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A new woman

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Special to The Times

JAIME PRESSLY won the 2007 Emmy for best supporting actress in a comedy series for NBC’s “My Name Is Earl.” She had her first child this spring, and her fashion line, J’aime, is 5 years old.

It’s intriguing when actors branch out.

It’s not as intriguing when people branch out because they’ve licensed things out. It’s more intriguing to me when people go out and do things on their own. [J’aime] is funded solely by me -- there are no private investors, I didn’t go to school for this. I know what I want, I think I know what women want in clothes, designs and fit. I want a line that every woman can wear. And clothes that were affordable. Couture, people can’t afford. People like me borrow it and give it back!

Are you getting that thing where you start to feel younger as you age?

Yes and no! I wasn’t afraid to turn 30, I was excited. It makes you feel like a new woman and a woman in general. It makes people take you more seriously. Same thing happens when you have a child. On the other hand, the lack of sleep -- the jobs, my son, that kind of thing -- makes you feel old.

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Before 30, did people take you less seriously? Was it a problem that you’d posed for magazines like Maxim?

That was when Maxim came about, in my 20s -- and Stuff magazine. That’s when it became like, the new thing, the men’s magazine that wasn’t Playboy. It had great articles, the photographs were beautiful, the women were beautiful. It was OK for that point in my life. . . . Now, instead of doing those magazines, and I have a lot of respect for those magazines because they did well when I was in my 20s, now it’s GQ and Esquire. You step it up! Just like with my clothing line and the baby and winning an Emmy. Hard work pays off.

Oh! You’re a businesswoman!

Definitely a businesswoman! I thoroughly enjoy that aspect of it.

The flighty artist thing, actresses flapping their hands and talking about art, seems boring and somehow sexist.

It’s obnoxious. It really is. It’s like, enough already, you know? Too many people want to get rich and famous and do it quick. . . . To get anywhere you have to be focused, ambitious, headstrong and really, really want it. It won’t come on a silver platter, and it won’t last long.

I assume you’re moderately wealthy. Do you stop at a certain point?

I think you stop and slow down and be a mom full-time and be able to appreciate all the hard work you did. And not the money you made, but the things that came along with the success. When you’re busy working, you don’t stop and smell the roses, right? When you become a machine, you go do your job and be a mom and then you go to work and then you go to bed and do it all over again. There comes a point in time when you pull a Demi, when you move outside of the spotlight and live your life away from it. You appreciate the things you worked so hard for. But you have to get to that point.

Will you know when that point comes?

Absolutely. I’m very aware of myself, my surroundings and my position. You know, where I stand. And that has to do with the people I’m surrounded by. I have real friends, from when I was 5 or in high school. My manager I’ve been with for 13 years. My team of girls at the clothing line has been there from the beginning. We all believe in a common goal. I’ll work really hard, wearing 10, 15 hats, whatever it takes to bring everything to fruition. And I respect them as much as they respect me. That’s the reason it works and the reason they still believe.

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But do people still see you as a 21-year-old girl? That seems like the damaging thing that happens to a lot of actresses.

I started 13 years ago -- there’s girls who started when they were 10, 9, and once they became 16 or 18 or 21, no one wanted them to grow up. They went leaps and bounds beyond what they need to do, whether a photo shoot because they wanted to show they weren’t a little girl any more, or they go rebel, and say they can do whatever they want -- “I’m an adult.”

Our business has a way of putting you in a closet and locking you in, and after a while you get claustrophobic. You kick the door down and you come out with a vengeance. . . . That’s what happens with everyone who grows up in the business. They feel like they’re being yelled at. They think of what they’re going to do to prove you wrong. And they say the wrong thing and make the wrong move and regret it. But had they not been pushed, they may not have been that way. If we would support each other and support other celebrities -- and if the press would support people long enough to grow up and try new things without pigeonholing them -- things might be a lot easier.

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