Following her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in August 2021, Christina Applegate says she doesn’t think she’ll return to filming on-camera.
“I can’t even imagine going to set right now,” Applegate said in a new interview with Vanity Fair. “This is a progressive disease. I don’t know if I’m going to get worse.”
Applegate’s diagnosis came while filming Season 3 of Netflix’s Dead to Me when the script was already completed. Although she was able to wrap the series’ final season, numerous medical procedures and reactions to the medication made it difficult for Applegate to hold down her starring role as Jen Hardy. Now, she says she’ll focus more on voiceover work instead of pushing herself to work on-camera.
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“I have to support my family and keep my brain working,” she added. “I miss the experience of [filming on set], but at the same time, because it was such an incredible struggle this last year, I’m relieved that I no longer have to push so hard to get through my day.”
Applegate also opened up about how her changing appearance has affected her mentally: “It’s so hard to look at myself as this other person and I don’t look like myself anymore, obviously,” she went on. “And it’s really, really hard for me because so much of my life was my image and then I see this person and I’m like, ‘Who is this person with 20 chins?’ To be really brutally honest, that’s kind of what’s really hard about it for me to watch.”
Applegate has been attached to reprise her role as Kelly Bundy in an animated reboot of Married… with Children. Although details are being kept under wraps for now, it’s set to reunite fellow original cast members Katey Sagal (Peggy Bundy), Ed O’Neil (Al Bundy), and David Faustino (Bud Bundy).
