Get comfortable. My Name Is Earl's bombshell wants to tell you something

Twenty-four hours prior to her shoot, Jaime Pressly was stuck on a 14-hour flight to Los Angeles. It could have been worse—she could have still been in China. The 28-year-old actress was on set for the upcoming film DOA: Dead or Alive and had to suffer through menus that included baked potatoes with glass shards, fried chicken knuckles and rat.

“It was a living hell,” says Jaime. “Every e-mail I sent while I was there ended with the words ‘God Bless America, My Home Sweet Home.’”

American TV certainly benefits from Jaime’s return. The Kinston, NC, native is set to star in NBC’s fall sitcom My Name Is Earl as Joy, the white-trash, ball-busting ex-wife of the show’s lead character.

“The show is so real,” Jaime says. “It’s middle America and people can relate to it. I’m Southern, so I know all about it. I’m excited to be the trailer trash here. My dad, my brother and I can all recite the pledge from the Budweiser can. That’s redneck.”

In honor of these stunning photographs, may we propose a toast.

In My Name Is Earl, you play tough. When is it OK for a girl to call a guy a bitch?
When he acts like one. When he bitches about his hair or some stupid, high-maintenance crap. Guys want to be taken care of and mama’d when they’re sick. It’s funny: Men will say, “Oh my God, you’re PMSing,” then they do the same thing. Guys PMS every month.

Ever bitch-slapped a guy?
Oh, yeah. There have been a couple of different times. One ex cheated and I found out. He was caught red-handed, I said something smart-ass, and he replied, “Fuck you.” Bam—I bitch-slapped him. Don’t talk to me that way. Ever. The bitch-slap came out of nowhere and I felt much better afterward.

A plump Jason Lee plays Earl, your ex-husband. Ever dated a fatty?
I dated a dirty, fat guy. It was hideous. Every time his shirt lifted up, I saw this huge gut hanging over. Guys can have a little gut. It’s cute. When a guy is all muscle, it’s not comfortable to lie on and you want something to hold onto. You want a little human pillow, but you don’t want a hairy, nasty dad gut.

You hail from North Carolina and your Earl character is not your first white-trash role. Are you white trash at heart?
I wasn’t raised white trash; I was raised on the real Dawson’s Creek. But in the South, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, you can’t get away from white trash. I like doing redneck things. I love going fishing with my dad—catching, filleting, scaling, every part of the experience. That’s redneck.

What else is?
Redneck is when you make random rigs with beer cans to catch fish. Making a floating chair with a built-in Styrofoam cooler—that’s redneck. Lying out in your driveway on foldout chairs in the sun with a mixture of baby oil and iodine on your skin—that’s redneck.

Mullets: Good or great?
Mullets are great because they’re so awful. My stepdad has one and it breaks my heart every time I see him. My mom asked me why I didn’t take him to the Joe Dirt premiere. I said, “We make fun of his haircut the whole movie.”

You started a lingerie line called J’aime. Why does it rule?
It’s affordable, it fits well and it’s designed to last. I love wearing lingerie, but most of it is so expensive or really uncomfortable. Things dig into you and you get marks all over you. It’s hideous.

What do lingerie-buying men get wrong?
They don’t touch it. Don’t think you’re a pussy because you put lingerie against your skin. Remember: She’s not going to want to wear it against hers if it’s not comfortable. And always buy lingerie one size smaller than you think it should be. She’ll prefer getting something too small than something too big.

What do you wear around the house?
J’aime booty shorts with a wifebeater. Booty shorts make my butt look sexy; wifebeaters are my uniform.

Your Earl character is one manipulative bitch. Do you try to control men?
I don’t need a man. A man who’s comfortable in his own skin is hard to find. There are men who still try to show you how big their dicks are by what cars they drive. Who cares about your car?

Do you like to be in control in bed?
Yes, but I don’t need to have it my way all the time anymore. I’ve learned to enjoy myself and have fun with sex. I enjoy it so much more now because I’m allowing myself to be the woman.