Das Ellen-Forum

Bei AfterEllen.com gibt es ein Interview mit Liz Feldman, einer ehemaligen Produzentin und Autorin bei TEDS, in der diese über ihre Arbeit mit Ellen spricht. Feldman war eine der wenigen, die Ellen verteidigt hatten, als diese ihre Show auch während des Autorenstreiks fortgesetzt und sich damit u.a. den Zorn der Autorengewerkschaft WGA zugezogen hatte. Hier einige Auszäge aus dem Interview:

AfterEllen.com – Interview With Liz Feldman

Ellen was always my hero. When I first started doing stand-up, I worshipped her. I knew every single joke she told, and I was always compared to her, even from the age of 15. I think I looked like her more then than I do now. There’s a resemblance, I guess, but as soon as I started doing stand-up there was always the comparison. I never shied away from the comparison because I thought she was brilliant.

So that was one of the things I had always visualized – working with her, or knowing her or being in her circle – to the extent where for about 10 years I had a recurring dream in which I knew her. And I don’t even remember most of my dreams, but I had probably 20 dreams in which we were friends or colleagues, or I knew her and Anne when they were together, or in which we ran into each other and she knew me. It was just really weird, and it was always right there on the edge of my subconscious, basically.

And so when her talk show first started, I was so thrilled for her because I had met her when I was 21. I went up to her [at that time] and I said, “You’re Carol Burnett and I’m Vicki Lawrence, but you don’t know that yet.” [...]

It’s one thing to be out, but it’s another thing to be truly proud, and I became truly proud of myself because I’m so proud of her! I told her this all the time, too. We really had an adorable relationship, because without being a kiss ass, I was honestly so humbled and appreciative of her that it made me feel that way about myself.

I will always be out. I had a really positive experience working with Ellen. She was so supportive and I learned a lot about comedy and writing jokes from her. We ended up having a lovely relationship because our brains work in similar ways comedically. I ended up writing a lot of monologues for her – like I had wanted to – and developing a nice mentor relationship. She completely lived up to everything I would have wanted her to. [...]

AfterEllen.com has published an interview with Liz Feldman who was a writer-producer for Ellen’s talk show and who publicly defended her for continuing with her show during the writer’s strike.