E-mail a friendJaime Pressly
airdate March 31, 2009
After a decade of dancing and gymnastics and a modeling career that took her throughout the U.S. and abroad, Jaime Pressly has proven herself as a capable actress. With several films and TV guest shots in the can, she found mainstream recognition and won an Emmy for her first recurring role in NBC's My Name is Earl. She can be seen in the new comedy film, I Love You, Man, and has also written It's Not Necessarily Not the Truth, in which she recounts her journey from small-town Southern girl to Hollywood success story.
My Name is Earl star says her book is a love letter to her son and a story about redemption. (2:27)
Full interview. (12:01)
Jaime Pressly
Tavis: Jaime Pressly is an Emmy-winning actress who of course stars on the hit NBC comedy "My Name is Earl." The show, now in its fourth season, airs Thursday nights on 8:00 on NBC, as if you didn't know. She's also starring in the current number one box office comedy -- you like the sound of that, don't you?
Jaime Pressly: Yeah, I do, actually. (Laughter.) That's not half bad.
Tavis: "I Love You, Man," number one comedy at the box office. You can also pick up a copy of her new book. It's called "It's Not Necessarily Not the Truth." We'll talk about that in a moment -- love that title. Before we get into all that, though, here is a clip from -- scene from "My Name is Earl."
[Clip]
Tavis: The "devil chute?"
Pressly: Yeah.
Tavis: Wow. (Laughter.)
Pressly: Yeah, our writers like to come up with creative ways of naming certain things that we're not supposed to name.
Tavis: Yeah -- the devil chute. (Laughter.) Nice to have you on.
Pressly: Oh, nice to be here, thank you.
Tavis: So season four, you're still enjoying it? You having fun?
Pressly: Absolutely. We just wrapped up shooting about a week ago, and we were all very tired after the season but very excited to be coming back and to still be a part of such a great cast and crew.
Tavis: I was just talking to somebody earlier about the fact that there are so many procedural shows on television, trying to find those comedies in the middle of all that that still work, that are funny, that are good -- it's kinda rare these days.
Pressly: It's very rare. We're very blessed to have the amazing creator that we do, Greg Garcia, who is hilariously funny at the drop of a dime and can make a line change or come up with something off the cuff immediately.
And he's so protective over all of us, as well as the scripts, and the rest of our writing team is just pretty brilliant. So we're very blessed to have such funny people that we get to work with.
Tavis: I'm making an assumption here, but I'm assuming that from time to time, in a variety of ways, you actually get feedback from Southerners as you either travel, through your email, et cetera, et cetera. Tell me I'm right or wrong, and tell me what you hear when they --
Pressly: Whether it's from Southerners or from just people in general, I get a lot of feedback from women who say that they live vicariously through my character, Joy, for 30 minutes every Thursday night, because Joy gets to say and do things that most women, or ladies, (laughter) do not get to say and do -- it's not couth for us to say and do.
And Joy just has no censor or screen from her brain to her mouth -- she says whatever she's thinking and she does whatever she wants to do. And she wants to be the center of attention and demands it when she walks in the room. And most women would love to be able to be behind that mask and play that character for even five minutes if they got the chance.
Tavis: And the character is, of course, nothing like Jaime Pressly.
Pressly: Southern women all have something in common in which we -- I think -- which we all have this survivor instinct about is where no matter what we're going to go through or what we have to endure, we know we're going to get through it no matter what. We soldier on. So we're tough, we have thick skin.
Tavis: I want to get to the book. Before I do, though, how many times a day do you get mistaken for "Hymie" Pressly?
Pressly: I used to get mistaken for Hymie a lot more when I had a regular, like, 9:00 to 5:00. I used to -- 16 years ago I had three jobs at one time; I was trying to put myself through school. And the name tag, because my name's spelled J-A-I-M-E, which is not normal for most people with the name Jamie, and because of where I was working, people would come in and be, like, "Hymie -- (makes noise)." (Laughter.)
And I'm like -- not -- Oscar? I wouldn't have a clue what they were saying. And now I'm having to learn Spanish because my son, Desi, is half Cuban, so his father and that whole side of the family all speak fluent Spanish, and Desi's actually speaking Spanish now so I don't want him to get to that point where he's old enough to, like, speak to me with an undertone in Spanish. (Laughter.) I got Rosetta Stone, I'm trying to learn.
Tavis: A son who's half-Cuban name Desi -- pure coincidence?
Pressly: 'Course not. (Laughter.) 'Course not. I play Joy, she's kind of animated. No, I've always been a huge, huge fan of Lucille Ball -- not just for her acting ability but also for her talent in general in the business and the fact that she was the first woman to run a studio.
Tavis: Entrepreneur for sure, yeah.
Pressly: She was a brilliant lady in so many ways. On top of that, the fact that Desi Arnaz was Cuban and my son Desi's father is Cuban, we thought it was fitting.
Tavis: "I Love You, Man," number one comedy/
Pressly: Yeah, within --
Tavis: Your timing is pretty good.
Pressly: Yeah, timing's great, and funny enough, the book and the film were not meant to come out at the same time. The film date was actually pushed and so was the book, but they were never -- they never coincided with each other. It just randomly happened. About two, three months ago we found out that they were both coming out in the same week, so it was a coincidence.
