As happy as she is about her current gig, de Rossi is equally chilly about her four seasons on Ally. ''Thank God that's over,'' she says with a level of disdain usually reserved for bad blind dates. ''[Nelle] was supposed to be a tough attorney. I could have done without bedding my boss and standing in my underwear three episodes in.''
When Ally ended in 2002, she took time off, bought a horse, played her late friend Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in a TV biopic, and sifted through scripts sent by NBC, where she had a development deal. Nothing interested her until she got the pilot for Arrested from her agent.
''I knew I had to do whatever I had to do to get it,'' she says. It didn't take much to convince series creator Mitch Hurwitz: ''Portia had this light comic touch and was able to go through a range of emotions in an alarmingly quick way.''
Now that she's landed the job, though, the model-turned-law student-turned-actress isn't sure she wants to hang around Hollywood once Arrested ends. The Aussie native is contemplating producing TV back home or simply ditching entertainment altogether and starting a new life as a horse trainer. (She's rearranged her schedule so she can spend her mornings ''shoveling s---'' and training Maital.) ''I've always seen acting as just something I did once,'' she explains.
Don't forget, this is a woman who is seriously committed to switching things up: Born Amanda Rogers, she made up the name ''Portia de Rossi'' when she was 14 to get into a Melbourne club—and then decided it was ''really awesome'' and changed it legally.
''It's the most self-expressive thing a person can do. People that don't change their names are weird,'' she says, laughing. ''I may change it again. I may change it right now.'' Oh? What's on the short list? ''Beata,'' she starts. ''Tekla. Astrid. Inga...'' Whoa, there, Tekla. Your TV brothers have enough ammunition already.
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