CHARACTERS YOU WILL LOVE.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

Every TV series has its leading players who earn viewers' admiration but somehow remain beyond the reach of us mere mortals on our couches.

But often we latch onto supporting players, sometimes because they are more average-looking and -sounding people, sometimes because they have a role we can identify with more. With more and more ensemble casts, many of these actors are coming to the fore.

Here are just a few of the most compelling characters in this fall's new series. Down the road we'll be looking at some familiar faces returning to TV as well as some favorites from returning series.

Comfort in Joy

Jaime Pressly does the ``pretty'' thing quite well, judging from her modeling experience and two appearances in the pages of Playboy.

But for sheer pleasure in practicing her acting craft, give her a good tough dame to play any day.

Pressly, 28, has found a dream come true in her supporting part in ``My Name Is Earl'' (9 p.m. Tuesdays, NBC), a comedy about a ne'er-do-well guy who hopes to shake off his own grim karma by making amends and righting a lifetime of wrongs.

Pressly plays Joy, the dishy, trashy blonde who married Earl (Jason Lee), sweet-talked him into raising her children by other daddies, then dumped him as he was recovering from being run over. Joy learns Earl came into some money a moment before she foisted divorce papers on him, and she's determined to get a cut of it.

``She is the best thing that ever happened to me,'' says Pressly, her magnolia blossom of a North Carolina accent occasionally morphing into Joy's mountain twang. ``It's so much fun to play this character because she's so outlandish and off the wall.

``She's such a ballsy broad because she really doesn't know any better. She has no fear, and you never know what's going to come out of her mouth, so she's never boring.''

Pressly admits she likes to glam up now and then for a role, as most women would. ``But for me, I prefer to play the more rugged character because it's more real. ... More people can relate to those types of characters, and I like to be able to relate to everybody.''

Pressly thinks ``Earl,'' NBC's most-talked-about new show, will have a broad appeal.

``The thing is, reality TV has been so big in the last two years,'' she says. ``This is a show that actually brings reality to life in a scripted way. Like 'Roseanne,' everybody can relate to it. Poor or rich, it's something you can enjoy. Because if it's not you (on that screen), you know 'em.''

Double or nothing

After the series ``Soul Food'' quit production, Rockmond Dunbar set out to make the most of pilot season, that late-winter frenzy of speculative television production.

``I got desperate and just started auditioning for everything that came out,'' he says. The good news is he got series work out of it. The better news - and in a way the worse news - is he got cast in frequently recurring roles in two different Fox series.

At 9 p.m. Mondays on ``Prison Break,'' Dunbar plays C-Note, inmate and unofficial pharmacist of the yard on ``Prison Break.''

Tune in again at 9 p.m. Wednesdays for ``Head Cases,'' and he's Dr. Michael Robinson, the psychiatrist treating Jason Payne (Chris O'Donnell), an attorney recovering from a mental breakdown, and his much wackier law firm partner played by Adam Goldberg.

Dr. Robinson is as scholarly and composed as C-Note is streetwise. But the challenges go well beyond the characters' differences in demeanor and dialogue. Dunbar, 32, is coordinating two production schedules, just as Heather Locklear juggled ``Dynasty'' and ``T.J. Hooker'' in the '80s.

``It's a work in progress,'' he says of the planning. ``Thank God it's for the same network.''

He says he is drawing on his manager's experience in representing Lisa Nicole Carson while she balanced roles in ``Ally McBeal'' and ``ER.''

``I'm always multitasking, though,'' Dunbar says. ``Since junior high I've always been doing three or four different things.''

These days that includes the October release of the feature ``Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang'' and prep on a project he plans to direct.

``I'm trying to do as much as I possibly can. You don't know what's going to do well. Who knows? It's a gamble.''

Seeing Red

It may take more than a four-dimensional, shape-shifting object and Carla Gugino's now-standard beautiful, smart, problem-solving leading lady to keep viewers coming back to sci-fi drama ``Threshold'' (9 p.m. Fridays, CBS). That's where the Red Team comes in.

Peter Dinklage (``The Station Agent''), Brent Spiner (``Star Trek: The Next Generation'') and Rob Benedict (``Felicity'') play civilian scientists who are brought into the top-secret investigation of an apparent alien invasion. They're a mismatched threesome who at least initially resent the assignment they were forced to take.

