Photographed by Jeff Lipsky
She plays tough on CSI: Miami, but Emily Procter’s heart belongs to her
big, fat cat Kevin-and high heels
There are no skeletons in Emily Procter’s closet- but there are shoes.
Fifty pairs of high heels, by her estimate. “Look at these!” yells the
actress, hiking a pant leg up to reveal a fuchsia Christian Louboutin
pump. “When I saw them in the window, I had to have them. I wore them
to work, and people came by my trailer all day long to see them.”
And therein lies the problem: Work happens to be on CSI: Miami, the hit
CBS drama in which Procter plays Calleigh Duquesne, a no-nonsense
ballistics expert. The kind of woman the show’s producers believe
doesn’t boohoo over Jimmy Choo. So why isn’t she wearing flats in her
scenes? “I get so much flack,” says Procter, 34. “They say, ‘If you
were an officer of the law, you would not wear high heels,’ and I say,
‘That’s where you’re wrong. I wear high heels to clean my house. I wear
high heels until I go to bed.’ I just don’t like my feet flat.”
Footwear notwithstanding, no one denies Procter’s charm-or southern
hospitality. The Raleigh, N.C., native regularly takes trays of tea to
cast and crew in the afternoon. She’s also the show’s unofficial head
cheerleader. “She brings on such an upbeat energy that it’s
infectious,” says David Caruso, who stars as Lt. Horatio Caine. “Emily
has a warmth that comes through in her work,” agrees castmate Khandi
Alexander. “When you’re beautiful and blonde, you have to keep proving
yourself. But she’s got the chops. She’s not a twinkie. She proved that
on The West Wing.”
Indeed, it was her recurring role as White House lawyer Ainsley Hayes
last season that drew the attention of CSI: Miami’s producers. Procter
leapt at the offer. “I wanted to be on a show where the woman is smart
and her voice matters,” she says.
Procter, the younger of two children of William, a physician, and
Barbara Jones, a community volunteer worker (they divorced when she was
2), first made herself heard not onstage but in front of the map. While
earning a journalism degree from East Carolina University, she got a
part-time job doing the weather at WITN-TV in Greenville, N.C. In 1992
she moved to L.A. to pursue acting. Small roles on TV (as Joey’s
girlfriend on a 1995 episode of Friends) and in movies (Jerry Maguire)
eventually led to the part of Ainsley on West Wing.
Working 14-hour days on Miami, with occasional jaunts to that city for
location shoots, has crimped Procter’s social life. “It’s hard to date,
because you have to reschedule things constantly, says the actress, who
shares a two-bedroom, two-bath Spanish bungalow in L.A. with Kevin, her
19-lb. Cat. Not that she lacks for human companionship. Tuesday is
poker night. “It’s a group of guys and me,” she says. “I load up on
Cheese Nips, and we have a good time.” How good is she? And how much is
wagered? “We don’t talk about those things,” says Procter. “Poker
nights-it’s all about the cussing.”
source www.emilyprocter.com
