Amy Sedaris' Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Strangers with Candy Jerri Blank Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America Narrator Exit 57 Various

Main Movie Roles 2009 - Jennifer's Body 2009 - Dance Flick 2009 - Old Dogs 2007 - Shrek The Third 2007 - Dedication 2006 - I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With 2005 - Romance & Cigarettes 2005 - Bewitched 2005 - Chicken Little 2004 - My Baby's Daddy 2003 - Elf 2003 - School of Rock 2002 - Maid in Manhattan 1998 - Six Days Seven Nights 1997 - Commandments

BIOGRAPHY:

Sedaris was born in Endicott, New York, the daughter of Sharon (née Leonard) and Lou Sedaris, and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her siblings, David, Lisa, Gretchen, Tiffany, and Paul ("The Rooster"). She is of half Greek descent; her father was Greek Orthodox and her mother was Protestant. She remains Greek Orthodox.
As a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, she described two experiences with bosses. At age 16, she worked at the local Winn-Dixie supermarket. She would make fake announcements over the loudspeaker, which prompted the head cashier to confiscate the microphone. After work, she egged the cashier's car in protest. Later, as a cocktail waitress at Zanies, a comedy night club in Chicago, she was five minutes late for a shift with ice cream cone in hand. Fired that night, she took her revenge on her boss: "I took his keys and I threw them in the snow. I heard he found them in the spring."
Sedaris and her Strangers with Candy co-star Paul Dinello dated for eight years. Though their relationship ended, they have remained very close friends. She also dated actor Alan Tudyk in the early 2000s. Sedaris has never married, and has stated in several interviews that she has never wanted to be married or have children.
A former member of Chicago-based Second City and Annoyance Theatre comedy troupes, her first major foray into television began in 1995 on the Comedy Central sketch show, Exit 57, which also starred Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello. The show was cancelled after three seasons.
Beginning in 1999, Sedaris portrayed Jerri Blank in the Comedy Central series Strangers with Candy. The show, which she co-wrote with Dinello and Colbert, was based on Sedaris's impression of 1970s motivational speaker Florrie Fisher. The show ran for three seasons and would later inspire a full-length movie.
Sedaris has made numerous guest appearances on a number of different TV programs, including Rescue Me, Monk, Wonder Showzen, Just Shoot Me!, Sex and the City, My Name Is Earl, The Closer, The Middle, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Sesame Street.
Sedaris also hosted the series Film Fanatic on Trio.
Sedaris has had small roles in a number of films, including Elf, School of Rock, Maid in Manhattan, Bewitched, Snow Angels, Full Grown Men, Old Dogs, Shrek the Third, and Chicken Little. She also starred in the 2006 film adaptation of Strangers with Candy. Sedaris also had a large role in the comedy, The Best and the Brightest with Neil Patrick Harris. She voiced Cinderella in Shrek the Third and reprised her role in Shrek Forever After. In 2008, Sedaris starred as principal Abby Hofman in Nickelodeon TV's Gym Teacher: The Movie, directed by her Strangers with Candy co-star Paul Dinello.


TRIVIA:

• Runs a cupcake and cheeseball business out of her Greenwich Village apartment when she is not acting.
• Enjoys playing characters who "like themselves".
• Raised Greek Orthodox.
• Idolized her brother 'David Sedaris' (qv) when she was a child.
• Failed first grade.
• She is best known for her grotesque yet strangely endearing character "Jerri" from _"Strangers with Candy" (1999)_ (qv).
• She was nominated for a 1993 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Revue for "Truth, Justice or the American Way" at the Second City Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.
• An alumna of the Second City and Annoyance Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.