Jaime Pressly On Why Our Kids Need To See Us Break Down Sometimes

Jaime Pressly has played moms before. Chaotic Joy Turner on My Name Is Earl. Complicated foster parent Jill Kendall on Mom. A witty single mother in Jennifer Falls. But Lexi, her character in the new indie The Last Shot (in limited theaters starting Oct. 2), is a different animal... and Pressly knew it the second she read the script.

The Last Shot follows Caden Isaacs, a promising 12-year-old basketball player who moves to Nashville to live with his estranged mother after his problematic, but still doting, dad unexpectedly dies. Lexi is a driven music executive who has kept the family afloat financially but has been almost entirely absent otherwise. And being that disconnected from your kid? It’s something Pressly, a devoted mom to sons Dezi, 19, and twins Leo and Lenon, 8, could not relate to.

The one place she and Lexi did meet: the impossible math of working motherhood. Pressly spoke to us on location for a job, away from (and missing) her boys. Ahead, she opens up about why our kids need to see us break down sometimes and the kind of roles she’s craving in mid-life.

Scary Mommy: Lexi is not the warm, fuzzy movie mom. She's the one who held it all together financially, but she's also really disconnected from her son. What was your way into her? Did you have to work to find empathy for her?

Jaime Pressley: I had to find sympathy. Empathy is something you've been through, so you understand the feeling. I didn't understand the feeling whatsoever. I have three boys, and I could not imagine not raising them or being a part of their lives.

It was something that I really did have to find sympathy for in that she came from a father who was an asshole and worked all the time and a mother who was never present. She didn't ever have that kind of love that I give my boys in real life. So I really had to search for that.

The one thing that I did have in common that I did find empathy for her was the fact that she's trying to figure out how to navigate having a career and being a mother, which is the hardest thing ever. The balancing act that all of us moms do, working moms do, it's tough. Right now, I'm just outside of Alabama filming a movie and have to be away from my boys … It's just a really hard thing to handle, and trying to figure out how to be there for all three of them at all their things.

SM: There's a moment where she snaps and says something cutting to Caden, and as a mom it was painfully relatable. How do you repair after a moment like that?

JP: Well, it depends on their age … But I think for that, it would be something like taking a breather, calming down, and then going in and sitting down with them and explaining that you're human and that you said sometimes we all say things we don't mean out of anger, but you didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. You're my entire world, and sometimes I snap because I'm tired and frustrated.

I think it's really about just being human and getting on their level and having them understand. When we as mothers are always trying to shield our kids from imperfections or traumas or a bad day, it's not realistic because they're going to get older, they're going to have trauma, they're going to have bad days, they're going to say things they don't mean, they're going to snap, they're going to be tired.

They're going to run the gamut of emotions. They need to know that it's OK. But if we're constantly shielding them from that, they're going to grow up thinking something's wrong with them when really that's just being human. It's the human condition, and we're all allowed to make mistakes as long as we acknowledge those mistakes and apologize and know why we're apologizing. I think that's a big key: not just saying I'm sorry to get through it, but understanding why. I think it's important that our kids see us cry and see us break down and see us have a bad day and then talk about it so they can understand it's going to happen to you too at some point.

SM: Absolutely. It’s so important for our kids to see us as whole, multidimensional humans.

JP: 100%.

SM: And the ending here is happy, but it isn't tidy.

JP: It's not tied in a bow.

SM: Exactly. Why do you think that messier version matters in a family movie?

JP: Because it's realistic. It's what actually happens, where things aren't always tied up in a bow at the end. There's never an end. In films, we have an end. There's not an end in real life. It keeps going, and you're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days. And I think showing that they're both trying and that they're getting there, but they're not quite there yet, I think we're all a work in progress and it just shows that there's still a work in progress and that's human, that's real.

SM: Love that perspective. I know you’ve said you feel like the roles get better the older you get. Is Lexi proof of that?

JP: 100%. Also, the older you get, the more life you've lived. So the older I get as an actress, the more roles there's going to be because there's more to write about. And I think we see that in just looking at Allison Janney, for instance.

SM: Icon!

JP: The GOAT. And we were fortunate enough on our show Mom to be able for years to play women of a certain age who are beautifully flawed and finding the funny and the real-life drama. That's what I loved about that show so much; it was very real and it was about a very serious subject matter, and then trying to find the funny in it because great comedy comes from real-life drama.

In this film, the original script started with the hospital scene where Lexi's breaking down. When Andy sent me the email, he said, "I'm getting ready to do this film. Would love for you to read the lead, Lexi." And it was with Todd [Friedman] and Warner [Davis] and Andy [Palmer] that I did The Re-Education of Molly Singer with. I absolutely loved working with them, and Andy is just such a treat as a director.

I read it right after I read his email, and I was hooked immediately — not just because it was such a beautifully written script, but also because it wasn't a comedy. I'm craving to do a drama; you know what I mean? Comedy's the most difficult. Drama's easier than comedy is.

But the thing is, while I love doing comedy, I have done so much of it that I'm craving doing other things, playing these other roles and actually being able to show what it is like to be a woman, a multidimensional woman of a certain age. I'm 49 now. I don't want to play Hot Mom. I don't want to play Arm Candy. I don't want to do any of that. So it was a breath of fresh air the second I read the script, and I could not wait to get on set.

SM: I know we’re just about out of time, but I have to ask. Joe Dirt has been around for 25 years now … and they’re doing an animated series reboot. If they called you to voice any character, would you be down?

JP: Absolutely. Why not? That's fun. Plus, when you're doing voiceover, you can go in your pajamas. I don't have to get my hair and makeup done.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.