’t repeating their Date Night roles; they’re embedded in a broader circle that includes Will Forte, Colman Domingo, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Marco Calvani, and Erika Henningsen, with the story tracking the ripple effects when one couple’s relationship fractures and the group dynamic shifts across multiple getaways. The Four Seasons premiered May 1, 2025, giving the longtime comedy favorites a fresh collaboration that ironically finally made them comfortable enough to stop being just respectful coworkers.
If there’s a takeaway here, it’s that celebrity chemistry doesn’t always map to friendship, and “we should hang out sometime” isn’t a magic spell—especially when both people are waiting for the other one to make the first move. Fey and Carell basically confirmed what a lot of adults learn the hard way: you can genuinely like someone, work well together, and still not become close until circumstances make connection effortless.
