Posted at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11

Jason Priestley and Jaime Pressly on Thursday's "My Name Is Earl." NBC photo

Is there animosity between Brandon Walsh and his sister, Brenda?

That’s the way it sounded Tuesday when Jason Priestley, who played Brandon on the original “Beverly Hills 90210,” heard a rumor that the episode he is directing of the spin-off “90210” will have Brenda falling ill to a horrible disease.

“That’s news to me,” he said during a call with reporters, “but this is fantastic! That’s going to be awesome!”

Priestley said he doesn’t know what will happen to Brenda, played by his co-star from the original, Shannen Doherty, or anyone else in his episode, which he will shoot in January.

“They haven’t given me anything yet,” he said. “I don’t even know if the episode is written yet, but I love all those rumors. That’s juicy stuff. That would be fun.”

Priestley was plugging his 7 p.m. Thursday appearance on NBC’s “My Name Is Earl,” when he will play Earl’s cousin Blake—a professional backpack model.

Blake and Earl (Jason Lee), who always have competed with each other, renew that rivalry when Blake returns to Camden to attend an anniversary party Earl is throwing for his ex, Joy (Jaime Pressly), who once had a relationship with Blake.

“My character and Jaime Pressly's character had a sexual liaison at a certain point in time,” Priestley said. “Once Earl finds out about that, it really sends him off.”

The actor said he has always been a fan of the show, and thinks the actors there are all top notch.

“Watching two grown men competing like that obviously is very, very funny,” Priestley said. “You know, Jason Lee is such a funny guy and Earl is such a funny character. It was a real pleasure for me to work with him and be in the presence of comedic greatness.”

Priestley also had praise for Pressly and her character, the tough, trashy gal who has slept with a lot of men.

“Joy is fantastic,” he said. “She’s totally at peace with who she is. ... She is who she is. And she makes no apologies about it.”

Priestley, who spent most of the Tuesday interview answering questions about “90210,” almost didn’t escape that series on “My Name Is Earl.”

“Earl” writers originally going to name his character Brandon, but they decided against it, Priestley said.

“They thought it was just going to be a little too cute,” he said.

Priestley, who also has directed several episodes of “The Secret Life of an American Teenager,” insisted again Tuesday that he won’t resurrect Brandon on “90210,” like Doherty and former castmate Jennie Garth have revived their old characters.

“There really wasn’t anything interesting for me to do as Brandon on that show,” he said. “As a director who directed the most episodes of the original show, I felt that I had more to offer as a director over there and apparently so did they.”

He is happy to work again with Garth, who he said he still talks on a regular basis. His Brandon and Garth’s Kelly were once linked romantically, which led to speculation earlier this season that Brandon was the father of Kelly’s son, Sammy. The dad turned out to be Dylan, once played by Luke Perry, who said he won’t appear on the new series.

Priestley, however, said he was not disappointed that Brandon wasn’t a baby daddy.

“That’s totally cool,” he said. “I think that Brandon was the kind of character, if that had been his child, he would have stuck around. I would hope so anyway.”

Back to Brenda Walsh, Priestley’s “90210” sister. When asked who he thought would win in a fight between Brenda and Joy on “My Name Is Earl,” Priestley didn’t take a second to think.

“My money’s on Joy,” he said. “She’s tenacious and she’s wirey. She’s a tough kid.”

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