By E.C. GLADSTONE , Photographs: DAVIS FACTOR

t’s not easy being cheesy. Just ask Jaime Pressly. On the last day of shooting the third season of My Name Is Earl, the co-star of NBC’s hit comedy was doing a scene in which she taunts Earl’s mother by sticking her head underneath a bathroom stall in the “crap shack.” After getting a kick in the forehead, as the script called for, Pressly injured a disc in her neck so badly that she has been going to doctors for nearly two weeks since. “Yesterday I had an MRI,” she reports stoically, “and the day before I had 15 shots of cortisone in my neck and spine.”

The problem is actually not a new one, Pressly says, relating to an accident more than a year ago when the actress was rear-ended while driving to work. Nevertheless, she refuses to let it stand in the way of doing the physical comedy that her Emmy-winning role as Joy (Earl’s ex-wife) demands. And because she is such a huge fan of Las Vegas, she also wouldn’t cancel this interview with Vegas magazine. Finding time in a schedule that sounds beyond hectic, Pressly spoke candidly about her relationship with DJ Eric Cubeechee, her infant son, and the challenges of carving out a lasting career in Hollywood after age 30.

VEGAS: Your injury sounds pretty alarming, yet even since your accident, you’ve had no shortage of physical stuff on the show.

JAIME PRESSLY: So much about Joy is physical, whether it’s her popping her hip, popping her gum or popping her head underneath a stall. I do what my job is. I’m not going to get a stunt person to stick their head underneath a stall for me. And I love doing fight sequences. I’ve trained in boxing and martial arts for years and years and thoroughly enjoy doing it. I’m a big fight fan.

VEGAS: You are also a huge Vegas fan. You’ve done so much here, both for work and play.

JAIME PRESSLY: So many of my friends are based out of Vegas. [Palms resort owners] the Maloofs are such great people, The Pure Management Group, all the guys at the N9NE Group. It has turned into such a great place to be in the last five years: You can go to a great club, great shows—my favorite one is Kà, I’ve seen it six times. I’ve seen O, Love, we saw Céline Dion. When I was pregnant, we were redoing the house, so we would go stay in Vegas and go to shows and great dinners. I loved to eat when I was pregnant—I love Social House, Charlie Palmer’s, Cafe Martorano. N9NE Steak House is great, too.

VEGAS: You were just in Vegas again over the Independence Day weekend, at the UFC fight and the opening of Christian Audigier’s club at TI.

JAIME PRESSLY: I was supposed to go out after the fight, too—Eric DJed for [fighter] Chuck Liddell’s party—but I went straight home. The older you get, the harder it is to bounce back from a hangover, so I’ll have a drink or two and go home. I’m not going to get wasted and dance on tables.

VEGAS: Ah, we miss that Jaime.

JAIME PRESSLY: But that was never my thing, I never danced on tables, compared to the Lindsays or the Britneys of the world, or whoever. I was never that.

VEGAS: I’ve seen you dance on furniture. Maybe not tables….

JAIME PRESSLY: Yeah, maybe not tables. You’ve seen me maybe stand on a couch. In my 20s . . .

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