[close] Comedianne Amy Sedaris confronts vulgarity with a daring innocence to create her wickedly absurd characters. You may best remember her as America's most lovable skank, Jerri Blank, from the hyper-irreverent series Strangers With Candy. Raised in North Carolina,, Sedaris got her start at Second City in Chicago before moving to N.Y.C. to write plays with her brother, author David Sedaris, who has hilariously documented their family's history in many of his novels. Calling themselves "The Talent Family," they wrote, directed, and starred in numerous plays in N.Y.C., winning some Obie and Drama Desk awards. Along with fellow Second City vets Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello, she wrote and starred in the sketch show Exit 57, which ran on Comedy Central.

Sedaris has made a few small appearances on the big screen, from minor roles in major studio releases like Six Days, Seven Nights to short films like Bad Bosses Go to Hell; however, her breakthrough performance was in the TV series Strangers With Candy. A scathing satire of afterschool specials, the show only ran from April 1999 to October 2000 on Comedy Central.

Sedaris wrote it with her old cronies from Second City, and also birthed the character of Jerri Blank, the ex-junkie and former prostitute who goes back to high school at age 46. In its 30-episode run, the show gained her a devoted following and several other television appearances. Sedaris continues to work in the theater, while also running a cupcake and cheeseball business out of her West Village home, collecting taxidermied animals, and sometimes appearing on Sex and the City and Just Shoot Me.

She returned to film to play a bigot in Maid in Manhattan and for a part in Cheryl Dunye's independent feature My Baby's Mama. In collaboration with Dinello and Colbert, she is also co-author of the book Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not. [close]