STRAIGHT TALK
By Jeffrey Zaslow
Issue date:
May 17-19, 1998
Lisa Nicole Carson:Her roles on two of TV's hottest shows, ER and Ally McBeal, keep her hopping,
but she has even bigger plans. "Life is a full meal," says the 28-year-old
actress.  Like many other Americans, Lisa Nicole Carson holds down more than
one job. On Fox's Ally McBeal, she's Ally's feisty roommate. On NBC's
ER, she's the mother of Dr. Benton's son. She's filming a movie,
Life, with Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy. A few Mondays ago, she
appeared on two Fox sitcoms, Damon and Getting Personal, plus
Ally McBeal. Her advice for people who punch a lot of clocks: "It
helps if you really enjoy your jobs." She grins. "If you don't, then just think
about the money." The Brooklyn-born Carson, 28, always has many roles in her.
She played Yenta the matchmaker in a grade-school production of Fiddler on the
Roof but craved more. "I wanted to be Tevye. I wanted to be all his daughters
at once. I knew everybody's lines, everyone's inflections. I wanted to sing
Sunrise, Sunset so badly it was killing me." She thought her big break
had come in 1992, with a role in the final episode of The Cosby Show. She
had two lines to say, but both were cut. She was crushed to have to stand there,
mute. She tried to ad-lib but was reprimanded. "Not one word!" an assistant
director snapped. So Carson made her mark with facial expressions. "I tried
to have this attitude and emotion in my face." Her message for viewers: "I had
lines to say, and if you could hear them, they'd be damn good!" The moral of her
story: "You have to find a way." Carson has big plans. A former lead singer
for a female rock band, she expects to record her own R&B/ pop compositions.
She dreams of a career like Barbra Streisand's."I'm unable to ignore the gift
that God gave me," she says, "so I'm going to sing."
Photo Credit: SANDRA JOHNSON FOR USA WEEKEND
ASK CARSON FOR ADVICE Lisa Nicole Carson
will write or call a reader who seeks advice. By May
24, write to "Straight Talk," P.O. Box 3455, Chicago, Ill. 60654 (fax:
312-661-0375; e-mail:
talk@usaweekend.com).
Advice Men are the "hot sauce":
"For some women, a man is their whole meal. For me, life is a full meal
and a man is just the hot sauce. If a man wants to be my whole meal, I say,
'That's nice, baby, but right now, I'm already full.' '' Coed
restrooms could be "fantastic":
"It would be cool washing your
hands and having a conversation [with someone of the opposite sex]." On TV's
Ally McBeal, male and female lawyers share a bathroom. "They're having a
lot of fun in there." Forgive yourself
"Everybody
has made mistakes; everybody has faults. I'm not perfect. So I have to forgive
myself." "It's fabulous being a black woman":
"Being black and an actress is a challenge. It's the burden and the
blessing I was born with. It's a burden because there aren't a lot of roles. It's
a blessing because it's fabulous being a black woman. I wouldn't change places
with anyone in the world."
Zaslow is an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
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