Charleston native on weekly HBO show, 'Eastbound & Down'

Sylvia Jefferies does not want to meet her murderer.

Not because the character of Michael Myers in the sequel to "Rob Zombie's Halloween" is so gruesome to look upon, but because the actor playing him is 6-foot-10 to the actress' 5-3.

"That way, I won't have to pretend to be terrified when he chases after me."

Jefferies was in Atlanta this past week to work on the feature, her sixth, once again playing a woman of questionable virtue.

"Usually I'm cast in nice girl roles, but the casting agents Mark, Craig and May Fincannon always cast me as a stripper or trashy girl," says the Charleston-based thespian.

Jefferies once installed a pole in her home to train as an exotic dancer for an episode of TV's "One Tree Hill." "And I'm a stripper in this one, too — Misty Dawn. But I also get to scream in terror, more than once. I don't watch horror movies very often, but it's fun to do something different."

Jefferies appears to be having the most fun as a regular on HBO's Sunday night baseball comedy "Eastbound & Down," which completed its first season of shooting in Wilmington last fall. This, after a lengthy hiatus between the pilot and episodes 2-6, necessitated by the increasing demands on series star and co-writer Danny McBride.

Jefferies plays the character of Tracy (no last name), a vivacious woman with a mind of her own.

"She's probably who I wish I could be if I didn't have the Southern illness of caring about what people think of me," Jefferies says. "She is a person who always does what she thinks she should. But she's also a fun party girl, with not a lot of responsibilities, and she likes her tequila. Although she likes any man in power, she's very independent and the one who's really in charge of everything.

"I'm very independent myself, but I take things much more seriously than Tracy does. Growing up in the South, you just can't get away with her kind of behavior. Like my father once told me, 'Your reputation is your character minus what you're caught doing.' "

Jefferies is the daughter of the late James Jefferies, a lawyer and former mayor of Greenwood, and Polly Jefferies, a retired emergency room registered nurse who is involved in medical mission trips.

Though her parents might have preferred she take up the law — Jefferies was accepted to law school and the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York at the same time, choosing the latter — she has no regrets.

And she's been quite busy adding to her resume, which includes the features "Leo" (2002), "The Notebook" (2004), "End of the Spear" (2005), "Deja Vu" (2006) "Walker Payne" (2006) and "The Four Children of Tander Welch" (2008), as well as two with Charleston-based director Brad Jayne, "The Song of Pumpkin Brown" and "Le Croisment" (2004).

Jefferies, mom to two-year-old son James, also has appeared on the TV series "Surface" and "Near Wild Heaven."

"Eastbound & Down" centers on relief pitcher Kenny Powers (McBride), a hurler once poised to rule the Major Leagues until a fading fastball and an "insufferable personality" caused his career to nosedive. He comes home to Shelby County, N.C., to work as a substitute gym teacher and squeeze every last drop of advantage from his celebrity, nursing dreams of a comeback.

With a trio of directors, it's the latest project from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions, and Jefferies is having a blast doing it, although hoping it's a steppingstone toward proving her range. The same holds for the new "Halloween 2," which is being produced by the Weinstein brothers of Miramax renown.

"I know I can act," says Jefferies, who moonlights as a volunteer at MUSC Children's Hospital and adopts retired racing greyhounds. "My goal with this movie is to get in front of them (Weinsteins) and demonstrate what I can do. I'm going in with that mind-set, to show them I'm not just the trashy girl character."

Meanwhile, she hopes "EB&D" is picked up for a second season.

"It's such a wonderful family of people, though the (on-screen) language is atrocious and the content is this terrible middle-school kind of humor. As far as I know, reaction to the show has been 100 percent positive. They've left it open, but I don't know if we're coming back. It all depends on Danny McBride's movie schedule. I'm knocking on wood."

And hoping more producers knock on her door.

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.