Thursday nights on NBC, Tina Fey is Liz Lemon and Steve Carell is Michael Scott. Neither is particularly functional.

But in the new big-screen comedy “Date Night,” Fey and Carell discover unforeseen talents, playing married parents whose night out in Manhattan turns into a wild adventure due to a case of mistaken identity.

The pairing is fitting. Fey are Carell aren’t just two of NBC’s most famous, award-winning faces, whose shows normally sit side by side. They’re both alumni of the famed bastion of improv, Second City.

In a recent interview, Carell, 47, and Fey, 39, discussed their collaboration, which was directed by Shawn Levy (”Night at the Museum”). After the interview, Fey stood up and did a “cheeseburger macaroni” dance, excited that dinner with her daughter was approaching.

___

AP: Do you both consider yourselves improv comedians at heart, rather than standup comedians?

FEY: For sure.

CARELL: Yeah, I think I’d fail miserably.

AP: “Weekend Update” had a standup feel sometimes.

FEY: It is joke-telling, but I never wanted to do it alone. I did it with Jimmy (Fallon) and when Jimmy left, I had the opportunity to do it alone or do it with someone else. I was like, “No, no.” Telling jokes alone, you’re a standup, but telling jokes with a buddy, you have someone to go to if the jokes fail — that’s what I’m used to.

CARELL: You’re used to jokes failing.

FEY: Yes, all my jokes fail.

AP: Steve, you’re renown for your niceness, while, Tina, you’ve recently said that you represent “normalcy.” That makes for an interesting combo: nice and normal.

CARELL: It’s our vaudeville act.

FEY: Normalcy and Niceness go to the circus. It’s like Goofus and Gallant.

AP: In “Date Night,” you have basically a “North By Northwest” premise of mistaken identity. Only instead of a chiseled Mount Rushmore, there’s the chiseled naked torso of Mark Wahlberg.

FEY: An American treasure in itself.

CARELL: The finale was going to take place on his chest.

AP: Steve, you co-wrote “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” with Judd Apatow and, Tina, you wrote the screenplay to “Mean Girls.” Is that something you’d like to do more?

CARELL: Sure. We’re both faced with the same problem — just finding the time to do it. While we’re doing the show, there’s really not a lot of extra time.

FEY: And we both have young children.

CARELL: I would like for my kids to at least have some familiarity with who I am: “It’s the man from TV!” But there are a lot of good writers out there. I don’t feel that I have to control every aspect of things that I appear in. You learn a lot performing someone else’s writing.

AP: Is it hard to relinquish some control, Tina?

FEY: No, it felt like a vacation to come in and have this script that we were definitely allowed to give input on.

AP: Do you both discuss life at NBC when you get together? Is it awkward to be there right now?

CARELL: We’re outside of that whole world. They leave us alone for the most part. They were good enough to leave both of our shows on the air.

FEY: If NBC was in better shape, our show wouldn’t be on the air.

CARELL: No, ours wouldn’t be, either. So that’s actually worked to our advantage.

AP: Your spouses must have had input on this film.

FEY: He purposefully didn’t read the script and so when he saw the screening, he saw it fully. We’re so used to being completely enmeshed. (Fey’s husband, Jeff Richmond, is the composer on “30 Rock.”) He was glad that he waited — a comedy abstinence program.

CARELL: Parts of our married lives have become part of the movie. The aspect that the husband leaves all drawers and cabinets open, both Jeff and I have that as a problem.

FEY: I do wear a retainer sometimes.

AP: Steve, you’ve been able to work in movies more frequently, do you have any sense of where you want to take it in the next few years?

CARELL: It doesn’t sound sincere but it is: I’m always surprised that I’m working, that I have a job doing what we’re doing. Tina felt the same way the first few days of shooting. So, no, I tend not to plan ahead. Five years ago, I could have never imagined any of this happening. I try to just enjoy it. If I could continue to do this sort of thing — I don’t have any pretense of doing serious drama or directing. If any of that happens, fine. Maybe I’ll do nothing, because I’m very good at that. I can get lazy. I don’t think I’m a very driven person. When I have work, I work very hard. But when I don’t work, I really don’t do anything. I could easily just fade away.

