Paget Brewster
Paget Brewster is an actor, born 1969.
A recurring part on the fourth season of Friends, as Kathy, was the first thing that got her noticed, and for a while afterwards she was a sitcom regular in shows that did not last: Dag, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Raising Dad. Then Criminal Minds cast her as FBI Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss, she left the series partway through its run, and the audience objected loudly enough that she came back. Not many actors get that particular compliment.
The odd thing about her career is that the role she is famous for is the one that uses her least. Prentiss is composed, competent and grave, which Brewster does well, but her actual gift is comic: a very dry, slightly theatrical delivery that lands a joke by refusing to acknowledge it is one. Frankie Dart on the last season of Community is the live-action proof, a humourless administrator dropped into a show made of chaos and somehow winning.
Animation figured this out before prime time did. She has voiced Birdgirl in Harvey Birdman, Elise on Dan Vs., Amber Gold on The Venture Bros., Audrey Timmonds on Godzilla: The Series, Lana Lang across the Dark Knight Returns films, Poison Ivy in Batman and Harley Quinn, Lois Lane in Justice League: Gods and Monsters, and Della Duck, Donald's sister, in DuckTales. That last one is the best use of her voice anyone has managed: reckless, loud and completely unbothered.
Elsewhere: Dodo Bellacourt in Another Period, Sara in Grandfathered, Beth in Huff, Tallulah Bankhead in Hollywood, and a run on How I Met Your Father.
Movies (13)
- Touch Me (2026)
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 (2013)
- Batman and Harley Quinn (2017)
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 (2012)
- The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000)
- Man of the House (2005)
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2013)
- Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
- Sublime (2007)
- Unaccompanied Minors (2006)
- The Specials (2000)
- Eulogy (2004)
- Axis (2017)
TV (24)
- Criminal Minds (2005)
- Friends (1994)
- American Dad! (2005)
- Community (2009)
- DuckTales (2017)
- Drawn Together (2004)
- The Venture Bros. (2004)
- Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (2000)
- How I Met Your Father (2022)
- Another Period (2015)
- Godzilla: The Series (1998)
- Twilight of the Gods (2024)
- Hollywood (2020)
- Huff (2004)
- Dan Vs. (2011)
- Captain Fall (2023)
- Strip Law (2026)
- Rock Me Baby (2003)
- DAG (2000)
- Andy Richter Controls the Universe (2002)
- Grandfathered (2015)
- Raising Dad (2001)
- Stacked (2005)
- Behind the Attraction (2021)
Where to start with Paget Brewster
Skip ahead to Community if you want to know why people are fond of her. Frankie Dart arrives in the last season as the adult in the room and gets funnier the more reasonable she is, which is a very specific skill.
Criminal Minds is the reason most people are on this page and it is years of solid, sober procedural work, so treat it as the main course rather than the appetiser. Friends is where the trail starts, and it is a recurring stint on a single season, no more.
For the comedy she is best at, take Another Period and DuckTales together: one is a period sitcom playing an appalling heiress, the other is her voice at full throttle as Della Duck. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law is the cult pick, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 the straight dramatic voice work, and Hollywood a small, glossy turn as Tallulah Bankhead.
Criminal Minds and the drama
Twelve years as Emily Prentiss is the bulk of the public career and a strange fit for an actress this funny. Huff and Hollywood are the other dramatic parts, and both suggest the procedural was using about a third of her.
The comedy
Where the timing gets to work. Friends started it, Community's final season is the best use of her on camera, and Another Period is the broadest thing she has done and probably the most fun to watch her in.
The voice work
Quietly the most interesting third of the career. Della Duck in DuckTales is the warm one, the Venture Bros work is the sharpest, and the DC animated films let her play the dramatic register the sitcoms never ask for.