I’m not feeling well when I answer the phone. Itโ€™s that season, I suppose. The one that can leave you talking through your noseโ€”freezing with unexplained shivers in one stuffed breath, and sweating like a UFC fighter in the next. Basically, itโ€™s a day
that reminds me how grateful I am to have a work-fromhome gig that sees mismatched Old Navy pajamas and
a Lululemon headband as formalwear. When I answer, however, itโ€™s Lisa Edelsteinโ€”better known as Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy, on David Shoreโ€™s awardwinning medical drama House, M.D. And while I am tempted to ask this endocrinologist-posing thespian what she suggests I do for my cold, I have to remind myself that her convincing portrayal of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital administrator is just that: a portrayal. Because, turns out, thereโ€™s a whole lot more to Lisa Edelstein than serving as foil to the he-said-what?! Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Laurie.

From her introduction to television in the early 1990s as the nightlife-savvy Lisa E on MTVโ€™s Awake on the Wild Side and early appearances in comedy classics like Seinfeld, to bigger roles in programs like The West Wing, Ally McBeal, and The Practice, Edelsteinโ€™s career has been climbing in the right direction for the last decade and a half. But as she talks to me from her century-old home in Los Angeles, I learn that intelligently written scripts arenโ€™t the only things sprawled around her house. There is also a dog and cat. And more than a fair share of yoga mats.

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