A stranger cut her when she was a toddler playing in her front yard

From the multiple Emmy wins for "30 Rock" to the Sarah Palin impersonations on "Saturday Night Live," comedian Tina Fey has become a name and face that everybody has come to recognize this year.

Being thrust into the spotlight has drawn attention to a thin scar on the left side of her face, which Fey explains in the January issue of Vanity Fair was the result of a childhood attack.

"It's impossible to talk about it without somehow seemingly exploiting it and glorifying it," says the 38-year-old comedian.

When Fey was only 5 years old and living in Upper Darby, Penn., a stranger attacked her out of the blue.

Explains her husband, Jeff Richmond: "It was in, like, the front yard of her house, and somebody who just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen."

Fey dealt with the trama well though and didn't think of the resulting scar until adulthood.

"I proceeded unaware of it. I was a very confident little kid. It's really almost like I'm kind of able to forget about it, until I was on-camera," says Fey, who often shoots scenes with her right side to the camera.

Also in the interview, the 5-foot 4-inch actress reveals how she was had to lose 30 pounds when she started at "Saturday Night Live" and addresses the criticism about her spoof of vice-presidential candidate Palin.

"What made me super-mad about it was that it seemed very sexist toward me and her," she says. "The implication was that she's so fragile, which she is not. She's a strong woman.

"And then, also, it was sexist because, like, who would ever go, 'Well, I thought it was sort of mean to Richard Nixon when Dan Aykroyd played him,' and 'That seemed awful mean to George Bush when Will Ferrell did it.'"

Fey currently portrays Liz Lemon, the head writer of a fictional sketch comedy series on her show "30 Rock." Her big-screen writing and acting credits include "Baby Mama" and "Mean Girls."