Vicki Lewis

By Joel Stein

Vicki Lewis is on NBC's NewsRadio and in the film Pushing Tin.

Q: Do you know what I do for a living?

A: All I know is, people tell me to be scared.

Q: Am I as scary as you hoped?

A: No. I thought you'd be weaselly, little, scrawny, darty.

Q: I'm pretty darty.

A: You're darty. But you're handsome.

Q: See, now I'll skip the questions. I got the quote I need. But O.K., do you feel a lot of rivalry with the wacky redhead on Suddenly Susan?

A: I do find it coincidental that I was on the air for a year and a half, and my real name is Vicki, and there appeared a character named Vicki dressed like my twin on a new show. They basically copied our set, and there's all the characters with their names different.

Q: Have you thought about a tug-of-war or bowling or some kind of challenge?

A: Here's a bigger word: suing.

Q: Aren't you secretly hoping they cancel NewsRadio and put it out of its misery?

A: I have two thoughts on that. One: yeah. And the other one is that this is the last year of our contract, and it's a chance for us to finally make some money: $60,000 to $70,000 an episode.

Q: Come on. You've got money.

A: I've sold out a lot. I did a commercial for Miller beer, which they never aired.

Q: I want to know how much you got, because Rick Reilly of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED did one of those.

A: I don't know how much everyone else made. I made $350,000.

Q: Who do you play on The Downtowners, the upcoming prime-time cartoon?

A: I play two characters: a fun character and an urban Jewish mom.

Q: Like my mom.

A: Are you Jewish? You don't seem Jewish. Did you have a nose job?

Q: I don't seem Jewish? My name is Joel Stein. Would "Menachem Schneerson" give it away?

--By Joel Stein