AISHA TYLER NEWS, INTERVIEWS & UPDATES



News for 9/18/2006


Tyler investigates Fox "Death"

By Sheigh Crabtree


LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Actress Aisha Tyler, a recent guest film critic on "Ebert and Roeper," will star opposite Kevin Bacon in the vigilante drama "Death Sentence."

The Fox project centers on a father (Bacon) out for revenge after his family is attacked in a heinous gang-initiation crime. The father acts on his own sense of justice by going after each person involved in the crime. Tyler plays a homicide detective who aids Bacon's character despite her growing suspicions that he might have committed murder.

James Wan is directing the adaptation of Brian Garfield's novel, in which Tyler's character is written as a 50-year-old man. The role was revised by the filmmakers during casting.

Tyler was a regular on CBS' "The Ghost Whisperer." On the film side, she most recently appeared in Disney's "The Santa Clause 2" and next appears in Rogue Pictures' upcoming pingpong comedy "Balls of Fury."



News for 8/22/2006


The following article appeared in the June 2006 issue of InStyle Magazine





News for 7/16/2006


The following article appeared in the March/April 2006 issue of Hollywood Life Magazine





News for 2/27/2006


The following article appeared in the Janaury 2006 issue of InStyle Magazine





News for 11/28/2005


The following article appeared in the September 2005 issue of Glamour Magazine





News for 4/18/2005


Actress Tyler Inks for Lifetime, Indie Roles

By Nellie Andreeva


LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In what has already been a busy year for her, Aisha Tyler is adding roles in a Lifetime movie and an independent feature.

Tyler, who plays a recurring character on CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and Fox's "24" and a lead in CBS' John Gray pilot, is set to star opposite Raven Symone in the Lifetime film tentatively titled "For One Night." She also has joined Milla Jovovich, Angus Macfadyen and Stephen Dorff in Mobius Entertainment's indie project."45."

"For One Night," slated to start production next month in New Orleans, centers on a black teenager (Symone) who, with the help of a newspaper reporter (Tyler), braves decades of segregation to stage the first interracial high school prom in the history of their small town.

Written and to be directed by Gary Lennon, ".45" is described as an erotic drama set in the seamy underworld of New York's Hell's Kitchen, where a Bonnie and Clyde-like couple turn on each other. Tyler will play a court-appointed social worker who interacts with Jovovich's character. Filming is scheduled to begin this week in Toronto.

CBS' untitled John Gray drama pilot, in which Tyler stars opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt, is based on James Van Praagh psychic work. Tyler's casting in the project, which is in contention for fall, stems from her talent deal with the network inked in October.



News for 3/16/2005


The following article appeared in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Movieline's Hollywood Life Magazine





News for 3/10/2005


CBS Casting: Tyler Sees Dead People


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) The combination of Jennifer Love Hewitt and Aisha Tyler doesn't necessarily sound like a obvious pairing for a drama about a women who communicates with the dead. CBS is going out on a limb, though, adding Tyler, best known as a comic, to the network's untitled John Gray drama pilot.

The untitled John Gray drama (known in some reports as "Ghost Whisper") is based on the psychic work of James Van Praagh and features Hewitt ("Garfield," "Party of Five") as a newlywed who can talk to dead people. According to The Hollywood Reporter. Tyler will play her best friend. The actress signed a talent deal with CBS back in October and stated her willingness at the time to do either a drama or comedy pilot.

Tyler, the former host on "The 5th Wheel" and "Talk Soup," established her reputation as a comic, but has spent the past year slowly building a foundation of dramatic work. She has done series turns on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "24" and "Nip/Tuck" in recent months.



News for 2/17/2005

The following article appeared in the January 30, 2005 issue of TV Guide Magazine





News for 10/19/2004


Tyler Makes a Home at CBS


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) Actress/comedian Aisha Tyler, who has a recurring part on "CSI" this season, is staying in the CBS family.

Tyler has signed a talent deal with the network, which will now look for a series project for her, targeted for fall 2005. Tyler says she's open to either comedy or drama projects.

"With me coming off two dramas ['CSI' and FOX's '24' later this season], we'll be able to cast the net a little wider," she tells The Hollywood Reporter. "We are open to any idea that's original and fresh."

Tyler began her six-episode stint on "CSI" last week, playing a scientist who offers her expertise to the Las Vegas CSI team. She'll play a CTU data analyst on "24" when it returns to FOX in January. Tyler also earned glowing reviews for a guest appearance on FX's "Nip/Tuck" this season.