FEY: Just Guttenberg it. (Steve Guttenberg) was just like, “I made money and I’m going to go enjoy my life.” It’s genius.

AP: Tina, it seemed like your transition from a writer to a performer on “SNL” was a very conscious decision to challenge yourself. Do you have any similar goal for movies?

FEY: It’s weird, because I already feel like now I’m at an age where in some ways the goal is: How soon can I not work? There’s a lot of satisfaction in the work, but it’s been an overwhelming amount of work for the last four years. I thought I was working hard before that. Now I know I was a fool. For me, it’s more about carving out a manageable future. It’s making a living wage off of stuff I want to do — produce a small movie with my friends, that would be great.

Born in Gorky (now Nizhni Novgorod) in 1982, she lived with her mother and two half-sisters in unpleasant conditions.

When she was 19 years old, she made headway in modeling and married British real-estate heir the Hon. Justin Trevor Berkeley Portman, a half-brother of the 10th Viscount Portman, thus enabling people to remember the cinderella from Russia.

“Twilight” star Taylor Lautner picked up two orange, blimp-shaped trophies at Saturday’s 23rd annual shenanigan-packed Nickelodeon spectacle inside UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. Lautner snared the favorite actor honor for his “New Moon” role as hunky werewolf Jacob Black as well as the inaugural cutest couple award with his “Twilight” co-star Kristin Stewart.

“I have to admit I have always dreamt of winning one of these orange blimps,” said Lautner.

The fan-favorite ceremony’s host, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” actor-comedian Kevin James, kicked off the show by performing a hip-hop dance routine as Adam Sandler serenaded him from above while dressed as an angel and fountains of green slime spontaneously gushed on the first few rows of the audience. James said more than 115 million votes were received this year.

Katy Perry, wearing a bright blue wig and skintight flowery dress, was blasted with slime when presenting the favorite movie actress trophy to Miley Cyrus. The gooey “I Kissed a Girl” singer chased the “Hannah Montana” actress around the stage, but co-presenter Jonah Hill grabbed Perry before she could embrace the 17-year-old singer-actress with a slimy hug.

“I can’t see anything,” complained Perry. “Why does it taste like boogers?”

Other favorites included “Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” for movie, “Up” for animated movie, Jim Carrey for voice from an animated movie for “A Christmas Carol,” “Mario Kart” for video game, “iCarly” for TV show, “American Idol” for reality show, “SpongeBob SquarePants” for cartoon, Dylan Sprouse for TV actor and Selena Gomez for TV actress.

“I’m the luckiest girl in the whole world,” said Gomez.

In the music categories, the winners were Black Eyed Peas for music group, Jay-Z for male singer and Taylor Swift for female singer and song for “You Belong With Me.” Favorites in the sports categories were two-time Olympic gold medalist volleyball player Misty May Treanor for female athlete and 20-year-old skateboarder Ryan Sheckler for male athlete.

“This goes right in the trophy case,” Sheckler said holding up his blimp.

First lady Michelle Obama won the ceremony’s “Big Help” award for her “Let’s Move” campaign to cut down on childhood obesity. The honor is part of Nick’s own “Millions on the Move” campaign. Over the next few months, the network will feature public service announcements to encourage kids to stay active and promote activities that help the environment.

National Geographic Entertainment has picked up the U.S. theatrical rights to “Restrepo,” a documentary that follows a platoon of American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Directed by journalists Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, the “Restrepo” won the Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury documentary prize.

It’s scheduled for release July 2. National Geographic Channel, which took worldwide TV rights earlier this year, will broadcast it in the fall.

“Restrepo” is an Outpost Films Production in association with National Geographic Channel.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou speaks during a news conference to promote the Turandot opera in Taichung, southeast China’s Taiwan, March 27, 2010.

The drama “24″ won’t be ticking much longer on TV. Fox announced Friday that its action-packed real-time show starring Kiefer Sutherland as anti-terrorism agent Jack Bauer will wind down at the end of its current eighth season on May 24.

