Wearing a short white dress - and very high heels - for a round of press interviews, Shahi, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader who plays a lawyer-turned-mediator in her new show, recalled a day when she wasn't so sleekly attired.
That would be the day she auditioned for "Legal." Having read enough of the pilot script to know that she liked the character - "I enjoyed her vitality" - she asked to audition.
"I didn't even know if I wanted the show, but I like to audition," said Shahi, whose pre-"Life" credits include a memorable guest role in "The Sopranos" (as the dancer Tony spends time with in Las Vegas in Season 6) and as a regular on Showtime's "The L Word."
"I treat every audition like it's a job, for me, and I'm one of those few actors that actually likes to audition," she said. "Most actors hate it. I love it. Because to me, I feel like I have a job for 10 minutes."
In this case, though, the job opportunity presented itself only weeks after Shahi had given birth, in July 2009, to her son with actor husband Steve Howey ("Shameless," "Reba").
"I had planned to be a stay-at-home mom, and I just couldn't," Shahi said. "My mom was a career woman, she worked, she had three kids on her own and I love to work.
"So I went in. Nothing fit. I was wearing Nike running pants, like spandex shorts with my husband's white T-shirt and a blazer over it, because I was five weeks postpartum. I actually started lactating by the end of the scene. I ran out of there. And then they called my manager and they said, 'You know, we really like her, but she came in wearing the strangest thing and she ran out of the room.' They're like, 'Can you have her come back in and this time ask her to stay?'
