Elizabeth Meriwether

Her writing drew comparisons to Woody Allen and Judd Apatow, but for Elizabeth Meriwether, who went by the nickname Liz, the unique comedic voice she displayed on television ("New Girl" Fox, 2011- ) and in the movies ("No Strings Attached," 2011), was clearly all her own. After making a name for herself as a writer of darkly comic plays in New York, Meriwether drew the attention of Hollywood in 2006 after she wrote a sexually brazen TV pilot called "Sluts." Although the pilot was ultimately deemed unproduceable, it did catch the attention of comedy producer Ivan Reitman, who hired Meriwether to write a coming of age comedy about a couple of twentysomethings whose friendship becomes complicated once they begin sleeping together. Her script landed on the 2008 Blacklist, Hollywood's yearly ranking of the top unproduced screenplays. However, the film that was ultimately produced, 2011's "No Strings Attached," was a watered-down version of Meriwether's original text. Undeterred, that same year saw the debut of "New Girl," starring Zooey Deschanel as a young woman sharing a loft with three single men. Meriwether found the television medium to be much more freeing creatively, and by the spring of 2013 "New Girl" had become the most watched show for young women between the ages of 18 and 34. All Allen and Apatow comparisons aside, by 2013 Meriwether had firmly established herself as a rising comedic talent to watch - and one that just happened to be female.