[4] Leeves made her screen debut with a small role in 1983 on the British television comedy programme The Benny Hill Show, and appeared as a dancer in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

[7] In the US, she appeared as a tourist with a baby in the video for David Lee Roth's song "California Girls",[citation needed] but struggled for several years to establish an acting career.

[citation needed] She had a recurring role in the television series Murphy Brown as Audrey Cohen, the smart but awkward girlfriend of producer Miles Silverberg (played by Grant Shaud).

In 1993, Leeves joined the cast of the television series Frasier as the eccentric, forthright and psychic Mancunian Daphne Moon.

By the start of the eighth season, Leeves was pregnant, and the writers incorporated her pregnancy into shows as weight gain due to her character's stress from her relationship with Niles Crane (portrayed by David Hyde Pierce).

With her Frasier costar Peri Gilpin, Leeves also set up the production company Bristol Cities (cockney rhyming slang for 'titties').

[citation needed] From 2010 until 2015, Leeves played the 40-something ex-"eyebrow artist to the stars" Joy Scroggs in the TV Land comedy Hot in Cleveland, with Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick (also her co-star in the final season of Frasier) and Betty White.