Carol Leifer: Oscars, ‘SNL,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Curb,’ ‘Hacks’ and More

The Last Laugh

The Daily Beast

Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Interviews, Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Tv, Movies, Film

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Carol Leifer has been a working stand-up comedian and writer for nearly 50 years. And she shows no signs of slowing down. After winning her first-ever Emmy Award in 2024 for her work on ‘Hacks,’ Leifer, 68, is currently toiling away in the writers’ room for her 11th Academy Awards ceremony, this one airing live with host Conan O’Brien on March 2. And she is about to release a new book that attempts to teach people ‘How to Write a Funny Speech’ for the big events in their own lives. In this episode, Leifer looks back at her extensive comedy career, including her one season as a writer on ‘Saturday Night Live’s’ “weird year,” her role as a “real-life Elaine” behind-the-scenes at ‘Seinfeld,’ why she tried to talk Larry David into keeping ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ alive, what she makes of ‘Curb’ star Cheryl Hines embracing the MAGA movement alongside her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr., channeling her experience with aging into Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance on ‘Hacks,’ and a lot more.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Last Laugh.
0:06.6	I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and this week on the show, we have a comedian who has worked on basically all of the funniest shows of the past four decades, Carol Leifer.
0:17.3	Carol started out as a stand-up comic in the late 70s, but quickly became better known
0:22.4	as a writer on shows like, let's see, Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld, the Larry Sanders show,
0:28.7	and Curb Your Enthusiasm, to name a few. Oh, and she also just won her first ever Emmy Award
0:34.2	this past year for her work on another of my favorite comedy shows, Hacks.
0:38.9	As you can imagine, Carol and I had a ton of ground to cover in this episode, including her
0:43.6	current job as one of the writers for the upcoming Academy Awards, hosted this year by Conan O'Brien.
0:50.1	It's Carol's 11th time writing for the Oscars, after previously working with hosts Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres, and several others.
0:59.1	Carol also has a new book of essays called How to Write a Funny Speech, which we get into as well.
1:04.7	Before we get to the interview, let's listen to a clip from one of the many iconic Seinfeld episodes Carol wrote.
1:11.4	This one about a loaf of marble rye.
1:15.3	Thank God that's all.
1:17.2	The mother seems to hit the sauce pretty hard.
1:20.4	I didn't like that.
1:21.7	And who doesn't serve cake after a meal?
1:24.4	What kind of people would kill them to put out a pound cake? Something.
1:29.4	So they didn't give you a piece of cake. Big deal.
1:31.5	It is a big deal. You're supposed to serve cake after a meal. I'm sorry. It's impolite.
1:37.4	Not impolite. Stupid. That's what it is. You gotta be stupid to do something like that.
1:41.9	Your father is absolutely right.
1:48.9	We're sitting there like idiots, drinking coffee, without a piece of cake.
	...

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