'Mean Girls' Inspired by Tina Fey? Star "Openly" Admits She Wasn't Nice

Tina Fey is a beloved actress, writer and comedian of this generation, but she wasn't always likeable. In fact, she told Net-a-Porter's The Edit that she was the "mean girl" in high school. This begs the question: was Mean Girls based partly on Fey, who wrote the screenplay for the film?

While Fey doesn't admit to it, she does say she admits to being the mean girl "openly."

"That was a disease that had to be conquered. It's another coping mechanism, a bad coping mechanism, but when you feel less than (in high school, everyone feels less than everyone else for different reasons), in your mind it's a way of leveling the playing field," she said.

The 30 Rock creator says she eventually learned that being a mean girl doesn't actually work. She said, "Saying something terrible about someone else does not actually level the playing field. If I meet a girl of 14 or 15 today who is that kind of girl, I am secretly, in my body, afraid. Even though I'm 45."

For her part, Fey says she and husband Jeff Richmond are raising their daughters to be different by focusing on teaching them "patience and generosity," which she admits she fails on sometimes.

These days Fey is staying busy "surrounding herself" with friends and family. She says one of the biggest joys of filming her latest movie, Sisters (which also stars friend and frequent collaborator Amy Poehler) was being around friends at a house in Long Island during filming.

"[Poehler] had pool parties and all our kids were together – my kids, Amy's sons, Rachel Dratch's kids, Maya Rudolph's children. That was a really lovely benefit; most often the only times we get to see each other is for a work thing. But we try," Fey said.

Sisters, a comedy about sisters (Poehler and Fey) who throw one last bash in their childhood home after finding out their parents are selling it, is out now in theaters.