The cast of “I Hate My Teenage Daughter” sat down to do a FOX Lounge: Rapid Fire interview – watch it below!

After an Emmy-winning turn on “My Name Is Earl,” actress Jaime Pressly returned to television this fall with “I Hate My Teenage Daughter.”

With the advent of holiday break, the Ministry chatted with the star about her experience returning to work as the centerpiece of an ensemble comedy and raising her 4-year-old, Dezi.

“You know, in a lot of ways a multi-camera sitcom is amazing for a working mom,” Pressly told us recently via phone, “I’m picking him up and dropping him off, present with him. It’s amazing.”

“Tuesdays we tape ‘Teenage Daughter’ in front of the live audience, and that’s when Dezi sees his dad, so it runs very smoothly. I’m really lucky.”

Pressly said coming back to TV, especially after a cult favorite like “Earl,” wasn’t an easy decision.

“So many people loved Joy [her 'Earl' character], so I really needed something that was the right fit. And I’m so thrilled to say that, honestly, everyone on this show is incredibly talented and so down to earth. People say you become a family, but that’s what we are,” said Pressly.

As Annie Watson on “Daughter,” Pressly inhabits the shoes of a woman with an ultra-conservative upbringing dealing with her own free-spirited daughter. The Ministry wondered how much reflecting Pressly did of her own teen years.

“I was so strong willed and very driven,” Pressly reflected, “I started in the business so young, I was modeling at 15 and had to be emancipated from my parents so I could travel to Japan and work … but I’m grateful for that experience.”

Speaking of experience, she can compare notes with her costar Katie Finneran, who just announced her second pregnancy.

“Daughter” airs at 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays on Fox.

LATimes.com

You think surviving the holiday season is hard? Try raising a teenage daughter, that’s hard!

No one knows this better than Annie (Jaime Pressly) and Nikki (Katie Finneran) of Fox’s new comedy I Hate My Teenage Daughter, whose daughters Sophie (Kristi Lauren) and Mackenzie (Aisha Dee) are harder to deal with than the lines at Target on Black Friday.

With just 12 days until Christmas (yes, really!), Annie and Nikki decided to spread the wealth and share their exclusive tips for making it through the holiday season unscathed…

Without further ado, here are Annie and Nikki’s tips on how to survive this holiday season:

1. Simplify things by dropping weird family traditions. You don’t need to knit your own stockings every year.
2. Give your teenage daughter her best present early to keep her on her best behavior. Butter her up like a Christmas turkey.
3. Remember to lean on your friends for support…and sometimes sending your daughter to their house.
4. If you want to guarantee you’ll see your rock musician ex over the holidays, buy a concert ticket.
5. If your teenage daughter is giving you a lot of trouble, take her for a nice ride to look at beautiful Christmas lights. Then drive slowly past the house of the boy she likes. Wave, honk, repeat.
6. There are only three ways to get your teenage daughter to help with holiday preparations: bribery, guilt and bribery.
7. A little extra rum goes a long way in your eggnog when trying to tune out your teenage daughter’s insults.
8. Get gift receipts for everything! Chances are she’s going to hate it…because you gave it to her.
9. Put on the most obnoxious, hideously ugly holiday sweater you can find and watch your daughter’s head explode from embarrassment.
10. Start a new tradition. This year we’re going to have a “Christmas Eve Pumpkin Pie Eating Contest.” I got this in the bag.
11. Have your ex-husband dress up like Santa and hand out gifts on Christmas morning. He’ll love that.
12. Threaten your daughter that you’re going to go caroling in the nude if she doesn’t spend some quality time with you. Blackmail is always effective.

I Hate My Teenage Daughter airs Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. on Fox.

EOnline.com

Jaime Pressly’s new sitcom on Fox may be called ‘I Hate My Teenage Daughter’ but she says she’s loving her new job. The actress talks about her character on the show and doing a multi-camera comedy.

Jaime Pressly and her “I Hate My Teenage Daughter” co-star Katie Finneran were guests on “Good Day LA” yesterday morning. You can watch their interview below!

Who’s the dummy now? She spent years regularly hurling insults on My Name is Earl, but for Jaime Pressly’s return to TV, the tables have turned.

“In order for me to come back to TV — being that Earl is still on [in reruns] and that Joy was such a strong character — I have to be able to play something that was completely opposite of her,” Pressly told reporters on a conference call last week for her new series I Hate My Teenage Daughter. “And this character is definitely that.”

On the Fox sitcom, premiering Wednesday at 9:30/8:30c on Fox, Pressly is now the one being bullied as a single mother who begins to realize her spoiled teenage daughter is morphing into the type of girl that made her life hell in high school. While Earl’s Joy was known for her high hair, big ego and even bigger mouth, Pressly describes her new character Annie as “grounded” and “a bit of a dork.”

“It’s been incredible to be allowed to play a character against type. In this business, you can be pigeon-holed very easily,” she said. “If people see that you’re good at doing something, they either assume that that’s all you can do, or they assume, ‘Oh, that’s just who she is.’”

