Plus, more Emmy nomination predictions and a preview of next month’s Tony Awards.
“Let’s be honest.
I was like, ‘I’m done.’
Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini on season 3 of ‘Dead to Me’.NETFLIX
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Do you have any unfinished business with Jen?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE:No, ‘cause Judy’s gone.
There is no Jen without Judy.
Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini on season 3 of ‘Dead to Me’.Saeed Adyani/Netflix
That’s sad always, to leave that family.
The show was written a year before I had any symptoms.
We had done the table read for this during the pandemic.
Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini on season 3 of ‘Dead to Me’.John P. Fleenor/Netflix
So way before now, looking back, I’ve been having symptoms for probably five years.
And I was like, oh, I’m just tired.
It wasn’t until January of 2021 that I started to feel numbness in my feet.
Linda Cardellini and Christina Applegate on season 3 of ‘Dead to Me’.NETFLIX
Something really weird is going on.
And the production was like, you gotta go figure this out.
And it wasn’t until we were almost a month into shooting that I found out I had MS…. And we took a week off.
Getty Images
[Laughs]
And then I came back to work, and then it was getting harder and harder.
Slurred words, not being able to walk at all, shaking of hands everything was really bad.
And I was like, “Well, no one told me this.”
Melanie Lynskey on ‘Yellowjackets’.Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
That’s it.”
I couldn’t deal with it at all.
I had to work.
Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong, and Kieran Culkin on ‘Succession’.David M. Russell/HBO
[Laughs] I’m still working, working 12 hours a day.
And it wasn’t until we stopped [that] it hit me as hard as it has.
Did you find it hard to be funny through all of that?
Jennifer Coolidge in ‘The White Lotus’.Fabio Lovino/HBO
I found that to be my repose, really.
It was my break, it was my breath.
Do you find comedy, in general, easy because of the many years you’ve done it?
Matthew Macfadyen and Nicholas Braun on ‘Succession’.David M. Russell/HBO
[Laughs] It’s way harder.
You have to have all the discipline and the work that you would do for anything else.
And if you go too far, you’re into sketch.
Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clarke in ‘Death of a Salesman’.Joan Marcus
But if you’re free to hit that pocket… it really is like science.
When you watchSpinal Tap, for years people thought they were actually a band.
And they’re like, “This band, they’re really ridiculous.”
Sara Bareilles in ‘Into the Woods’.Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
And to know that it was these American dudes improving.
That is comic splendor as far as I’m concerned.
I was going to ask who you take inspiration from.
Adrianna Hicks in ‘Some Like it Hot’.Marc J. Franklin
That’s an amazing example.
That’s in my top five favorite movies of all time.
I have a very strange eclectic top five.
Arian Moayed and Jessica Chastain in ‘A Doll’s House’.Courtesy of A Doll’s House
Do you want to hear them?
Is there one thing that strings them together for you?
But she’s still alive.
Victoria Clark in ‘Kimberly Akimbo’.Ahron R. Foster
That’s how I deal with it.
[Laughs] That’s my loose end.
Which I’m sure kept you on your toes acting against that.
Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt in ‘Parade’.Joan Marcus
Acting with Linda Cardellini is a dream come true.
Because they’re lucky, lucky human beings.
For my experience, Linda and I just lived them.
Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban in ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’.Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
But it can’t just be all you ‘cause there is a vision there.
I don’t even know how to explain it.
Well, the last season, it was so difficult for me.
Joomin Hwang, Rachel Webb, Bobby ‘Pocket’ Horner, Lorna Courtney, and Virgil Gadson in ‘& Juliet’.Matthew Murphy
I was kind of going by the seat of my pants with everything, with every moment.
But we never rehearsed, we never did anything.
It was like, let’s just s— out the words and see what happens….
These were two people on the edge.
you might’t plan every move because the moves are going to change…. And when that happened, that was when the scenes were the best.
It was just unlike anything I had read because it wasn’t speaking to any genre.
It’s pretty much right under the surface of my skin.
I liked that we didn’t know what it was going to be.
I liked this challenge of, wait, what is this?
And then Linda came up with calling it atraumedy.
So not a dramedy.
Traumedy is a little bit deeper.
I was quitting, dude.
Let’s be honest.
I was like, I’m done.
I didn’t want to do it anymore.
I wanted to just hang out with my daughter.
I was like, I’ve missed too many drop-offs and pickups.
I’ve missed too many moments.
I’ve missed too much.
And I was in the process of kind of going, maybe I’ll just stop this game.
But, now my daughter, she’s 12, so she hates me.
So there’s that.
So do you really think this is it?
And if it isDead to Me, it must have been a good way to go out.
Best way out, man.
I’ll never get a job like this again.
I’ll never have a character like Jen Harding in my life.
I’ll never have a Judy Hale in my life again.
It just doesn’t happen very often.
Even though I was struggling in the last year of doing it, it was still magic.
And not because of our work.
I’m not sitting there [playing the] big violin of my career.
Some Really Dramatic Emmy Nomination Predictions
Deception.
This year’s drama contenders really have it all and with them, no shortage of outstanding performances.
Will their shows get at least five slots?
But three nominees from one show could complicate matters.
Smith-Cameron,Succession
Do I really need to say it?
Outstanding Supporting Actor
Matthew Macfadyen,SuccessionNicholas Braun,SuccessionAlan Ruck,SuccessionF.
Maybe they’d even get postponed or canceled entirely.
Here’s a preview of their conversation.
It’s actually an acknowledgment of our ignorance and intolerance.
It shouldn’t be a badge of honor.
There should be a badge of shame.
But with this nomination, I’m so rooted in my childlike joy.
This is the dream.
I was like, ‘No corner of this woman can be an idiot.
you might’t be tricking ladies into bed anymore.’
It is odd when sometimes people honor things that are bad for them."
I thought of them immediately as different spiritual attacks on social norms and society.
That’s what draws me to revivals.
I’m not as interested in entertainment as I am in examination."
We’ve got them, but they may feel guilty about it on the ride home."
Seventy-six years have passed and a lot has changed.
What I love about our show is that it embraces inclusivity and diversity in so many different ways.
So, I don’t believe that there should be gendered categories.
I call myself an actor, right?
So it should just be that."
