After tonight, will her name be ‘Emmy’?
Some moves seem terribly logical after they happen – like making Jaime Pressly a sitcom star.
These days, Pressly savors her “My Name is Earl” role. She plays Earl’s ex-wife Joy, sexy, selfish, and single-minded, in the NBC series that returns for a third season starting Sept. 27.
“She’s very strong-minded and says what she’s thinking,” Pressly says of the character. “That’s just the way Joy is.”
In each of the first two seasons, she’s had Emmy nominations as best supporting actress in a comedy. It’s a category without a front-runner – which would seem to give her a decent shot at winning tonight (8 p.m, Fox).
Pressly’s first two series, “Push” and “Jack & Jill,” were angst-filled dramas. “Earl” is closer to her natural state.
“I come from a very funny family,” she says. “All the Pressly men were funny.”
They were businessmen in Kinston, N.C., but they knew how to have a good time.
“My dad would tell these great stories, where every character had a different accent,” Pressly says. “We laughed at each other, all day.”
What she took seriously was dancing, modeling and acting. Pressly ended up in a lot of crime-show episodes.
Then came the “Earl” script.
“It read like an independent short,” she recalls. “I said, ‘This is not going to make it unless it has an amazing Earl.’ “
It has one in Jason Lee. Pressly, however, is the one with the Emmy nominations.
In its first season, “Earl” won Emmys for the writing, directing and casting of its pilot and for the editing of another episode. Pressly was the show’s only nominated actor.
In the second season, it earned two nominations for guest stars (Beau Bridges and Giovanni Ribisi), two for editing and one for sound-mixing. Again, Pressly is the only nominated regular.
In addition to the Emmys, “Earl” would win any contest involving body balance. Lee is a former skateboard champion; Pressly is a former dancer and gymnast.
Last season, she had to hold off on the sight gags because she was pregnant. Pressly says she and her fiance, Eric Cubiche, planned that as precisely as possible. Their son, Dezi, was born May 11, shortly after the season was done.
Pressly was back for the new season ready for fairly long days.
“This year, it’s like a well-oiled machine,” she says.
Besides, she’s working with folks who have been doing this awhile.
“This is this great set of people,” Pressly says. “I think of them as like old rock stars. … We laugh all day.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Lauren Bacall is 83. Blues singer B.B. King is 82. Actor Peter Falk is 80. Actor Ed Begley Jr. is 58. Illusionist David Copperfield is 51. Actor Mickey Rourke is 51. Actress Jennifer Tilly is 49. Comedian Molly Shannon is 43. Singer Marc Anthony is 38. Comedian Amy Poehler is 36. Singer Musiq is 30. Actress Alexis Bledel (“Gilmore Girls”) is 26. Actress Kyla Pratt (“Fat Albert,” “Dr. Doolittle”) is 21.