Christina Applegate opened up about her future in Hollywood following her MS diagnosis and why the final season of “Dead to me” might be her last time in front of the screen.
Speaking with Variety ahead of her Walk of Fame star ceremony next Monday, Applegate said the role of Jen Harding on the Netflix series is “quite possibly the last one I’ll play.” Explaining that, due to her disease, she doesn’t “know how capable I am” acting on camera going forward, she added that she’s still “just a newbie to all of this” and “trying to figure it out.”
The actress, 50, has been very open about how difficult it was for her to film “Dead to Me’s” final season, after being diagnosed with MS during production. She explained that, at first, she didn’t realize what was happening to her, as her toes and balls of her feet went numb over time.
“I ignored it. All of a sudden, I’d be, like, falling over,” she told the outlet, adding that she had to be taken around set on a wheelchair, was “sleeping all the time” and gained 40 pounds around the time of her diagnosis.
“I got diagnosed while we were working, and I had to call everybody and be like, ‘I have multiple sclerosis, guys. Like, what the f—!’ And then it was about kind of learning — all of us learning — what I was going to be capable of doing,” she continued.
Applegate explained the show gave her a couple months off “so that I could mourn, and find treatment” and reworked the schedule daily depending on how she was feeling. “You can see the struggle, and you can see it through the whole season. You can see that I’m in pain,” she shared.
The actress said she doesn’t have any plans to watch the final season herself, saying “it’s too hard for me,” but she also felt it was “too important” to not finish filming.
While she did say she was “pretty convinced” her work on “Dead to Me” is it, she didn’t close the door completely to acting again in the future.
“It’s about finding what I’m capable of doing. I’m so new in this right now. It takes time to kind of figure out this disease, and figure out what’s bringing on symptoms,” she said, adding that she’d need to be able to work somewhere “where they won’t think I’m a diva by saying, ‘Hey, I can only work five hours.” Applegate also said she probably wouldn’t be the star of a series again — saying it “was so hard” doing it for “Dead to Me” — and is really “enjoying being a mother” right now.
She shares daughter Sadie, 11, with husband Martyn LeNoble.
“But who knows — I’m probably gonna get real bored of being in my room,” she added, saying she’d still “like to develop stuff, I’d like to produce stuff. I’ve got a lot of ideas in my mind, and I just need to get them executed.”
There’s also an animated “Married with Children” series in the works that she’s still rooting for — “Because all of us would like to be able to stay home and work. That would be nice!”
The final season of “Dead to Me” hits Netflix on November 17.
, Entertainment,International, ,