WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Missi Pyle, an alumna of the UNC School of the Arts who appeared in the Oscar-winning film “The Artist,” returned to the campus this week to tape a pilot for a possible TV series.
Pyle, 39, also visited with students and spoke to them about her career.
“Everybody has a soft spot for where they started out,” Pyle said. “I still have a lot of ties to the school, and I owe a lot of my success to the school.”
She graduated from UNCSA’s School of Drama in 1995 and has gone on to appear in films such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Dodgeball” and “Galaxy Quest” and in guest roles on TV shows such as “Two and a Half Men,” “My Name is Earl,” “Boston Legal” and “The Mentalist.”
She also has a thriving stage career and has recorded several albums with fellow actress Shawnee Smith that mix comedy and country rock.
The pilot — a sample episode filmed to show the networks what a show would look like — is an improvised comedy called “The Drama Department.”
It is a collaboration between Pyle and her friend and ’95 classmate Chris Grace, a standup comedian who is teaching an improvisational comedy class to UNCSA students during the summer session.
This article was written by Tim Clodfelter and originally published by The Winston-Salem Journal. Click here to read more.
