After landing a role on "Law & Order," Paulson continued to get small parts in several shows throughout the late '90s and early 2000s. She played "Janice" in two episodes of the crime drama "Cracker," Agatha Ripp in an episode of "Nip/Tuck," and Zoe in one episode of the fantasy series "Touched by an Angel." She also appeared in longer stints on shows like "American Gothic" as Merlyn Temple, "Jack & Jill" as Elisa Cronkite, and "Deadwood" as Miss Isringhausen.
When asked by Collider which of her earlier roles made the biggest impact on her, Paulson replied: "On 'Jack & Jill,' I met my best friend Amanda Peet, who has — both my life and my working life — been the person I tend to go to the most for an assessment of what I'm doing or not doing. She's the person I'll go read something with before I decide what I'm going to do — she does the same with me. Our lens is exactly the same. So we tend to respond to the same music, or book, or poem, anything, and we also tend to reject the same kinds of things. So if she thinks what I'm doing is good, I tend to feel confident and can go forth into the night ... So that has been a big, huge, huge, huge part of the way I work and the choices I make."
In fact, Peet helped Paulson land a role on a show that would earn her first Golden Globe nomination years after "Jack & Jill" ended.
