“I couldn’t get a job,” she admitted, “and my agent at the time said, ‘Go to Los Angeles. We can get you some commercials,’ which ended up paying off. I’ve done lots of television, lots of movies, but I consider myself a stage actress at heart.”

Her dream is currently — and suddenly — coming true, through June 27, sharing the Westside Theatre stage with Sherri Shepherd, Penny Fuller, Diane Neal and Cobie Smulders in Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron.

"We all went in as a SWAT team on a Monday and did a run-through and discussed the characters. Then we did two read-throughs on Tuesday, and we were up doing a live performance on Wednesday at two and another that night. All in three days!”

Her role last year as Ed Helms’ girlfriend in “The Hangover” has stepped up her feature assignments. In March she was seen on screen as mom to title player Zachary Gordon in “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” — and now “there are rumblings of ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2.’ Also, I have an indie coming out called ‘Natural Selection.’”

— Harry Haun