Pressly has found inspiration this time from being a mother herself. “I am a single mom, so in reading it, I loved the relationship between myself and Katie [Finneran]‘s character, because, honestly if it wasn’t for my best friends, I don’t know how I would have gotten through all these tough times,” she said. “You just do your best to deal with every situation and when you have a best friend with you to help you deal with it, it just makes things that much easier.”

Her own son, four-year-old Dezi, has a long way to go before hitting puberty, but Pressly sympathizes with her on-screen alter-ego.”It’s hard raising a teenager. They are in hormone hell. They think they know everything,” she said. “It’s not a mean-spirited show, but it is something that goes on. Quite frankly, the daughters bully their moms more than anybody.”

Although she says the show itself isn’t mean-spirited in nature, Pressly embraces the sitcom’s harsh title for its honesty about the parent-child bond. “Whether it’s upsetting them, or they like it and agree with it, its grabbing people’s attention and that was the point of it in the first place,” she said. “We’re just saying it for you, because it’s a moment that every parent has actually had where they just want to say, ‘Oh, my God, I hate my teenager,’ but you don’t really. Just, on occasion, they can do things that make you want to want crawl into a fetal position.”

Source

Jaime Pressly’s been out and about in LA this month to build anticipation for her new show, I Hate My Teenage Daughter. Despite the title, it’s quite funny—at least to anyone who’s ever spent time around (or been) a 14-year-old girl. In honor of tomorrow’s premiere, we asked Pressly about her new character, and some old ones.

ELLE: So what’s the central idea in your new show, I Hate My Teenage Daughter?
JP: It’s a lot about the relationship between my character, Annie, and Katie Finneran’s character, Nikki. The two women didn’t have great experiences in high school and so, we want our kids—we’re both single moms on the show—we want our girls to have everything we didn’t have. In the end, trying to give them everything we didn’t have backfires on us, as it does for most parents, and their fourteen-year-old hormonehell puts us through it.

ELLE: What stood out most about this role?
JP: Annie comes from a religious background. Her mother made all of her clothes and her dad was in the military. She was never allowed to go to dances or listen to music, she has no clue about pop culture, she’s really goofy and wasn’t cool in high school—the complete opposite of anything I’ve ever played. And I like playing this because everybody’s expecting me to play a Joy character again and I want to get away from that. I’ve done it. I’m an actress. I didn’t get into the business to play the same thing over and over.

ELLE: When did you first realize you were funny?
JP: When I was three. I was on stage doing a dance recital. We did a Kermit the Frog routine. Immediately following, they had us all come out individually and do a little trick on the mat. I came out and put my legs around my head and walked on my hands, like a crab. My teacher, Ms. Jody, said, “OK, Jaime, you can take them down now.” And I said, “Ms. Jody, my tights are stuck in my hair.” My hairpiece had sequins on it, so my tights got stuck. She tried to get it out but couldn’t. Everybody started laughing and instead of being embarrassed, I was like, “What! They are laughing at me! I am funny!” When I got off stage, my mom cut the thing out of my hair and I said, “Mom, did you see that? I made them laugh. I’m famous.’

Source

Jaime Pressly literally glowed on the stage presenting her new show, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, to the Television Critics Association this summer. The light reflected off her tan legs so that even the back row could see. It was almost a physical manifestation of her personality, which shone on its own.

The comedy premieres November 30 on FOX and showcases Pressly’s comedy, as a mother of a difficult girl. Along with her best friend (Katie Finneran), the moms both try to get through to their kids week after week. Pressly discussed her own family and teenage years while previewing the new sitcom.

Q: How is the comedy in this different from My Name Is Earl? Is it the same target audience?

JP: No. I definitely think, first of all, the format’s so different which I love and I chose. All I did was go after multi-camera this time because I want to be a mom. I eventually would like to have another child. The truth is working on single camera, show or film, you have no life. You work 60-80 hours a week. You’re up before your kid gets up and you’re home when they go to sleep. I only got to see him on set. I’ve enjoyed the last two years of being able to wake up with him and see him and be with him and be a part of that because they’re only little once. So being able to have this new schedule was awesome. Now as far as the comedy’s concerned, we’re definitely not as cutthroat and pushing the envelope as much as we did on Earl. That was a little more rough around the edges whereas this is a little more cleaned up and just really showing how difficult it is.

Q: Have you thought about how you’ll handle your son’s teenage years?

JP: I’m going to take everything one step at a time. We’ll cross the path when we get to it. I’m somebody who I want to be your mom, and we can be friends but more importantly I’m your mom. And I’m strict. You have to have manners and you will appreciate, because God knows he has enough toys for a small village in Africa. So my child takes the trash out at 4.

Q: What do you think about the mom wardrobe you’ll be wearing on this show?

JP: I love it. I love it. Two things with this. With Joy [on My Name Is Earl] it was hooker clothes all the time. I mean, it was uncomfortable, but then in real life I have to go so against character, her character that I had to wear turtlenecks and I had a child and so all of a sudden I’m a mom and I’m having to go against type. Now I’m playing this really conservative mom so I can come back and feel sexy again. I’m 34. I don’t need to dress like I’m eighty four. I can have fun now.

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