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Actor

1969-03-10 · Concord, Massachusetts, USA · Female

44 series in the catalog

Paget Valerie Brewster ( PAJ-it; born March 10, 1969) is an American actress and singer. She first received recognition for her recurring role as Kathy on the fourth season of Friends. She gained wider recognition as FBI Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss on CBS's Criminal Minds. Brewster was a recurring cast member of the NBC sitcom Community during its final season.

Early life

Brewster was born in Concord, Massachusetts. Both her mother, Hathaway Brewster (née Tew), and father, Galen Brewster, worked as school administrators at Middlesex School. She is a descendant of William Brewster and wife Mary Brewster.

Brewster grew up in Massachusetts and moved to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design. In a later interview discussing this period, she said she very briefly worked as a receptionist in a bordello. During her first year at the design school, she made her acting debut and eventually dropped out to pursue her acting career. In the mid-1990s, Brewster moved to San Francisco and enrolled in acting classes.

Career

In 1995, Brewster hosted a late-night talk show in the San Francisco Bay Area called The Paget Show for 65 episodes at KPIX-TV. She first came to prominent attention in her recurring role as Kathy in the fourth season of NBC's Friends. She appeared in Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Huff. On film she played Ms. Indestructible, the female lead in James Gunn's low-budget superhero comedy The Specials (2000). She played Amy Pierson, a calculus teacher afraid of the water, in the independent film The Big Bad Swim, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

In 2005, she began voice work as Judy Ken Sebben / Birdgirl, a recurring character on the animated series Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (and later played a similar guest character on American Dad!).

Brewster had a long run with the show Criminal Minds, playing multilingual Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss until the show's sixth season, when she and A. J. Cook were released from their contracts by CBS in a cost-cutting move. Owing to complaints from fans, both she and Cook were rehired and kept for the following season. In February 2012, Brewster announced via Deadline that she was leaving Criminal Minds at the end of the season to return to her comedic and sitcom roots. Brewster reprised her role as Emily Prentiss in season nine for the 200th episode, and season 11 as a special guest star. In 2016, Brewster returned to Criminal Minds once again as a series regular with Thomas Gibson's replacement.

Brewster portrayed bureau chief ADA Paula Foster in the Public Integrity Unit of the District Attorney's office in the 14th season (2012) of NBC's long-running police drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Her character handled the case against SVU commanding officer Captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), suspected of murder after awakening next to a dead woman in the 13th-season finale.

Brewster was a regular on The Thrilling Adventure Hour, a staged production in the style of old-time radio that was recorded monthly at Largo in Los Angeles. She played the recurring character of Sadie Doyle, the alcoholic socialite who can communicate with the supernatural alongside her husband, Frank (Paul F. Tompkins), in the "Beyond Belief" segments. In early April 2013, Brewster appeared in Modern Family as Trish in episode 20, "Flip Flop", playing an art expert who is dating Gloria's ex-husband, Javier. In August 2013, Brewster appeared in episode 106 of the Drunk History television series on Comedy Central. In January 2015, Brewster began appearing on Community. In February 2014, it was announced that she had been cast in a new ABC comedy called St. Francis. In August 2016, it was announced that she would be reprising her role as Emily Prentiss on Criminal Minds and would once again be a series regular after co-star Thomas Gibson was fired by CBS over an on-set altercation. Brewster also regularly appears on Will You Accept This Rose, a podcast hosted by Arden Myrin about The Bachelor franchise.

Personal life

On the March 30, 2006, episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Brewster revealed that she had received a handwritten note indicating Hugh Hefner would like her to pose for Playboy. She seriously considered the offer, but even though she said that she admired Playboy more than magazines such as Maxim and FHM, and her parents gave her their blessing, she eventually turned it down.

Brewster has volunteered as an actress with the Los Angeles Young Storytellers Program.

On March 17, 2013, Brewster became engaged to composer Steve Damstra, a member of the bands Folded Light, and Whirlwind Heat. Brewster and Damstra married on November 28, 2014, in Los Angeles, in a ceremony officiated by Matthew Gray Gubler, their close friend and Brewster's Criminal Minds co-star. As of 2016, the couple lived in Los Angeles.