And while Ambrose says Sherman-Palladino's machine-gun dialogue doesn't bother her, she does admit to being slightly terrified at the prospect of having to be funny. She shouldn't be. Early in her roughly 10-year-old career, she knocked out several comedic roles on the big screen: Can't Hardly Wait, in 1998; and two independent films, Swimming and the well-titled Psycho Beach Party, in 2000.

The latter two of those movies also featured Ambrose's other talent - singing, something she has worked on post-Six Feet Under.

She made her Broadway debut in the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Awake and Sing! in 2006, starring alongside Mark Ruffalo. And Ambrose received glowing reviews for her star turn in New York's Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo and Juliet last summer, just months after she and her husband, photographer Sam Handel, had welcomed their first child, Orson Halcyon Handel, into the world. It's more than worth noting that Ambrose beat out Sienna Miller for the role of Juliet.

In addition to taking on stage roles, Ambrose has followed up Six Feet Under by delivering a strikingly nuanced performance in the 2007 feature film Starting Out in the Evening.

So far, everything in Ambrose's career seems to make perfect, almost scripted, sense: small roles in indie movies, followed by a supporting role in an HBO drama, followed by star roles in stage productions, followed by a star role in a big-screen drama. And then … a sitcom? It's a brave and different choice. And even though Ambrose says she wishes everything in her career had been perfectly planned out, she admits that "it never really works out that way. "Things that come your way are often surprising, like this sitcom," she says. "You can't make any plans."