Best Of The Former Tribune Reporter's 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot' Press Tour

By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 4, 2016 6:19PM

Author Kim Barker at the world premiere of 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot' on Tuesday. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)

In Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which came out Thursday, Tina Fey plays a war reporter in Afghanistan—a character based on a real Chicago Tribune reporter, Kim Barker.

Barker, who now reports for the New York Times, is sharp, funny, and deeply informed about international affairs, as she demonstrated in a 2011 memoir about her time reporting abroad titled The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (The film is based on that book, which has since been republished as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, with Fey on the cover.)

Barker has also recently pulled off an incredible media feat: A press tour worth following from publication to publication. Though certain details crop up everywhere, Barker’s a fountain of stories—and all the pieces on her, read together, give readers an immersive look at what happens when Hollywood meets the Middle East. (Spoiler: Hollywood insists that every interaction gets a couple notches sexier.)

Below, we’ve rounded up some highlights.

Barker tells Refinery 29 how her love interest in the movie, and real-life friend, dealt with his fictionalization:

"Sean and I always knew that would happen... After the movie, I was messaging with him on Facebook, and I [told him], 'So, dude, we totally do it in the movie.' He's like, 'Yeah, I knew it because I saw that trailer... I can live with that.' I said, 'Also, I should probably tell you that you're such a dumbass that you take a public bus outside of Kabul on a reporting trip.' You see the dot dot dot and then stop, the dot dot dot and then stop. And I go, 'Oh, and I kind of rescue you from the Taliban.' He's like, dot dot dot stop. He's like, 'Wait, it's going to take me some time adjust to this.'”

Barker recounts visiting the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot set—which, spoiler, was not in Afghanistan—in a first-person piece for the Times:

The movie didn’t seem real until I visited the film set in New Mexico for two days last spring. The first morning, a van drove a few of us on a bumpy dirt road for several minutes, until popping over a hill. The scene below looked like Afghanistan, with its beige terrain, onslaught of dust and scrubby gray vegetation. Then there was a military Humvee, with men dressed as Marines hanging out nearby. I sucked in my breath. My handler asked if I had PTSD or flashbacks. Not exactly, especially once I caught sight of the extras playing Taliban members. They seemed to be mostly of Mexican heritage, their turbans were tied like Christmas bows and they were eating Kind bars. This was definitely not Ghazni Province.

Barker tells RedEye about arriving in Tehran on one of her first trips to the Middle East, and immediately discovering that the region was not what she expected:

“I thought I was going into a place that was scary, you know, evil empire,” she said. “And so they tell you basically as you’re flying into Tehran, ‘OK, ladies ... Gear up, get your stuff on.’ And it’s like, you know, ‘Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Iran; dress appropriately.’ ”

Wanting to “look the part and look conservative,” she put on a “thing that looks like a graduation gown,” a headscarf and baggy pants. After arriving and waiting nine hours or so to get fingerprinted, she finally met her “fixer,” a paid local who would be an interpreter/guide and set up interviews ... and who was wearing lipstick, a cute, stylish white jacket, tight black pants, high heels and “a red see-through scarf tied like a Hollywood movie star,” Barker said.

“... And she looks me up and down, she goes, ‘Well, clearly the first thing we have to do is take you shopping,’ ” Barker recalled, laughing.

Barker talks to her former Tribune colleagues about maintaining her sense of self through the recent media blitz:

"If people want to mix me up with Tina Fey and her character, that's going to happen. But I know who I am and my friends know who I am," she said. "And they know I'm kind of bemused by this whole idea. I'm going around, I've got fake eyelashes and, look at me, man, I've got TV anchorman hair. I'm coiffed. Look at the makeup on my face. Have you ever seen me with this much makeup on my face?"