Career
Elfman began her professional career as a dancer, appearing in the music video for "Halo", a song by Depeche Mode from the 1990 album Violator, a video that was exclusively included on the band's 1990 music video compilation Strange Too. She also danced in the video for Chris Isaak's 1995 single "Somebody's Crying" and toured with the rock band ZZ Top on their 1994 World Tour as a "Legs Girl".
After appearing in numerous national television commercials, most notably as the girl in the Honda ad who said "Regular or Decaf?", Elfman landed her first principal cast acting role on the short-lived 1996 American sitcom entitled Townies on ABC. Although the show didn't catch on with viewers, it did impress critics, particularly the performances of Elfman and co-star Lauren Graham. Soon after, 20th Century Fox began talking to Elfman about developing her own sitcom. Elfman thus started her five-year run as Dharma Freedom Finkelstein Montgomery in the American comedy series Dharma & Greg on ABC.
Elfman guest starred in two episodes of Two and a Half Men in 2004 and one episode of Brothers and Sisters in 2007. She made a guest appearance in the sixth episode of season four of My Name Is Earl as a cheer team leader.
Elfman starred in the CBS comedy Courting Alex in 2006, then starred in Accidentally on Purpose for CBS three years later during the 2009-10 television season. The show was canceled after a single (2009–2010) season.
She appeared in a supporting role in a feature film, Friends with Benefits, starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, released in 2011. Also in 2011, she returned to do a cameo appearance on the Two and a Half Men Season 9 premiere episode reprising her "Dharma" character together with former co-star Thomas Gibson ("Greg").
Elfman acted in the season finale of Shameless on April 1, 2012.
She is appearing in a recurring role in Season 5 of Damages.
It was announced in May 2012 that Elfman will be playing a fictional version of the First Lady of the United States in 1600 Penn, a comedy series expected to premiere on NBC during the 2012-13 television season.
Read more about this topic: Jenna Elfman
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)