In addition to her "CSI" role, Tyler starred in a sitcom pilot for CBS this spring and guest-hosted "The Late Late Show" earlier this month.

Tyler is probably most recognizable for her recurring role on "Friends," in which she played Ross' (David Schwimmer) girlfriend Charlie over parts of the show's final two seasons. She also hosted "Talk Soup" on E! and the syndicated dating show "The 5th Wheel" and appeared in "The Santa Clause 2."



News for 9/1/2004


Dramatic Turn for Busy Tyler with 'CSI,' '24'

By Nellie Andreeva


LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Actress/stand-up comedian Aisha Tyler has landed guest-starring roles on two Emmy-nominated crime dramas: CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and Fox's "24."

On "CSI," she will play a quirky scientist who comes to work with Las Vegas' nocturnal crime-fighters. On "24," Tyler will play a data analyst who shakes things up at the Counter Terrorism Unit.

She will debut in the third episodes of both series and will appear in three episodes of each show with an option for three more.

Tyler is best known for her comedic performances, most notably a stint on NBC's "Friends" last year, and her hosting duties on E! Entertainment's "Talk Soup."

She departed from her comedy roots with a guest-starring role on FX's cosmetic surgery drama "Nip/Tuck" this summer. Her performance as a Somali model and victim of genital mutilation who undergoes reconstructive surgery drew the attention of drama series casting directors and led to her gigs on "CSI" and "24."

"Both '24' and 'CSI' are great shows. I'm a huge fan of both," Tyler said. "It was an opportunity to do something very, very different because not only are they dramas, but the characters are very different from any characters I've played in the past. And as an actor, you always want to spread your wings as far as you can."

Tyler's book of comic essays, "Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Post-Modern Girl," came out in February.



News for 7/13/2004


The following article appeared in the July 2004 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine





News for 6/9/2004


The Africana QA: Aisha Tyler



News for 2/17/2004


Postmodern girl navigates her fast-paced world

BY PAIGE WISER
Staff Reporter
Chicago SunTimes


It never occurred to Aisha Tyler to coast on her looks. "I could not coast!" she insists. "I was a very unpopular, geeky kid. I was the only black kid in my school for most of my young life. I hit 5-10 in, like, the fifth grade. I was the only poor kid, and I wore glasses until in high school -- pink, awful glasses that made me look confused all the time.

"I was the weird, bookish, 'thinky' kid who played alone a lot."

These days, Tyler has to admit that she is one of the popular girls. As the first black regular character on "Friends," she is in with the in-est of Hollywood in-crowds. On the show, she's made out with David Schwimmer; in real life, she's making a sitcom for CBS with Lisa Kudrow as a producer.

Now she's busy promoting her new book, Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern Girl (Dutton, $21.95). Although Tyler talks almost alarmingly fast, she's had to postpone the phone interview twice -- once for USA Today (understandable) and once for Ryan Seacrest (unforgivable).

"All my days are like this," she apologizes.

She does have quite a bit going on. Tyler is a comedian, a TV and film actress, and is in the early stages of recording a pop album. She recently appeared twice in the same issue of Us Weekly magazine with two different ages listed (32 and 33; she won't clarify), and she always has that Dartmouth degree to fall back on.

Swerve was written for "the girl who is in control, making her own money, driving her own car, drinking red wine with seafood, charging headlong toward her destiny." It's a collection of long-form comedic essays, covering such stream-of-consciousness topics as karaoke, deep-fried Twinkies, strip clubs, Molly Ringwald and bikini waxes.

(Regarding that last subject: "It's a very peculiar form of self-abuse under the guise of hygiene," says Tyler.)

The book reads like a Venti-caffeinated conversation with your smartest friend. "It was an opportunity to talk about stuff I wasn't able to address in my stage act," says Tyler. And then there are the footnotes. "The footnotes were a way to say more and not make it sound like some run-on diarrhea of the mind," she explains.

It's not just a book for girlfriends, though. "It's a book for everyone, about my specific point of view about things. I never wanted to be the kind of comedian who only spoke to women," she says. "You can consider me 'supragender.' Which is better than hermaphrodite." She pauses, then quickly adds, "Not that that's a bad thing to be."

