It makes my heart hurt that one of the first Google Autocompletes that pops up when searching "Jenny from The League" is "Jenny from The League hot." That's not saying the beautiful Katie Aselton, who portrays Jenny on the FXX show The League , returning for Season 6 on September 3 — is not indeed hot. But by being one of the only lead women on a show that's dominated by males, I just hoped for more — silly me. That's OK though because both Jenny and Aselton have shown that they've got a lot more than looks going on for them.
Jenny MacArthur won the fantasy football league last year and took home the coveted Shiva Trophy at the end of Season 5. The actress who plays her is equally awesome, go figure. But beyond football-related things, Aselton will be showing off her her dramatic side in the upcoming film Sea of Trees, alongside Matthew McConaughey.
But that won't be the first time Aselton has shown her acting chops. She has been in the indie film scene for years, including directing, writing, and starring in The Freebie , opposite Dax Shepard in 2010. She also had a small role in the movie Our Idiot Brother and Aselton most recently directed and starred in the 2013 thriller Black Rock.
Aselton's husband wrote the script for Black Rock and he is a familiar face to The League fans — he's Mark Duplass who plays Pete on the show. Jenny on The League is married to Pete's best friend, Kevin, portrayed by Stephen Rannazzisi. I know, I know. It's weird, but Aselton told USA Today that by not being a couple on the show it offers her and Duplass something different than the roles they portrayed in the 2005 film The Puffy Chair, another film that Duplass wrote, this time alongside his brother Jay Duplass. (Jay should also be familiar to The Mindy Project fans as both Jay and Mark play the midwife brothers on the Fox show.)
(Can Aselton please, please, please make an appearance on The Mindy Project too? That would bring me so much joy. And she could definitely go toe-to-toe with Mindy Lahiri.)
About having her real-life husband not playing her husband on The League, Aselton said in an interview with GQ , "It's funny that he's not playing my husband on the show, so that can get a little weird sometimes when I'm being affectionate towards my TV husband. But it's all part of the job, you know?"
Once you know about the real-life relationships, it makes the show more hilarious and more awkward, especially since the character Pete is divorced and now single. Like in the episode, "The Near Death Flex-perience," Pete got shaved by Jason Stackhouse's wife — I mean, actress Ashley Hinshaw, who also happened to marry a certain sheriff on True Blood's series finale. (Oddly enough, that's not the first True Blood-The League actor crossover as actress Janina Gavankar was shapeshifter Luna on True Blood and she's Shiva on The League — the namesake of their fantasy football trophy. The first episode of Season 6 is even entitled "Sitting Shiva.")
In an interview with HuffPost Women, Aselton showed that life does not imitate art when it comes to the marriage she portrays on The League, "I love Jenny and Kevin's marriage, [but] I don't think I could be in that marriage. They have this great give-and-take with each other, but they really give it to each other. I think if my husband ever said some of the things that Kevin said to me, I would totally cry." Since the cast of The League excels in mocking each other, I'm glad to hear that Aselton and Duplass don't share in that offscreen.
The League is the only football-themed entertainment that I can handle and the talented Aselton makes it all the more enjoyable. So as football season returns, catch the foul-mouthed Jenny gloating about beating the guys on FXX.
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