<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"You may not recognize her face or know her name (though some of you will--and if so, give yourself a pat on the back), but come Sunday night at the 2012 Academy Awards, the words and dialogue you&amp;#x27;ve just listened and laughed to will have come courtesy of writer/producer extraordinaire, Carol Leifer. Who: Carol Leifer, writer Why: This is her 7th time writing for the Oscars and the 3rd time working with Billy Crystal as host. Claim to Fame: David Letterman discovered her in the &amp;#x27;80s while performing at a comedy club. She has since been a guest on his show over 25 times. Her Incredible Resume: Emmy-award nominee for her writing on Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live. Recent WGA winner for Modern Family. Has starred in four of her own comedy specials, which have aired on HBO, Showtime and Comedy Central. She is also the author of the best-selling book, When You Lie About Your Age, the Terrorists Win. In all truthfulness, Carol Leifer should have her own sitcom. Or talk show. Or at least give the sermon the next time I&amp;amp;#8217;m in temple for the Jewish high holydays. She&amp;amp;#8217;s ballsy, she&amp;amp;#8217;s honest, and most importantly, she&amp;amp;#8217;s genuine (which is why her humor resonates across gender and race lines). The juicy side of her story is that she dated Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Reiser&amp;amp;#8212;even married another man&amp;amp;#8212;before she eventually fell in love with her current partner&amp;amp;#8212;a woman&amp;amp;#8212;and together they adopted a baby from South America. Oh, and I did I mention that she&amp;amp;#8217;s been referred to as the real &amp;amp;#8220;Elaine&amp;amp;#8221; on Seinfeld? Like I said, this woman needs her own show. But beyond the fun gossip fodder, she&amp;amp;#8217;s a total force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry. Check out her resume on IMDB and try not to feel like you&amp;amp;#8217;ve just been introduced to the triple threat of comedy writing, producing and stand-up. In the midst of a crazy week gearing up for the Oscars (and here I thought I WAS busy hopping between parties and events; this woman is helping to write the damn show), Carol joined me for a fascinating talk about everything Oscar, the new minority she&amp;amp;#8217;s a part of (no, it&amp;amp;#8217;s not being gay), and whether or not she&amp;amp;#8217;s really &amp;quot;Elaine.&amp;quot; I hope you&amp;amp;#8217;ll enjoy our talk as much as I did. What&amp;amp;#8217;s the status of the Oscar show right now? Are you guys ready to go, or are you still hoping for some good &amp;amp;#8216;ol Hollywood material right up until showtime? Especially with joke-writing, whatever&amp;amp;#8217;s out there, whatever is happening, even if it&amp;amp;#8217;s 30 seconds before the Oscars, it&amp;amp;#8217;ll be in the show because that&amp;amp;#8217;s what joke-writing is. It&amp;amp;#8217;s all about what&amp;amp;#8217;s happening at that moment, and late-breaking news is all fodder for jokes. You never know. But this weekend will be the dress rehearsal, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s really when the show starts to gel because you can really see it on it&amp;amp;#8217;s feet, see how the flow is, see how everything is moving, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s when it starts to get about 80% there. I feel like you&amp;#x27;ve seen everything in Hollywood from all your experiences. What surprises you about this town after all these years? That&amp;amp;#8217;s a really, really good question! Working on the Oscars, it&amp;amp;#8217;s a little bit like I&amp;amp;#8217;m a kid in a candy store, because to prepare, I need to watch all the movies, and if I&amp;amp;#8217;m writing something for say, the person who is doing Best Actor, I need to watch all the performances of the actors. I recently watched A Better Life. It&amp;amp;#8217;s a very small movie, and Demian Bichir--who is nominated--well, not only did I love the movie, but holy crap, this guy is a good actor. I just really just love that about my work and living in Hollywood. . . to still be blown away by people you&amp;amp;#8217;ve never seen before, and who have these enormous talents, yet you&amp;amp;#8217;ve never heard of [them]. It&amp;amp;#8217;s always still exciting to me. I&amp;amp;#8217;m [also] as starstruck as anybody. It&amp;amp;#8217;s very cool to be assigned to write Sandra Bullock&amp;amp;#8217;s thing for the Oscars, and be nervous about meeting her, and then you meet her, and you&amp;amp;#8217;re like, &amp;amp;#8216;Oh my god. What a nice, regular, normal person.