Tyler has been many things since growing up geeky in San Francisco. To please her parents, she graduated with an Ivy League degree in government and worked as an advertising executive. She originally hoped to be an environmental lawyer ("I wanted to save the world") but got sidetracked by standup comedy. In 2001, the 6-foot-tall beauty succeeded Greg Kinnear as the host of E!'s "Talk Soup." Now she's living in Los Angeles with her husband, lawyer Jeff Tietjens.

She still hopes to write another book, produce a film, perform her own stunts in an action movie -- and save the world.

Also: "I've not been in the 'Stars are just like us!' section of Us magazine."

Tyler is, technically, not like us; now she's running really late for a designer dress fitting. She manages to be self-deprecating about the art of comedy anyway. "All we do is embarrass ourselves, say the wrong thing at the right time."

If she's said some wrong things in her book, she's not worried about it. "Once you say something, you just have to let it go," Tyler says. "Comedians are always saying things that they later regret. That part of your psyche just withers and passes away.

"You can't apologize. You say it, and then back it up."

Aisha on:

Having a sense of humor:

If you are the president, a brain surgeon, that guy with the big headphones who looks concernedly at the computer screens as the space shuttle is taking off, or the Pope, you are allowed to not have a sense of humor. Everyone else needs to lighten up.

Reality dating:

The real satisfaction comes after the show is over. As soon as the lights go off, you have two people staring at each other, each thinking the same thing: "I have spent a cumulative 47 minutes with this person. I'm not in love with them. I don't know them at all. What's more, they seem to be a little bit of a fame-obsessed spotlight whore."

Bikini waxes:

"The thing you need to remember, as someone is applying hot wax to your most delicate of nether regions -- a special place touched only by yourself, your gynecologist, and a few (hopefully) very well-vetted suitors with impeccable hygiene -- pressing strips of muslin cloth (why not silk? why?) against that wax, then ripping it away mercilessly, taking all of the hair and most of the top layer of skin with it, is that you paid for this. It was your idea to strip from the waist down, climb up on a paper-covered table, and let a girl, who clearly has no medical training, and with whom you have not made out beforehand, touch you, repeatedly, and in a most painful way, all about the pelvis."



A funny thing happened on the way to law school

Aisha Tyler found comedy in college, and there's no stopping her

By Vanessa E. Jones
Globe Staff


NEW YORK -- Two years ago people knew Aisha Tyler as the wacky host of E!'s compendium of talk-show clips, "Talk Soup." These days she's seeping into every corner of the entertainment world.

If you haven't heard her voice urging rapper Kanye West to "Do it faster, baby/Do it faster" on the ironic ode to vintage R&B "Slow Jamz," then you might have seen her in the heavily rotated video. Last year she broke into mainstream consciousness with an extended guest appearance on "Friends." Now she's working on her own sitcom for CBS that will be produced by newfound friend Lisa Kudrow. Her current venture? A nonfiction book released last month called "Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern Girl" that sits comfortably in the feminist or comic sections of bookstores.

Not bad for a Dartmouth College graduate who began her comedy career 10 years ago touring colleges in a smelly van. This San Francisco native gets audiences laughing by talking about her discomfort straddling the worlds of her white private school and her black neighborhood.

"I just never was a Def Comedy Jam comic, and I'm not afraid to admit that, you know what I mean?" Tyler says. "That's just not my voice, and I wanted to be honest about that, because as a kid I was made to feel bad about it. Made me feel bad about the way I dressed. Made me feel bad that I was going to a white school. Black people from my neighborhood teased me and tried to beat me up because, you know, I was different. Now I really try to embrace the fact that I'm different."

Fans are embracing that difference as well. The two-year stint on "Talk Soup" raised her profile so much that she hosted the syndicated dating show "The 5th Wheel" and got bit parts in HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and the film "The Santa Clause 2." Now she's a favorite of the Maxim/Esquire crowd, ranking No. 74 on the former's Hot 100 list and garnering a mention in the latter's "Women We Love" issue.

Tyler maintains her profile by playing the Hollywood starlet game. Her face is photographed at all the right parties. She recently made the scene at the Sundance Film Festival, where she promoted her film "Meet Market" and broke her right elbow snowboarding. When she settles into her midtown hotel room for a chat and photo session with a reporter and photographer, she's accompanied by her husband and publicist, who observe the proceedings.

