Erinn Hayes

Erinn Hayes has spent two decades being the sanest person in rooms that make no sense. Her longest-running part is Dr. Lola Spratt on Childrens Hospital, the hospital parody she played from 2008 to 2016 and carried into the spin-off Medical Police, and in 2016 the work drew an Emmy nomination in the short-form comedy or drama category.

The technique is worth watching because it is so unshowy. In a parody, most performers signal that they know the joke. Hayes plays the line as though the scene were real and lets the absurdity arrive on its own, which is why she keeps getting cast in films where the comedy is deliberately dry: Emma Mandrake in It's a Disaster, Valerie in They Came Together, Crystal Vichycoisse in Band Aid.

Network television has used her differently, mostly as the wife. She played Donna Gable on Kevin Can Wait, then turned up on Kevin Can F**K Himself as Molly, which is a strange pair of credits for one person to hold. Elsewhere: Kitchen Confidential, Notes from the Underbelly, Guys with Kids, Benched, Murderville, and back to a hospital again with St. Denis Medical. In features she was Elizabeth in Bill & Ted Face the Music and Sandy Parker in A Christmas Story Christmas.