TMC
06-05-2020, 02:18 AM
https://lebeauleblog.com/2020/06/04/christina-applegate-pop-goes-christina/
After several years on a popular TV sitcom, Christina Applegate struggled to find work. What turned her career around was an assist from a costar who fought to get her cast in a popular movie. By 2004, Applegate was costarring opposite Will Ferrell in Anchorman. In this cover story from the August 2004 issue of Movieline magazine, Applegate discussed her career, her marriage and her obsession with reality TV.
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE is a little on edge today. In a few short hours, one of the fresh-faced warblers on season three of American Idol is going to be sent packing, and the actress is petrified it might be one of her beloved favorites. “I think I voted seven times last night,” says Applegate, plopping onto a sofa at L.A.’s Chateau Marmont hotel, just down the hill from the home she shares with her husband, actor Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do!). Hold on a second–a big star like Applegate actually bothers to vote…repeatedly? “Oh yeah, are you kidding me?” says the L.A. native. “For the finale last season, my friends and I called like 30 times each on our cell phones for Ruben [Studdard]. And he won!”
The Idol, as she likes to call it, is but one of Applegate’s pop culture obsessions. She’ll also happily talk your ear off about FOX’s latest car wreck of a reality show, The Swan, her addiction to the videogame Dance Dance Revolution and her mad crush on Conan O’Brien. “I have to wear earphones when I watch him so my husband can sleep,” says Applegate. “I just laugh and laugh and poor Johnathon is like, ‘Can you just laugh internally?'”
Applegate’s straight-out-of-Tiger Beat fanaticism comes as a surprise considering she’s been around famous people all her life. (Her parents, now divorced, are record executive Robert Applegate and actress Nancy Priddy). And she’s been famous herself for over half of her 32 years, thanks to her 11-season stint as the sexually precocious airhead Kelly Bundy on the sitcom Married…with Children. Given that background, you half expect Applegate to be one of those been-there, done-that, and-now-l-don’t-even-eat-regular-food-anymore kind of celebrities, but she’s not. She’s the kind of celebrity who programs My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé and The Real World into her TiVo. “I’m a fan,” she says with a shrug. “When you stop being a fan, then what?”
Applegate’s own fans have had plenty to crow about of late. Her recent scene-stealing sidekick turns opposite Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing and Gwyneth Paltrow in View from the Top proved that a decade in the Bundy household taught her a thing or two about funny. Now, with lead roles in Anchorman opposite Will Ferrell and Surviving Christmas with Ben Affleck, Applegate is enjoying the kind of career renaissance that just about never happens to actors who rise to fame on long-running TV shows. So how’d she do it? “I’m a big one for perseverance and trusting yourself,” she says. “When the doors were closed, I kicked them open as much as I could.”
And she’s got the battle scars to prove it.
After several years on a popular TV sitcom, Christina Applegate struggled to find work. What turned her career around was an assist from a costar who fought to get her cast in a popular movie. By 2004, Applegate was costarring opposite Will Ferrell in Anchorman. In this cover story from the August 2004 issue of Movieline magazine, Applegate discussed her career, her marriage and her obsession with reality TV.
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE is a little on edge today. In a few short hours, one of the fresh-faced warblers on season three of American Idol is going to be sent packing, and the actress is petrified it might be one of her beloved favorites. “I think I voted seven times last night,” says Applegate, plopping onto a sofa at L.A.’s Chateau Marmont hotel, just down the hill from the home she shares with her husband, actor Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do!). Hold on a second–a big star like Applegate actually bothers to vote…repeatedly? “Oh yeah, are you kidding me?” says the L.A. native. “For the finale last season, my friends and I called like 30 times each on our cell phones for Ruben [Studdard]. And he won!”
The Idol, as she likes to call it, is but one of Applegate’s pop culture obsessions. She’ll also happily talk your ear off about FOX’s latest car wreck of a reality show, The Swan, her addiction to the videogame Dance Dance Revolution and her mad crush on Conan O’Brien. “I have to wear earphones when I watch him so my husband can sleep,” says Applegate. “I just laugh and laugh and poor Johnathon is like, ‘Can you just laugh internally?'”
Applegate’s straight-out-of-Tiger Beat fanaticism comes as a surprise considering she’s been around famous people all her life. (Her parents, now divorced, are record executive Robert Applegate and actress Nancy Priddy). And she’s been famous herself for over half of her 32 years, thanks to her 11-season stint as the sexually precocious airhead Kelly Bundy on the sitcom Married…with Children. Given that background, you half expect Applegate to be one of those been-there, done-that, and-now-l-don’t-even-eat-regular-food-anymore kind of celebrities, but she’s not. She’s the kind of celebrity who programs My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé and The Real World into her TiVo. “I’m a fan,” she says with a shrug. “When you stop being a fan, then what?”
Applegate’s own fans have had plenty to crow about of late. Her recent scene-stealing sidekick turns opposite Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing and Gwyneth Paltrow in View from the Top proved that a decade in the Bundy household taught her a thing or two about funny. Now, with lead roles in Anchorman opposite Will Ferrell and Surviving Christmas with Ben Affleck, Applegate is enjoying the kind of career renaissance that just about never happens to actors who rise to fame on long-running TV shows. So how’d she do it? “I’m a big one for perseverance and trusting yourself,” she says. “When the doors were closed, I kicked them open as much as I could.”
And she’s got the battle scars to prove it.