In these celebrity-obsessed times, Tyler has learned to keep the things closest to her heart off-limits. No more doling out the names of her husband, mother, and father. No more telling her age, either.

"There's so much cannibalism of relationships right now," she says after her husband, a lawyer, declines to give his name. "It's awful, you know. Couples just get devoured."

Her mother once liberally sent clippings about Tyler to friends, but now she just wants the public to leave her alone. "Everybody knows I'm your mother. There's no peace," Tyler's mother tells her.

As for the age question, Tyler says, "You can find it. I encourage you to look." Getting the answer is as easy as typing www.imdb.com, which lists her birth date as Sept. 18, 1970.

Even as she swats away personal questions, Tyler remains warm, friendly, and self-deprecating. That generosity of spirit is what made her so appealing to Dan Bucatinsky, coproducer of Tyler's yet-to-be-named CBS pilot.

"She was the most unlikely person, seeing her across the room at a party, that I would imagine becoming one of my close friends, and yet the minute we started talking we hit it off," he says. "I just find her amazingly relatable, down to earth, and inclusive. . . . A lot of times you'll meet a comedian who feels in their gut this sense of competition. They have to be the funniest person in the room. Aisha will be making you laugh and just as easily laugh hysterically at something you said."

Words seem to rush out of her mouth. The terms she's particularly enamored of are "like" and "you know." As she talks, her body moves back and forth like a slowly undulating wave. In comedian mode, she leans forward, her voice crescendoing, her uninjured arm animated. When the story's over, she leans back, her voice returns to normal, and she thoughtfully runs her fingers through her hair.

She's in hair-stroking mode as she remembers the explosive effect of seeing her first comedy show in college. It was at the campus pub Eleazar's Dungeon, and a comedian -- Tyler doesn't remember his name -- was riffing on Tyrannosaurus Rex. He joked about how it must have been a sexually frustrated animal, and that's why it became extinct.

What Tyler loved, she says, was the physical effects the jokes had on the audience -- "how people are laughing uncontrollably, you know. Like your stomach hurts and your cheeks hurt and you're punching your neighbor, you're almost crying, and you've got that kind of laugh where you feel like air is barely squeaking out of your throat. . . . I left feeling so elated, and I thought this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen."

Not that she considered making a career of it. Her mother was an art teacher with a master's degree in fine arts; her father is a photographer. Tyler describes her family as "hell-bent on academics," and her sole goal was to get a law degree.

The arts was something she did on the side. In high school she'd cut class to take the school's improv course with her now-famous peers Margaret Cho and Sam Rockwell. She spent time between Dartmouth classes performing skits and singing in the a cappella group Rockapella.

After graduating with a government major from Dartmouth in 1992, Tyler went the traditional route and got a job. But toiling in client services at a San Francisco advertising agency didn't fulfill her.

"I was depressed," she says, softly and distinctly. "I didn't know why. I didn't know why. I didn't know why. And I thought maybe it's because I was not doing anything creative."

So Tyler tried comedy. She paid $3 to climb onstage at San Francisco's now-defunct Holy City Zoo comedy club, which Tyler describes as "this 20-seat dive" with church pew seating. It was a comedy mecca where Robin Williams, Ellen DeGeneres, and Rob Schneider had performed.

The response was positive enough to convince Tyler to pursue it as a career. In 1994, she quit her job, got married, and embarked on a four-month national tour in a van with two other comedians. They performed in lunch rooms and dorms to an often impassive audience.

"It was great for a comedian," she says. "You don't really learn until you go through something like that."

Three years later, she and her husband moved to Los Angeles. In the intervening years, Tyler the comedian began to evolve.

"When I first started in stand-up, I really did a lot to mask my femininity," she says. "I never wore makeup. I wore my hair in a ponytail. I used to wear this man's shirt, this shroud, because I just didn't want people to look at me. . . . I was just very concerned that people weren't going to hear what I had to say. If they think you're attractive, they think you are dumb."

So it's not surprising that "Swerve" offers comedy with a feminist twist. In one chapter, she details her frustration as a child with being called "sassy" for speaking her mind, while talkative boys got no such label. In another, she describes how celebrity culture makes women lust for skinny bodies that are unattainable even to people in the entertainment industry. Tyler will bluntly tell you it takes hours of makeup and wardrobe plus a touch of Photoshop to look the way she does in magazines.

