Revealed: Slimy '30 Rock' Exec is Ben Silverman
There's so much great stuff in Richard Siklos's Fortune profile of NBC entertainment chief Ben Silverman, a wunderkind who boasts, per Siklos, "a persona that seems equal measures Ferris Bueller and Sean 'P. Diddy Combs'" and who "is taking the most overtly commercial approach to programming that broadcast TV has ever seen."
But the best part could be Tina Fey's reckless candor when asked whether any of the characters on 30 Rock are modeled on her slick-talking boss-of-bosses.
"There are probably four," she quickly replied (even though the show actually went on the air a season before Silverman started at NBC). The nearest, she reckoned, is the devious executive Devin Banks, played by Will Arnett, who is trying to outmaneuver Fey's onscreen boss, Alec Baldwin, for the top job at GE.One day on the set, Fey recalled, Arnett was waiting to shoot a scene and, noting that he was wearing a silver-hued suit, was goofing around: "Look, I'm a silver man -- get it?"
And this after Silverman made it a point to tout 30 Rock as "the best show on TV." Where's the gratitude?
For the record, there's also been speculation that Ryan, the weasely, cliché-spouting temp on The Office, is a Silverman stand-in.
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