Christina Applegate on MS: “Acceptance? No. I’m Never Going to Accept This. I’m Pissed”
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The post Christina Applegate on MS: “Acceptance? No. I’m Never Going to Accept This. I’m Pissed” appeared first on Consequence.
Christina Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) while filming the third and final season of Netflix’s Dead to Me, and in a revealing new interview with The New York Times, she spoke about the toll it’s taken on her body and mind.
The interview also served as a reintroduction. “This is the first time anyone’s going to see me the way I am,” she said. “I put on 40 pounds; I can’t walk without a cane. I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that.”
MS is an autoimmune disease which damages the myelin sheaths covering nerve cells, disrupting signals to and from the brain. It is not inherently fatal, though it can lead to dangerous complications with swallowing, bowel impairments, and more, as well as issues with speech, vision, and pain.
Applegate first sensed that something might be wrong while dealing with unexpected dizziness during a dance scene in Season 1 of Dead to Me, and later noted that she seemed to be getting worse at tennis. “I wish I had paid attention,” she said. “But who was I to know?”
Over time, she noticed more and more a tingling and numbness in her fingers and toes, and in 2021 her doctors finally identified the cause. She had conversations with producers about canceling Season 3, but Applegate was determined to finish what she’d started. “I had an obligation to [series creator] Liz [Feldman] and to [co-star] Linda [Cardellini], to our story,” she said. “The powers that be were like, ‘Let’s just stop. We don’t need to finish it. Let’s put a few episodes together.’ I said, ‘No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms.’”
Applegate appeared as a baby in Days of Our Lives and joined the Screen Actors Guild in Kindergarten. She went straight from Married… with Children to the title role on Jesse, and in a career that’s included two Anchorman films, Samantha Who? and an Emmy for a featured part on Friends, she has rarely stepped off-set. But before she finished Season 3 of Dead to Me, she took a five month break.
“There was the sense of, ‘Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better,’” Applegate, said. “And there is no better. But it was good for me. I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me. So I needed that time.”
Filming proved difficult, both physically and emotionally. She can often be seen in Season 3 holding doors for support, and the scripts, which had long been written, delved into the topic of illness. “When Linda and I would do those scenes, it crushed us sometimes,” Applegate said.
She worries people won’t pay attention to the story, noting, “If all they can concentrate on is, ‘Ooh, look at the cripple,’ that’s not up to me… Fine, don’t get past it, then,” she continued. “But hopefully people can get past it and just enjoy the ride and say goodbye to these two girls.”
She called finishing Season 3 the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. “It’s not like I came on the other side of it, like, ‘Woohoo, I’m totally fine,’” she said. “Acceptance? No. I’m never going to accept this. I’m pissed.”
Applegate is also going to keep working, having recently signed up for an animated reboot of Married… with Children starring the original cast. And Dead to Me Season 3 stands as a testament to her will; completed, as she wanted, “on my terms.” It debuts on Netflix November 17th.
Christina Applegate on MS: “Acceptance? No. I’m Never Going to Accept This. I’m Pissed”
Wren Graves
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