She grabs "Swerve" and flips to the section about the feminist audience that hissed at her when she joked about bulimia. "I was so upset that I was a woman and I was not allowed to own bulimia," she says. "I think that's the frustration a lot of young women have with feminism: It's so dogmatic. It's so rigid."

Tyler can embrace the ideology yet still pose in her underwear for the Maxim photo shoot (she addresses that issue in another chapter). That's probably why men find her comedic voice palatable even though it's strongly female. "I think of myself as living feminism everyday," she says. "I should feel free to laugh at dirty jokes, and I should be able to feel free to go to the strip clubs -- whatever it is! That's part of what it means to be a feminist."

Tyler considers her work a success when people tell her she didn't fit their preconceived notions. She's been doing the unexpected for decades.

"Sadly, when I was a kid," she says, "and I was the only black kid in school, people assumed that I liked this kind of music, I ate this kind of food, I dressed this way, I talked this way. And I didn't. I was a kid who -- if I'm going to be the only black kid, I'm going to be the crazy black girl. I was the snowboarder. I was the rock climber."

That spirit also informs the pilot she's working on. The workplace comedy centers around a woman who had her life mapped out in her 20s but finds herself nowhere near those objectives when she reaches her 30s.

"The Mary Tyler Moore Show" inspires this program, not urban sitcoms. The writers are Bill Martin and Mike Schiff, creators of the family comedy "Grounded for Life." The goal is to do "a sophisticated show," says Tyler, a smart comedy on the level of a "Will & Grace," "Frasier," or "Seinfeld."

Unexpected, perhaps, but Tyler's used to being different.



Hewitt, Tyler Pilots Get Go-Ahead


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - ABC and CBS have each added to their roster of comedy pilots for next season, greenlighting vehicles for Jennifer Love Hewitt, Aisha Tyler and a comic who goes by the name of Earthquake.

The two ABC orders are for presentations rather than full pilots, according to The Hollywood Reporter. One will star Hewitt ("Party of Five") as a producer of a sports show who is thrust into an on-camera role.

The untitled show is based on a story by Hewitt and former "Freaks and Geeks" writers Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah. Sachs and Judah are writing the pilot, which is set up at ABC sibling Touchstone TV, and will executive produce with Hewitt and Kim Kovac.

ABC has also asked for a presentation from comedian Earthquake (real name: Nathaniel Stroman), who will star as a father who considers himself the unluckiest man on the planet. The Touchstone-Tollin/Robbins production was written by Les Fierstein ("Wanda at Large," "The Drew Carey Show"), who will executive produce with David Himelfarb, David Goldman, Mike Tollin, Brian Robbins and Joe Davola.

CBS, meanwhile, has given the formal go-ahead to a pilot starring Tyler ("Friends") and executive produced by her former co-star, Lisa Kudrow. "Grounded for Life" creators Bill Martin and Mike Schiff are writing the pilot, about a single New Yorker who leaves her job at a funky design company for the corporate world.

Martin and Schiff will executive produce with Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky, whose company, Is Or Isn't Entertainment, developed the show with Warner Bros. TV.



News for 1/12/2004


The following article appeared in the December 2003 issue of InStyle Magazine





News for 12/10/2003


Tyler Going to Work for CBS Pilot

By Nellie Andreeva and Cynthia Littleton


LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Friends" co-star Lisa Kudrow and Aisha Tyler, who recently had a recurring role on the hit sitcom, are staying close friends with a workplace comedy set up at CBS.

Tyler will star in the project, which is described as being in the vein of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Kudrow will serve as an executive producer. "Grounded for Life" creators Bill Martin and Mike Schiff have come on board to write the pilot.

"Basically, it's about a woman trying to maintain her sanity and self-respect in a modern corporate environment," said Martin.

Tyler hosted E! Entertainment's "Talk Soup." Her feature credits include "The Santa Clause 2" and the upcoming "Meet Market."

"We'll try to fashion a show around Aisha, capitalizing on her smart, fun, sophisticated, accessible personality," said Dan Bucatinsky, Kudrow's production partner.

When Kudrow and Bucatinsky their Is or Isn't Entertainment banner in May, "the first business we wanted to pursue was Aisha," Kudrow said. "She grabbed my and everybody's attention because she is such a great actress. She is smart and warm; it is an incredible combination."

Kudrow, who is wrapping the 10th and final season of "Friends," next appears on the big screen in "Happy Endings."