Sutherland said in a statement that the show’s cast and crew “always wanted ‘24′ to finish on a high note, so the decision to make the eighth season our last was one we all agreed upon.” He also said he was looking forward to creating a film version of “24.”

The show has received 68 Emmy nominations, winning for outstanding drama series and for Sutherland as lead drama actor in 2006.

“This has been the role of a lifetime, and I will never be able to fully express my appreciation to everyone who made it possible,” Sutherland said. “But when all is said and done, it is the loyal worldwide fan base that made it possible for me to have the experience of playing the role of Jack Bauer, and for that I am eternally grateful.”

Premiering Nov. 6, 2001, “24″ used an innovative real-time, split-screen format to present fast-paced interwoven storylines. Each episode covered one hour of the season’s 24-hour story arc.

The first six seasons were set in Los Angeles. Following a one-year break forced by the writers strike, season seven went to Africa and Washington, D.C.

The current season has Agent Bauer thwarting a terrorist attack in New York.

By the end of this season, “24″ will have presented 194 episodes, making it one of television’s longest-running action shows.

It was the summer of 1946 when a young and war-fatigued J.D. Salinger reached out to another writer whose career had also been shaped by war, a writer he had arranged to meet while both had been in Europe.

“The talks I had with you here were the only hopeful minutes of the whole business,” Salinger writes at the close of his letter to Ernest Hemingway, which will be displayed publicly for the first time on Sunday at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

The letter, which has been available to and referenced by scholars over the years, is part of the Ernest Hemingway collection that has been kept at the JFK Library for 30 years. It offers a fascinating glimpse of a sardonic Salinger, then serving in the Army, in the period before the 1951 publication of “Catcher in the Rye.”

The author even jokingly compares himself with Catcher in the Rye protagonist Holden Caulfield, who had appeared as a character in earlier short stories.

Salinger died Jan. 27 at age 91 at his home in New Hampshire. JFK Library director Thomas Putnam said renewed interest in the reclusive author was one reason why the library decided to display the letter during a presentation of the PEN/Hemingway Award, given annually to a first-time fiction writer.

Salinger addresses the letter “Dear Poppa,” a Hemingway nickname, signaling a friendship possibly beyond just casual. He signs it “Jerry Salinger.” (Salinger’s full name was Jerome David.)

Writing from a hospital in Nuremburg, Germany, Salinger offers that nothing is wrong with him except “an almost constant state of despondency,” and that his purpose in writing was “to talk to someone sane.” The doctors, he wrote, had quizzed him about his sex life and his childhood, a suggestion they were employing Freudian tactics to get at the root of his melancholy.

Salinger asks Hemingway how his latest novel is coming and implores him not to sell it to a movie producer: “As Chairman of your many fan clubs, I know I speak for all the members when I say Down with Gary Cooper.”

Of his own fledgling career: “I’ve written a couple more of my incestuous stories, and several poems, and part of a play.” Possibly foretelling publication of “Catcher in the Rye,” he relates that he has a “very sensitive novel in mind,” and while he wishes to get out of the Army so he can pursue his writing, he worries that a psychiatric discharge might label him a “jerk” and damage his career.

Putnam said there was no indication that Hemingway answered the letter.

“Because we don’t have other letters, I assume there wasn’t other correspondence. There may have been and it may just not be here, but Hemingway was very good about keeping his correspondence so it could be the only letter between the two,” he said.

Hemingway’s widow, Mary, donated the letters to the library partly out of gratitude to the Kennedy Administration, which had helped arrange her to travel to Cuba and retrieve his papers after her husband’s death in 1961, Putnam explained. The papers are kept in a room at the library that is not generally accessible to visitors.

Hemingway’s son, Patrick, will attend the Sunday ceremony to honor Brigid Pasulka for her first novel, “A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True.”

Paul Dunlap, a prolific film composer for three decades and a frequent collaborator of Sam Fuller, died March 11 in Palm Springs. He was 90.

The classically trained Dunlap composed the soundtracks for more than 133 films and TV shows and worked on another 50 pictures and television episodes as a conductor, musical director, music supervisor and orchestrator, often composing incidental music as well.

