Alec Baldwin had a crush on Tina Fey when they first met

Alec Baldwin "fell in love" with Tina Fey when he first met her.

The 58-year-old actor – who has been married to his wife Hilaria since 2012 – first met Tina over a decade ago when she was working as the head writer on sketch show ‘Saturday Night Live’, and has admitted he was immediately taken by her "smart and funny" persona, and was disheartened to learn she was married.

Speaking about the first time he met Tina – who married composer and producer Jeff Richmond in 2001 – Alec said: "When I first met Tina Fey – beautiful and brunette, smart and funny, by turns smug and diffident and completely uninterested in me or anything I had to say – I had the same reaction that I’m sure many men and women have: I fell in love. Tina was then the head writer at ‘Saturday Night Live’, and I was hosting that week’s show.

"I asked Marci Klein, who coordinated the talent, if Tina was single. She pointed to a man sitting along the wall. Or maybe he was standing? This was Jeff Richmond, Tina’s husband. Jeff is diminutive. Tina describes him as ‘travel-size.’ When I saw him, I thought, ‘What’s she doing with him?’"

But the ‘Beetlejuice’ actor admits he didn’t feel jealous of Jeff for long, as when he teamed up with the married couple to work on hit comedy ’30 Rock’ in 2006, he realised the 56 year old was "talented" and "outgoing".

He added in an excerpt of his memoir ‘Nevertheless’ published in Vanity Fair magazine’s April issue: "When I ended up working with the two of them years later, on ’30 Rock’, of which Tina was writer, producer, and star, I changed that to ‘What’s he doing with her?’

"Jeff, who was the talented composer and music supervisor on ’30 Rock’, is as loose and outgoing as Tina is cautious and dry.

"’Just remember one thing,’ Lorne [Michaels] said. ‘She’s German.’"

‘Nevertheless’ hits shelves on April 4.