News for 5/31/2003


Article from the April 25, 2003 issue of Entertainment Weekly Magazine.





News for 5/28/2003


From the April 28, 2003 issue of US Magazine





News for 4/23/2003


A new addition to 'Friends'


BEVERLY HILLS, California (AP) -- Aisha Tyler looks at a reporter's hand extended in greeting and declines to shake. Is the new addition to "Friends" unfriendly? No, just considerate.

"I have a cold," she says apologetically, clutching a tissue. It takes more than a minor bug to keep Tyler down, however. The actress and comedian is energetic, smart and, sniffles or not, a real stunner.

Tyler, who begins a four-week run on "Friends" starting next Thursday, April 24 (8 p.m. EST), also happens to be among the very few nonwhite love interests -- or faces, for that matter -- to grace the popular NBC comedy.

Ross (David Schwimmer) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) compete for the attentions of Tyler's character, a sexy paleontologist who shares Ross' passion for dinosaurs.

She's not the first nonwhite girlfriend on "Friends," Tyler points out -- Asian-American actress Lauren Tom and Gabrielle Union, who's black, have appeared. But Tyler has a sustained role in a show that's been criticized for whitewashing multiethnic Manhattan.

"The role wasn't written particularly for an African-American. I think they were just trying to cast the right actress," Tyler said.

She nearly didn't survive hearing the good news from her manager, delivered by cell phone while Tyler was driving in Los Angeles traffic.

"I screeched over and practically killed three people. And I started banging on my car and it was new and I was thinking I probably shouldn't bang on my car," she said. "It was the biggest thing in the whole world."


'I just set out to be funny'


Bigger even than her job as the host of E! Entertainment's "Talk Soup." In 2001, she became its first female host (following Greg Kinnear, John Henson and Hal Sparks).

The 11-year-old comedy show ended last year but helped make her a media darling: Esquire magazine deemed her one of the "Women We Love" and Maxim listed her among its "Hot 100." It also won her the devotion of fans, including high school and college boys who write such sweet nothings as "You're the funniest chick I've ever seen" and offer to buy her a beer.

When Tyler tried out for "Talk Soup," she thought the show would never hire a black woman. "I was just going to go in and have a fun time."

Given a shot as guest host, she drew such an overwhelming response from viewers that she was hired full time. Witty and sexy -- what's not to like? Others appreciated what she stood for as well.

"What's wonderful is there are people who would write in saying, 'It's so great to see a smart, offbeat black woman on TV. ... But I don't think I set out to have a standard-bearer career. I just set out to be funny and communicate with people."

Being an agent of social change is "a heavy burden," she said, jokingly. But she knows that pop culture images carry weight.

"Typically, black women are not seen as attractive in white culture, so maybe it's a coup for a black woman who isn't light to appeal to black and white men," she told Heart & Soul magazine last year. "Maybe it's a coup for us that we start to be seen as attractive -- not as pretty for black girls, but just beautiful, period."


Trying new things


The 6-foot Tyler is accustomed to being in the vanguard, by choice or not. Her family (her father is a photographer, her mother a teacher) stretched itself financially to send her to a private school in San Francisco, where she was at times the only black student.

"And my parents were vegetarians. I'd show up at school, this giant black kid, with none of the cool clothes and a tofu sandwich and celery sticks," she recalled over afternoon tea at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

"It was very alienating and I could have just laid down and died. Instead I said, 'I'm going to make friends.' I was forced to intersect and interact and assimilate with a lot of other kids."

As a performer, she said, that has given her the ability to reach out across ethnic and gender lines. Hard work was also part of the formula: After graduating as a political science major from Dartmouth College (where she met her husband, attorney Jeff Tietjens), she worked days as an advertising executive in San Francisco and nights honing her stand-up skills at clubs.

Tyler, 32, hasn't abandoned her work ethic. Besides "Friends," there are movies (including "The Santa Clause 2" and the upcoming "Never Die Alone" with David Arquette) and a "comedic, post-feminist anti-'The Rules' " book she's writing -- which she intends as an antidote to the best-selling dating manual.

The next step? She admires Jennifer Aniston's career but has her eye on another Hollywood role model.

"I'm looking forward to doing work like Eddie Murphy did early in his career -- action-comedy films," Tyler said. "I'd like to do that because no woman's done it yet. It'd be cool to do something no one's done before."

For Tyler, being a groundbreaker is second nature.