&amp;#x27; You can&amp;amp;#8217;t get more A-lister than this person, and then here we are showing pictures to each other of our children. Once you meet these actors, does it affect how or what you write about them? It doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t happen that much. [The producers] are so happy to have these people part of the show that I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think I&amp;amp;#8217;ve had to toss out my jokes and throw out something mean about somebody. [laughs] At the end of the day, it&amp;amp;#8217;s still a big show and the producers are so grateful. It&amp;amp;#8217;s not easy a lot of times for these celebrities to make an appearance. In the old days, they&amp;amp;#8217;d give these grand gift baskets to ensure that people would be there, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s still people taking time out of their busy schedules to be a part of the show, and the producers are nothing but grateful. You have had such tremendous success in this business, whether it be in a writing, producing, or stand-up capacity. What advice would you give to younger self just starting out in this business? Boy, you&amp;amp;#8217;re asking really good questions! I think what I would say to my younger self, and probably to younger, just starting-out writers is that a lot of times you&amp;amp;#8217;re just afraid to put yourself out there, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s uncomfortable because it&amp;amp;#8217;s working up the courage to do something, to push yourself to do those things. There are so many opportunities that I could&amp;amp;#8217;ve gotten before if I had just took a little more of a risk. I&amp;amp;#8217;m always a big fan of if you approach somebody politely about something and you&amp;amp;#8217;re not a nudge--you&amp;amp;#8217;re just pretty honest and simple, my kind of philosophy is that I&amp;amp;#8217;m not afraid of no, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s way different than &amp;amp;#8216;I won&amp;amp;#8217;t take no for an answer.&amp;amp;#8217; I&amp;amp;#8217;m not afraid of putting myself out there to someone and then them passing on it. At least you could have gotten a yes. So it&amp;amp;#8217;s worthwhile to have the cojones to do it. Congratulations are in order for your WGA (Writers Guild of America) award last week (Carol won for her episode of Modern Family, titled &amp;amp;#8220;Two Monkeys and a Panda&amp;amp;#8220;). Which Modern Family character did you most enjoy writing for? Well, the episode that I wrote last season. . . I really pursued it, pretty doggedly to write for the show because I&amp;amp;#8217;m gay and my partner and I have been together for 15 years. We have an adopted child from Guatemala. So we relate so much to Mitch and Cam. We have such a similar kind of life circumstances. As a viewer I really appreciate it too because it&amp;amp;#8217;s a show that is telling stories about our life, which is really so fantastic. We watch it as fans every week, and we look at each other and always say, &amp;amp;#8216;we are SO Cam and Mitch!&amp;amp;#8217; [laughs] I read that when you became vegan, you said, &amp;quot;I recently became vegan because I felt that as a Jewish lesbian, I wasn&amp;#x27;t part of a small enough minority. So now I&amp;#x27;m a Jewish lesbian vegan.&amp;quot; That cracked me up. [laughs] Why thank you! Your humor is just so universal, and it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t matter of you&amp;amp;#8217;re Jewish, Christian, Gay, Straight, whatever. There&amp;amp;#8217;s humor in all situations just being truthful about it. Yes! That&amp;amp;#8217;s for sure. Thanks for saying those kind words. Back in the day, you dated Jerry Seinfeld, and then ending up producing and writing on Seinfeld. In fact, you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been dubbed the &amp;amp;#8216;real&amp;amp;#8217; Elaine. How accurate is that? You know, I always feel with the Elaine question that it&amp;amp;#8217;s kind of blown out of proportion. I remember that when Jerry and Larry David were coming up with the bones of the show, Jerry thought it would be interesting to have a character of a woman friend, who he dated before, which was sort of the part that&amp;amp;#8217;s based on me. We really did only date for a year, but we remained good friends. But other than that, I&amp;amp;#8217;m a good dancer, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t push people half-way across the room and yell, &amp;amp;#8216;Get out!&amp;amp;#8217; [laughs] so that&amp;amp;#8217;s where the comparison ends. Could this woman seriously be any cooler (and no, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not channeling Chandler Bing)? If she can maintain such a casual, stress-free demeanor during Oscar week, I seriously need to take lessons from her. Who is your famous career idol, and who&amp;amp;#8217;s hoping that maybe one of these days, Carol will be hosting the Oscars? More Oscar News: *What the Stars Are Doing After the 2012 Oscar After-Parties *Celebs Pick Their 2012 Oscar Favorites; Plus, the Bridesmaids Star That May Have Spilled a Huge Oscar Secret! *The Most Tear-Inducing Moments of Past Oscar Shows Photos: Getty Images Photos: Everett Collection Special Thanks: Glamour&amp;#x27;s Jenna Andrews"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2012/02/the-one-woman-you-must-know-ab>