Everybody loves Joy
By Sarah Nicholson, THE COURIER MAIL, August 29, 2007

JAIME Pressly didn’t have to look far to find the inspiration for her My Name Is Earl alter-ego Joy Turner.
“My Grandmother Pressly, rest her soul,” the actress says of the family member who reminded her of the character.

“And she’s smiling her ass off up there now because she and I didn’t get along whatsoever.

“When I was 17 she would say ‘Jamie, men are like parking places, all the good ones are taken and the only ones left are handicapped. So, honey, you just need to calm down and find you a man and settle down’.

“I was 17. Why do I need to settle down at 17? Come on. She just had this spitfire way about her that she would walk into a room and you had better notice her.

“But the same things you hated about her were the same things you loved about her. Just like Joy, that honesty, that blatant, blunt honesty is what is very endearing about her.

“The difference between them is Grandmother Pressly had money and she was far from a whore.”

Pressly says she’s constantly being stopped by My Name Is Earl fans who want to tell her how much they love her sassy character.

“They live vicariously through her because she is that woman who goes out and says whatever the hell she wants to say and has no fear and tells it like it is,” Pressly says.

“She speaks in a heartbeat to a man like she’s a man and that’s kind of cool. You know what I mean? She doesn’t realise that what she’s doing is wrong.

“I love comedy and I love that, as an actress, I have the ability to make people feel every kind of emotion there is.

“That’s what’s really great about Joy. Television characters can become very monotonous to play because it’s the same thing every day. And she, God bless her, is the most colourful character I’ve ever been able to play.”

Pressly was born in North Carolina but moved to Los Angeles with her mother and started modelling at a young age, so it would seem she has little in common with Joy.

But she does have a bit in common with Earl Hickey, the sitcom’s lead character played by Jason Lee, because they are both big believers in karma.

“I lived in Japan when I was 15 on a modelling contract and I had to walk through this temple every day in order to get home from the modelling agency,” she says.

“I would always stop and watch everybody and it was amazing to me, just the whole vibe, the whole idea ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Do good things and good things will happen and do bad things and bad things happen.

“You project good things and put it out there and that’s what is going to happen. When you think bad thoughts, bad thoughts are going to happen. It’s kind of like when it rains it pours.”

It seems to be working for the 30-year-old actress who’s having success on both the personal and professional fronts – she’s been nominated for a couple of Emmy and SAG awards and had her first child, a boy called Dezi James, in May.

“The show turned my life around and the baby will turn my life around,” she says.

“Everything is for the better.”

My Name Is Earl is on Seven, Sundays at 8pm.

From The Courier Mail

Joyful new mom Jaime Pressly loses the baby fat
By Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY, August 9, 2007
Jaime Pressly is back in shape — and heading back to work.

The My Name Is Earl star gave birth to son Dezi James on May 11. “I was back in the gym when he was 10 days old, working out with my trainer,” she says. “I’m almost back to where I was before.”

Pressly, who earned her second Emmy nomination for playing trashy Joy Turner on the NBC series, flaunted her post-pregnancy curves and flat abs while celebrating her 30th birthday at a July 27 bash at Pure nightclub in Las Vegas with her fiancé, Eric Cubiche.

“I personally don’t think I look smoking hot, but Eric tells me I do. I think he’s biased,” she says.

Earl goes back into production Monday, and Pressly’s Joy will be pregnant when the series returns with new episodes Sept. 27 (8 ET/PT).

That’s a bit galling for Pressly. “I’m going to deliver the baby on the show. I’m coming back in shape and I have to wear a fat suit,” she says with a sigh. “Incredible.”

But she has plenty of pleasant summer memories to reflect on. She and Cubiche spent their first family vacation with Dezi and his nanny in the Bahamas, and the actress is getting the hang of going on the road with a baby. It requires enough gear to fill all of fictional Camden County, where Earl takes place.

“We came with 15 bags instead of three. For one child, you have 800 bags,” says Pressly with a laugh. “I know people look at us and think, ‘Jesus, how many shoes did you pack?’ But, hello, it’s diapers and formula and toys.”

Fortunately for Pressly, Dezi is “such a good baby. He’s an angel. Chill, relaxed, calm. We got lucky. I’m scared the next one will be the devil. It’ll be a girl.”

They also visited Pressly’s family down south.

“We went to North Carolina for six days before we went to the Bahamas. I got him used to the time difference in a day. He slept the whole flight, during each flight. He’s a mellow, relaxed baby,” says Pressly.

Being a first-time mom is “tiring, but it’s amazing. It’s tough at times. But it came naturally to me because I’ve wanted a child for so long. Finally, when I had him, I could do all those things I knew about.”

So, who does he look like?

“He’s honestly a perfect 50-50 of the two of us. He has my eyes, mouth, and skin coloring, And Eric’s cheeks and nose and the divot above his upper lip.”

From USA Today