``Not exactly Charlie's Angels, are they?'' as one observer notes in the pilot.

Dinklage had a pretty decent indie film career rolling when he committed to ``Threshold,'' his first regular role on a series. He says he doesn't know yet how the TV schedule will affect his availability for movies.

``But I'll gladly sacrifice it to be a part of something like this,'' he says. He's enjoying playing a character whose purpose in the story is not related to his dwarf stature.

``If you surround yourself with intelligent people, you're not constantly reminded about your size. People of my persuasion are doctors and lawyers - and we're all over the world,'' he added in a menacing tone.

``So here's just a character who happens to be a dwarf, like myself, and ... you're not constantly being reminded, nor should you be, because there I am, and it's - I'm that size, and it's addressed just being there.''

``Threshold'' has an order for 13 episodes, but Dinklage says if it gets the full-season order and more, he'll continue with it.

``If I don't get abducted, or my head explodes or something.''

He feels pretty

As a regular on the Nickelodeon comedy show ``All That'' and a recurring player on ``Malcolm in the Middle,'' Kyle Sullivan has been a bona fide TV star in the eyes of kids and teens for years.

Now 16, he stands on the brink of fame among adult viewers. For his breakout role, he's chosen Larry, the reclusive middle child on the dark, dysfunctional series ``The War at Home'' (9 p.m. Sundays, Fox), which shoves ``Roseanne'' closer to ``Father Knows Best'' on the family comedy spectrum.

In the pilot episode, Larry's parents are trying to cope with the possibility that their son is gay. He denies it, but then why is he grooving to a movie musical, spending excessive hours in his room with a friend and donning a frilly blouse to the tune of ``I Feel Pretty''? (Actually there's a reason for that, but we won't ruin it for you.)

``Larry's a fun character to play because he's sort of a closeted extrovert,'' Sullivan says. ``The character is, of course, awkward around his family because he wants his family to approve of him, and yet at the same time he has all these sort of interests that are very quirky and dweeby and geeky and he has a level of embarrassment about them - but at the same time they're sort of guilty pleasures, and he can't help it.''

Some teenagers might think twice - or three times - about accepting such a part instead of holding out for, say, a new hunk role on ``The O.C.'' Sullivan is happy with a juicy side character, at least for now.

``Being typecast as a character actor is sort of an oxymoron in so far as what defines a character actor is that he's in so many things playing so many different characters that you can't quite pin him down,'' he says.

The brother-in-law

If there's a brother-in-law in a TV story line, he's often a dim bulb who sponges off the core characters.

That's pretty much what the writers of ``Invasion'' (10 p.m. Wednesdays, ABC) had in mind when they created Dave Groves, a hanger-on with his sister Larkin and her husband Russell as they recover from a devastating hurricane and start seeing unexplainable changes in their Florida community, including weird lights in the everglades at night.

But Tyler Labine, who plays Dave, sees more to him than that.

``He's smart as a whip,'' Labine says. ``He's definitely got his ear to the ground for anything conspiratorial, anything just slightly away from the norm.

``People at home are saying, 'Don't go in that room, don't turn off the light.' That's what my character is saying on the show. He's sitting there going, 'Don't do that, you idiot.' And they do it, of course, and something bad happens, and then in the end everyone has to say, 'OK, Dave, you were right.' ''

Labine, 27, is a workhorse of an actor with character names like Ox, Frat Guy, Stoner and Skinhead in his credits.

``I've been a bit of a slut for the last 15 years of my life. I've been out there doing it,'' he says. ``I think there's a lot of really great hard-working actors out there that don't ever really see the light of the leading-man daylight. I'm one of 'em.''

He's content with his lot, though, as a supporting player. ``What isn't cool about being a character actor? I love it. Almost everything I do is a different character for me, so it's like a nonstop creation festival.

``It's like being a kid. I get to make believe for a living, which is great.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) JAIME PRESSLY OF ``MY NAME IS EARL''

(2) JAIME PRESSLY

(3) PETER DINKLAGE

(4) ROCKMOND DUNBAR

(5) KYLE SULLIVAN

(6) TYLER LABINE