Christina Applegate Talks Acting Future Amid ‘Dead to Me’ Awards Run

Christina Applegate earned a 2023 SAG Awards nomination for her role in the final season of Netflix’s Dead to Me. In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times reflecting on that upcoming honor, she shares that it could be her last acting accolade amid her MS diagnosis.

“It’s my last awards show as an actor probably, so it’s kind of a big deal,” says Applegate, who received her sixth nomination from the Screen Actors Guild for her role as Jen Harding, which she has played for three seasons alongside Linda Cardellini in the friendship tragi-comedy. “Right now, I couldn’t imagine getting up at 5 a.m. and spending 12 to 14 hours on a set; I don’t have that in me at this moment.”

The SAG Awards, held Feb. 26 in Los Angeles, will continue the awards run for the final season of Dead to Me. Applegate recently attended the Critics Choice Awards, her first awards show since her diagnosis, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She will be up for Emmys contention for the 2023 show, having been previously nominated for Dead to Me seasons one and two.

The third and final season of the Netflix series was halfway done filming when Applegate received her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021. They then paused for five months while Applegate began treatment and, determined to finish, returned on their star’s own terms to wrap the show.

Applegate has previously detailed the support she received on set while working to finish the show. Speaking to the LAT, she elaborates: “I was a wreck every day, but most of that wreck would take place in my trailer by myself. But there were times I’d break down on set and be like, ‘I can’t, we have to take a break, I need a half-hour,’ and everyone was so loving that it was OK.”

When looking ahead to how her role on sets will shift amid her diagnosis, Applegate — whose wit continues to be ever-present — says she’s considering her next steps and among them lists producing, development and “doing a shit ton of voice-overs to make some cash to make sure that my daughter’s fed and we’re homed.”

Creator Liz Feldman had revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that, since they only had guest star James Marsden for one month of shooting, they had filmed the first half of the final season of Dead to Me entirely out of order. There are certain episodes where 10 months have gone by, and Applegate admits here that the season, which released November 2022, was difficult to watch. And it took her months before she did.

“I don’t like seeing myself struggling,” she says. “Also, I gained 40 pounds because of inactivity and medications, and I didn’t look like myself, and I didn’t feel like myself. At some point I was able to distance myself from my own ego, and realize what a beautiful piece of television it was. All the scenes I wasn’t in were so much fun to see and experience for the very first time.”

Applegate has also previously praised her co-star and friend Cardellini for supporting her through the final months of filming. Their goodbye scene — a moment between on and offscreen friends that will serve as the show’s legacy — was the final scene they shot.

“The tables were turned,” Applegate now explains of the final-season plot, which saw — spoiler alert! — Cardellini’s character, Judy, dying of cancer. (Applegate plays Jen.) “Jen is taking care of her friend who’s dying, yet Linda was taking care of me as I was saying goodbye to the person that I’d always known — so part of me was dying,” she says.

When Cardellini spoke to THR after the finale, she shared a similar sentiment about their bond. “We had a really hard time saying goodbye. Jen and Judy, and Linda and Christina were crying some really big tears,” she said of the final scene. “I think what you see in the show is that Christina is absolutely as brilliant as she’s ever been, and she is just an incredible actress. She can really do it all.”