Tavis: So the gods are just smiling on you.
Pressly: I've been very blessed, that's for sure.
Tavis: I love the title. When I saw it, I just started laughing. Even before I saw the book I just saw the title on my rundown, "It's Not Necessarily Not the Truth," then I got a chance to go through it. The title -- tell me about the title. I love the title.
Pressly: Well, my -- I was seven and a half months pregnant and I was sitting at my Uncle Tommy's house with my dad and Uncle Tommy, and I was telling them a story that's in the book that Granddaddy Pressly told me when I was seven, eight years old.
And Uncle Tommy said, "Have you ever seen a picture of so-and-so? And he brought the two pictures and I looked at them and I went, "Oh, my god, you can't tell them apart." And it was about whether or not Elvis -- we were related to Elvis Presley.
And Granddaddy had given me this long, drug-out story about how it was possible that we were, and I didn't believe him. And then I got older and realized he was lying, but when I was a kid, believed. So Uncle Tommy brings me these two pictures and says, "Have you ever seen a picture of Elvis' father and Granddaddy Pressly side by side?" And I said, "No, sir."
And he brings them and I look at them, and they're like a couple of years apart and you can't tell which one's which. Same crooked smile, same teeth, same eyes, same hairline, same cheekbones -- everything. And I said, "I can't tell which is which."
And he said, "See? So it's not necessarily not the truth," and I went (laughter) -- "There's the title to my book. That's it."
Tavis: It is a great title, and it's a great story. The book is not autobiographical but there are lessons from your life, stories from your life, that you share. And I'll let you explain the format of the book.
Pressly: Well, a lot of people have been -- thank you for getting it correct, because a lot of people have been calling it my autobiographical memoir, and I'm going to be 32 in July. (Laughter.) So it's a bit ridiculous. Excuse me -- asinine, to even think that I would do that at 30 when I was writing the book.
But basically when I found out I was pregnant I started reminiscing because I've lived quite a life in my short period of time here on Earth. I've been on my own since I was 15 and I started going back and reading my old journals from when I lived in Japan at 15, when I was in Italy at 19, just living in the animal house with all the other kids in my high school years.
Living with my best friend and her parents in California a couple of different times, how I was raised in North Carolina the first 14, 15 years of my life, and then how the second half of my life thus far in California -- how they differed. How those times differed. And I realized I was raised in North Carolina but I grew up in California.
And so many stories came to mind, and I started thinking my whole life's getting ready to change and I'm going to have a son, and I knew before the doctor told me it was a boy that it was a boy. Mamas -- we know. And so I started kind of going back over everything and I sat down and started writing, and a girlfriend of mine by the name of Mary Nana Amadanqua (sp) -- because name, I love it.
Tavis: Nice -- nice -- say that again.
Pressly: Mary Nana Amadanqua.
Tavis: Very nice.
Pressly: She's from Ghana, Africa, and a brilliant, brilliant writer. And she said, "Jaime, we should put this into a book because I think it's a very inspirational book and a book about redemption. You have so many great stories to tell, I think we should put it into a book."
And she helped me, and Harper Collins was lovely enough to buy the book. And so we put it together, so it's really a love story -- a love letter to my son, Desi, but also meant to be, as she said, a story of redemption and inspiration, partially for kids, to let them know that no matter where you're from and no matter what odds are stacked against you, as long as you believe and you persevere and you work hard, there's nothing you can't do.
Which is cliché and things we've heard a million times, but it's also to let adults know that any little helping hand, any little thing you can do to help a kid who might be a little lost goes a long way, because my life could have totally taken a different direction.
And because of the people that came into my life and helped me when I was that little lost 15-year-old, I'm sitting here talking to you.
Tavis: What's a 15-year-old from North Carolina doing in Japan?
Pressly: I had moved to California in June of '92 when I was 14; the very next month, turned 15, started school soon after. And soon after that my parents were in the middle of a divorce and I really wanted to get the heck out of Dodge. And I was modeling, which is why my mom and I -- part of the reason why my mom and I had moved, and I went to get a contract in Japan, and neither one of my parents could go with me.
I ended up getting the contract and so I became an emancipated minor so that I could go without a guardian. Everything happens for a reason, and I was okay over there. And I was so headstrong and as I said so strong-willed, I went there and I would get up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, shower, go right across the street from my apartment.
I'd grab food and then go next door into the subway, take the subway to the train station, take the train to whatever, look at my map and walk to wherever I was supposed to go to my job or to the audition or whatever. And I can't say that I would change any experiences that I've had in my life. I wouldn't change a thing because it's made me who I am, and it gave me something to write about.
Tavis: Yeah, it gave you a lot to write about, and if Desi has anywhere near the spunk his mama has, you'll have something on your hands in a few years.
Pressly: I already have something on my hands. (Laughter.) He's been entertaining us all day.
Tavis: Yeah, you're going to have something on your hands in a few years. Jaime's new book is called "It's Not Necessarily Not the Truth." I love the subtitle -- "Dreaming Bigger than the Town You're From." "Dreaming Bigger than the Town You're From," "I Love You, Man," at the box office now, "My Name is Earl." You're just all that and then some. Glad to have you on.
Pressly: Thank you for having me.
Tavis: Nice to see you.
Back to March 31, 2009