Maxim’s Interview With January/February Cover Girl Katrina Bowden
NBC’s 30 Rock may be over, but that doesn’t mean Katrina Bowden is going anywhere!
For seven sexy and hilarious years on 30 Rock, Katrina Bowden has routinely turned the viewing public into drooling messes. Sadly, this is the final season of the Tina Fey wonder show, but luckily Katrina is just getting started. So don’t toss that drool mop away just yet, friends, there’s more Katrina to come!
When you started off on 30 Rock, did you have any idea you’d still be on seven years later?
None. We didn’t even know we were going to get a second season. We always had critical acclaim, but it seemed like no one was watching, and if you don’t have any viewers, it doesn’t matter how many Emmys you win. It was when Tina went back on SNL as Sarah Palin that people really got interested.
Since 30 Rock was based on Tina’s time there, is Cerie based on someone real?
Yeah, a very wealthy girl who was really smart but never let anyone know that. And she never really tried hard, because she’d been given everything her whole life. So I think they took that and made it a lot bigger with Cerie.
How different is Tracy Morgan from Tracy Jordan?
Well, Tracy’s a comedian, so he knows what he’s doing, but the writing staff definitely plays up the wacky things he says. They give him complicated things to say, because it sounds so funny coming out of his mouth. He’s a sweet guy, but he has absolutely no filter. His dressing room is right next to mine, so I end up hearing a lot of very interesting conversations!
Was it strange being so much younger than the rest of the cast?
At first I felt like I was in over my head, but everyone made me feel so comfortable. I’d hang out with the people from the show and go to SNL tapings and the after-parties, and a lot of the writers were young. Like, Donald Glover wrote for the show before he was on Community, and he’s just a little older than me. But it’s not like I was going crazy and partying, which might have been different if I’d been on a show with lots of young people, like Gossip Girl.
Since you were just out of high school, were your classmates ever jealous?
Well, I had been modeling for a bit in high school, and I tried to keep all that stuff quiet. I went to an all-girls school, and girls can get pretty catty toward each other.
Don’t you want to go to your reunion and rub your success in their faces?
Oh, my God, no! That would be like a nightmare for me. I have absolutely zero desire to ever go back to my high school.
From the looks of these pictures, it seems like you still enjoy modeling.
I had such a great time doing this shoot, even more than the last time I did Maxim, since I knew everybody. It’s still cute, but it’s a little edgier this time.
Your boyfriend proposed to you right after your first Maxim cover came out. Do you think he was trying to lock you down?
Ha! I think he wanted to propose for a while, but that may have made him want to seal the deal.
So are we invited to the wedding?
Sure! After all, you guys may have sped things along.
What are your plans once the show wraps?
I don’t know, but I’m definitely excited for a new chapter. I’d love to do a completely different kind of show, like Breaking Bad or Homeland. I’m really open to anything, whether it’s TV or more films.
Is it weird knowing that for the rest of your life you’ll be turning on the TV and seeing your face?
Now that we’re syndicated, there are reruns, like, three or four times a night. It’s crazy! It becomes this weird timeline where I can tell what point of the shooting process we were at based on how everyone looks, like, did I have bangs? Or what baseball cap Judah Friedlander’s wearing.
Were there any embarrassing moments on set?
There were moments where I didn’t get references because I’m younger. One time we filmed an episode at Kenneth’s apartment, and Jack McBrayer, who plays Kenneth, had filled it with real photos of his family and also decades of TV memorabilia he’d collected. So I pick up this photo of four old women and ask Jack if they were his aunts, and Judah, who was there, was like, “Are you serious? Those are the Golden Girls!” I was like, “Oh, my God, I guess I really am a lot younger.”
