Jaime Pressly's one bit of awards recognition to date is an MTV Movie Awards nod for best line in the teen flick spoof Not Another Teen Movie. Playing a bitchy blond cheerleader, Pressly responds to a rival's challenge to "bring it" by snapping her head back, widening her eyes, and proclaiming, "Oh, it's already been broughten!" The moment is hilarious, thanks to Pressly's kamikaze commitment to that single line. But is it too much to ask that she start landing kudos on a larger scale—like, say, a few trophies for her no-holds-barred performance as Joy, the trashy, scheming ex-wife in NBC's My Name Is Earl? On the one hand, it might not seem like a long shot: Earl, which stars Jason Lee as a scruffy loser attempting to right all the wrongs committed throughout his checkered life, is critically beloved and commercially successful, one of the current season's few breakout hits. On the other hand, awards voters don't seem to give much credit to actors such as Pressly: that is, female actors cast largely for their looks and perhaps best-known for being aesthetically pleasing.
Oh, I know. It sounds so ridiculous: Don't hate me because I'm beautiful! And there are probably other factors that account for these actors being left off the ballot. But there seems to be a trend—at least as far as TV kudos are concerned—in snubbing actors who, prior to landing that revelatory role, were notable for their physical assets rather than their acting chops. Take Kristin Davis on Sex and the City. Before joining the show, she was best-known as one of the beautiful people on Melrose Place. While her Sex co-stars—Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kim Cattrall—racked up nominations and wins throughout the series' run, Davis was consistently shut out, despite her stellar work as marriage-minded Charlotte York. Davis scored a couple of times as part of the cast, when the quartet picked up Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2002 and 2004 for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series. But it wasn't until the series' final year that Davis was lauded on her own with Emmy- and Golden Globe nominations. One can't help but feel that voters took Davis, with her sudsy past, less than seriously.
History seems to be repeating itself these days with another female-dominated water-cooler show: Desperate Housewives. While three of Housewives' big four—Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, and Felicity Huffman—nabbed multiple nods, Eva Longoria, a sex symbol since her days on The Young and the Restless, has been left out in the cold. Unfortunately awards voters don't seem to be aware that, in addition to being named Maxim's No. 1 hottest woman in the world, Longoria is also turning in a fine, funny performance every week. Gabrielle Solis, the model-turned–trophy wife of Wisteria Lane, isn't always an easy character to like. She's shallow, manipulative, and generally most concerned with things such as fitting into a size double-zero couture frock. Yet, Longoria consistently gains our sympathy for Gaby, particularly when the character is put into uncomfortable situations. Take last season, when she was forced to work a series of humiliating odd jobs: selling mattresses on Valentine's Day, showcasing cars at a local mall. Longoria ably conveyed the character's inner frustration with the most subtle and hilarious of facial expressions, and somehow even allowed Gaby to hold on to a few shreds of dignity. Or what about this season's story line, in which the character miscarried, losing the unborn baby she didn't think she wanted in the first place?
Entertainment Weekly's Michael Slezak was particularly impressed with a scene in which Gabrielle finally expresses her pain over the miscarriage. "Props go out to Longoria…for managing to wring both pathos and belly laughs from a line as tricky as, 'How can you name something the size of a walnut?'" Slezak wrote on the magazine's website. "Delivering dialogue that, on first glance, makes Gaby sound as if she were cracking jokes about her recently lost fetus, Longoria offered just the briefest flash of the pain beneath her character's comic mask."
Speaking of delivering unlikely lines with gusto, Portia de Rossi has perfected the art on FOX's consistently gut-busting Arrested Development. As superficial, cause-obsessed Lindsay Bluth, de Rossi has the ability to slice into a line with the precision of a boning knife. My favorite will forever remain an exchange between Lindsay and brother Michael (Jason Bateman) in the series' first season. After Michael accuses Lindsay of not knowing what an upcoming charity auction is for, she responds, "The wetlands." "To do what with them?" asks Michael. Without missing a beat, de Rossi declares with perfect clueless panache, "Dry them."
Before she landed on Arrested, de Rossi was known for standing around and looking pretty as lawyer Nelle Porter on Ally McBeal. Unlike other actors on that series, she never got much of an opportunity to show off her comedic chops; she mostly played straight woman and sexy ice queen and was woefully misused in the process. "[Nelle] was supposed to be a tough attorney," de Rossi told Entertainment Weekly in 2004. "I could have done without bedding my boss and standing in my underwear three episodes in." It was something of a revelation, then, to see her go toe-to-toe with comedic veterans such as Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor and match them in conveying Arrested's dysfunctional sensibility. Whether Lindsay is attempting to bond with her possibly gay husband (David Cross); hitting on her teenage daughter's crush; or doing a very silly, very bad imitation of a chicken, de Rossi manages to strike every comedic note in the script, as well as a few in between.
Yet, de Rossi hasn't gotten much love from awards voters, and that's a shame, as I think she's giving one of the best, most consistent performances in sitcoms today. Like Longoria's Gaby, Lindsay isn't easy to like; that we want to see more of her every week is a testament to de Rossi's performance. As de Rossi told Back Stage last year, the trick seems to be playing the character as written. "I don't make a conscious decision to try to make this character warm or likeable in any way…. She doesn't know that she's being completely inappropriate or absurd; she thinks she's being very kind and considerate," de Rossi said. "She doesn't know that it's not what normal, considerate people do and think and feel."
This brings us back to the new kid on the block: Pressly, a former model who broke into the business with roles in Poison Ivy: The New Seduction and Ringmaster. Before her turn on Earl, she was just as well-known for sexy photos in magazines such as Playboy and Stuff as for acting gigs in projects that include Joe Dirt, Torque, and TV series Jack and Jill.
I was a bit skeptical when she was cast in Earl, figuring that it was because she looked the part rather than acted it. I couldn't have been more wrong: Pressly is a perfect, hilarious match for the part, spitting out her lines with venomous glee and even imbuing the manipulative Joy with something that resembles a heart. Earl creator–executive producer Greg Garcia notes that Pressly nailed the role in one line. "When she came in and read, I think the first three words of the scene we were reading were, 'Who's the whore?'" he told Back Stage earlier this year. "She literally could have walked out of the audition after she said, 'Who's the whore?' There was nobody in the world that was going to beat her for this part."
The role of Joy, a woman who takes great pride in bedazzling her initials on her bargain-basement wedding dress, could have easily become a caricature, but something about the way Pressly makes the role her own is inspiring and ensures that it's far from one-dimensional. She's played a lot of blond bimbos in the past, but this is one with multiple comedic layers, and Pressly has acknowledged that the part represents a departure from her other roles. "You know, I've been [acting] for 11 years, so for me it's been all about the timing," she told TVGuide.com. "It's really nice to get noticed for something other than my T&A."
It would be nice if all of these women were recognized properly come awards time. Certainly there are plenty of questions: Will Longoria be snubbed until Housewives' end, Ã la Davis? Will de Rossi pull off a sentimental nod for Arrested, seeing as the critically beloved show probably won't be around next season? And will voters take notice of newbies Earl and Pressly? Whatever happens, at least these actors can be sure of one thing: They're now known at least as much for their acting as they are for looking lovely.