Dunlap worked with fiery writer-director Fuller on such films as “The Baron of Arizona” (1950), starring Vincent Price, “The Steel Helmet” (1951), “Park Row” (1952), “Shock Corridor” (1963) and “The Naked Kiss” (1964).

He also wrote the soundtracks for six movies directed by Harold D. Schuster, including the Western “Jack Slade” (1953), and worked on numerous TV shows, including “Have Gun, Will Travel.” He was admired for his Western scores and sci-fi sound effects.

A native of Springfield, Ohio, Dunlap also worked on a number of B movies. He composed the scores for Abbott & Costello’s final film, “Dance With Me, Henry” (1956); several Three Stooges films of the early ’60s; and “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” (1957). His most recent credit was as composer for “Gorp” (1980).

In his later years, Dunlap wrote an opera and a choral piece.

“I can only hope that I will be remembered for my piano concerto, or my choral piece, ‘Celebration,’ and not the inferior movies I was forced to be associated with,” Dunlap once said.

In his heyday, Dunlap entertained at the Formosa Cafe in Hollywood and was pals with Doris Day, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, Anne Baxter and producer Lindsley Parsons Sr.

The Santos soccer team rolled over yet another adversary on Thursday in the 16th round of the Sao Paulo state championship.

Without an injured Robinho and a suspended Neymar, Santos was able to remain in first place by defeating Botafogo-SP by the score of 4-2.

Santos’midfielder Paulo Henrique Ganso scored his team’s first goal in the 41st minute. Botafogo’s Ademir Sopa tied the match in the 44th minute.

Santos’Marquinhos scored his first goal of the match in the 57th minute. Soon after, Botafogo’s Adriano scored the equalizer in the 59th minute.

Marquinhos gave Santos the lead with his second goal of the match in the 62nd minute. As the match was coming to an end, Ze Eduardo scored his team’s fourth goal in the 88th minute.

The victory guarantees Santos’presence in the seminfinals of the Sao Paulo state championship. With 38 points in the first place, the team mathematically advances to the playoffs.

With only three rounds of play remaining, Santos stands ten points more than the fourth and fifth placed teams, Portuguesa and Gremio Prudente with 28 points respectively.

In the 17th round of play, Santos will host Monte Azul on March 28. Botafogo-SP will host Sertaozinho on the same day. Botafogo-SP currently stands in the seventh place with 25 points. They need to win their next three matches and hope Gremio Prudente, Corinthians and Portuguesa to lose in order to advance to the semifinals.

Tim Burton’s latest fantasy Alice in Wonderland opened Friday in both 3D and IMAX cinemas in the Chinese mainland, but insiders doubt whether it will do well in the shadow of Avatar.

“March is a comparatively low season… Also, in terms of fantasy genre, Avatar has filled Chinese audiences’ mind in the first place. Chances are people might get tired when another one comes,” said Li Xianping, general manager of Beijing Ziguang Cinema.

However, Li said as Avatar would probably go off screen this weekend, and there would be no other giants to compete with, which might pave way for the triumph of Alice.

Disney’s 3D version of Lewis Carroll’s fairy tales, starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, had already raked in more than 265 million U.S. dollars in the United States since its premiere, according to the Internet Movie Database website.

However, contrary to a grand news conference for Avatar with director James Cameron present here last December, only several small-scale activities were held to mark Alice’s mainland adventure, and the film’s crew were all absent.

“Everyday there are more than 30 films coming here for distribution. In April, many new films will enter the cinema. The market is prosperous and complicated, and it’s hard to say how well the film will do,” Weng Li, spokesman of the film’s importer China Film Group Corporation, told Xinhua.

Different from Avatar’s mainstream style, Weng believed Burton’s “weird” taste will strike a cord with Chinese movie-goers, most of whom were aged from 20 to 30.

“I like the film myself, and I think it will do well at the box office,” he added.

As of 7:00 p.m. Thursday, only 25 of the 217 seats were available for the IMAX-3D premiere at the Beijing UME Cinema, the company’s website booking service showed.

Prior to Alice, Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, from two-time Harry Potter director Chris Columbus, had started screening in the mainland.