Early life

Johnston was born in Washington, DC, and was raised mostly in Fox Point, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, where she attended St. Eugene's Catholic Grade School and Whitefish Bay High School. She spent some of her teen years in Sweden and in South America. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama at New York University.

Career

Johnston made her professional stage debut with New York's Atlantic Theater Company, which was founded by playwright David Mamet. During her association with that company, she appeared in such productions as As You Like It, Girl's Talk, Stage Door, Author's Voice, Portrait of a Woman, and Rosemary for Remembrance.

She has performed with the Naked Angels Theater Company in The Stand-In and Hot Keys, and with New York Stage and Film in Kim's Sister, with David Strathairn and Jane Adams. For her performance in The Lights at Lincoln Center Theater, Johnston was nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Best Supporting Actress. The show brought her to the attention of a Carsey-Werner television executive. After numerous auditions in 1996 for the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun, she won the role of Sally Solomon. She starred in the series from 1996 to 2001 along with John Lithgow, Jane Curtin, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the role earned her two Emmy Awards for best supporting actress in a comedy series.

Johnston made her feature film debut in The Debt, winner of Best Short at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. In 1995, she played Kate in Backfire! Other television credits include guest-starring roles on the series Chicago Hope, Hearts Afire, and The 5 Mrs. Buchanans. She was also the narrator in Microscopic Milton on the Disney Channel. Her significant roles in commercially successful movies included Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me in 1999, Austin Powers in Goldmember in 2002, and Music and Lyrics in 2007.

In 1998, she was a spokesmodel for the Clairol company, as well as appearing on Bad Religion's No Substance album cover.

Johnston appeared in the sixth and final season of Sex and the City. In the episode entitled "Splat!", her character, Lexi Featherston, an aging party girl, accidentally falls out of a window and dies (after saying, "I'm so bored I could die."), prompting Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) to re-examine her life. In 2005, Johnston was featured in six episodes of NBC's ER. She was cast as Patsy in a proposed American remake of the British TV show Absolutely Fabulous, but the series was never picked up by a network. She appeared in a recurring role in the 2009 season of Ugly Betty and had a single-episode appearance as a dominatrix in the second season opener of Bored to Death.

She starred in the TV Land sitcom The Exes, which debuted November 30, 2011, and ended September 16, 2015.

Personal Life

Her father is former Wisconsin Republican state senator Rod Johnston.

In her autobiography, Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster, Johnston discusses an addiction to alcohol and pills that began when she was in high school. She stated in the 2012 book that she had been sober for five years. Through her charity SLAM, NYC (Sobriety, Learning and Motivation), she mentors high school girls from New York City with addiction and self-esteem issues and has been crusading for the city to build a recovery high school.

Johnston said she was diagnosed in November 2013 with lupus myelitis, which caused her to miss filming for some episodes of her series The Exes. A character played by Leah Remini was introduced in season three to cover Johnston's absence.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	The Orkly Kid	Unknown	short film
1992	Amazonia	Unknown	short film
1993	The Debt	Alice Kosnick	short film
1995	Backfire!	Kate
1999	Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me	Ivana Humpalot
2000	The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas	Wilma Slaghoople
2002	Ice Age	Sylvia	voice only (scenes deleted)
	Austin Powers in Goldmember	Dancer	uncredited
2007	Music and Lyrics	Rhonda
2009	Bride Wars	Deb
2009	Finding Bliss	Irene Fox
2011	Life Happens	Francesca
2012	Vamps	Mrs. Van Helsing
2012	Bad Parents	Tracy
2014	Lovesick	Katherine

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	Chicago Hope	Dr. Wendy Smythe	Episode: "Genevieve and Fat Boy"
1994	The 5 Mrs. Buchanans	Zena	Episode: "Bad News Bert: There's Peanuts in the Peanut Butter"
1995	Hearts Afire	Margot	Episode: "John and Georgie's Not-So-Excellent Adventure"
1996	London Suite	Grace Chapman	TV movie
1996—2001	3rd Rock from the Sun	Sally Solomon	139 episodes Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries, or TV Film Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
1997	Microscopic Milton	Narrator	TV movie
2004	Sex and the City	Lexi Featherston	Episode: "Splat!"
2004	ER	Dr. Eve Peyton	6 episodes
2005	Strangers with Candy	Coach Divers	TV movie
2007	Kim Possible	Warmonga	3 episodes
2009	The New Adventures of Old Christine	Francie	Episode: "Too Close for Christine"
2009—2010	Ugly Betty	Helen	3 episodes
2010	Bored to Death	Mistress Florence	Episode: "Escape from the Dungeon!"
2011—2015	The Exes	Holly Franklin	52 episodes
2013	RuPaul's Drag Race	Herself	2 episodes
2014	Kirstie	Waitress Maddie	Episode: "Maddie vs. Maddie"
2014	Modern Family	Brenda	Episode: "Strangers in the Night"
2015	Getting On	Marla Pounder	Episode: "Please Partake of a Memorial Orange"

Stage

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	The Lights	Rose	Nominated—Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play
2001—2002	The Women	Sylvia
2004	Aunt Dan and Lemon	Aunt Dan
2004	The Baltimore Waltz	Anna
2004	Much Ado About Nothing	Beatrice
2004	The Skin of Our Teeth	Sabina
2007	Scarcity	Martha
2006—2007	Love Song	Unknown
2007—2009	So Help Me God	Lily Darnley	Nominated—Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play
2008	The Understudy	Theresea Rebeck

Autobiography

• 2012: Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster., Gallery Books, ISBN 978-1451635065

[ Source: Wikipedia ]