Los Angeles Time - 08.08.2019

Your character, Jen, is coping with the

death of her husband in a hit-and-run

accident. She meets Linda Cardellini’s

character, Judy, at a grief group, and they

become very close friends. But secrets

keep coming up that change everything.

What would you add to that description?

Yes, nothing is what it seems. But it’s

more a story about grief and the messiness

of coping with grief, and that neither one of

them are doing it all that well, and that

they’re drowning, and they find each other.

And through all of it, it’s also about female

relationships, and then it’s also a mystery,

and it’s a comedy, and it’s a tragedy, and

it’s everything wrapped up into one kind of

crazy package.

Some people might have been put off by

that, because they want to be able to label

it something. But that’s the beauty of it:

You can’t really label it as anything; there

are no rules. Even though, yes, there’s

some sensational story lines incorporated

within it, it really is just a look at the raw-

ness and the pain of grief and loss and all

of it, and trying to survive in the world as a

woman, as a middle-aged woman, as a

mother, as all of those things.

Is one of the draws for you that you get to

show off your dramatic chops?

Yeah, I mean, I don’t look at it as this is

where I’m going to get to show something,

because I didn’t even know what was going

to happen in those scenes, you know? A lot

of the times, what ended up happening

wasn’t even written. It was the content,

just the person. She [Jen] broke my heart.

And I really loved the idea of this really

broken woman who’s kind of the co-lead of

something who doesn’t have a lot of likable

qualities to her, but to try to find her heart.

And I think we find it throughout.

Liz Feldman, creator of the show, said

Jen was basically you. What did she mean

by that?

[Laughs] Foul-mouthed. Oh, dark.

There’s a lot of me in Jen. I mean, all the

grief and loss, and pain ... I’ve gone through

so much. I related to her with that. It

wasn’t a stressful thing. It was like I kind of

eased into her skin. I’m not mean like that.

I don’t rage out on people.

My favorite aspect of the show is your

relationship with Judy.

It’s pretty great. We love doing those

scenes because that’s when we also didn’t

have to cry. And we could talk about non-

sense and be funny, and also those were

when at the end of the scene, we could

improv and do stuff, because they were

very loose about what we did. So, there’s

probably 10 minutes of [unused] footage of

the scene of us smoking pot on the beach,

of us just improving two stoned people.

And it’s really hilarious ... Those were really

fun, fun scenes to shoot, because we could

just hang out and be friends.

In a lot of shows, you’re just to assume

these two are friends, but this one shows

you becoming close.

Yeah, and it’s very hard for Jen to have

that because [to her] that’s a sign of weak-

ness; having a close girlfriend is a sign of

weakness — the talking it out with a friend.

But at some point, she found it a necessity,

and Judy allows her to be who she is. To be

broken and to talk about facts of life ...

somewhere in there, they do really fall for

each other in a friendship. And it’s a real

friendship.

I really want you to say that you and

Linda Cardellini are friends in real life.

We are ... actually, we’re closer than

even Jen and Judy are. Linda and I, we

needed each other, you know, through this

shoot. This was a tough shoot, it was a long

shoot, lot of hours, lot of stuff that we had

to go kind of raw for. And we really have a

bond that I’ve never had with a partner

ever, and I’m madly, madly in love with her.

She is such an incredible human being,

and I feel just lucky that she’s doing this

with me.

THE CONTENDERS

‘DEAD TO ME’ IS A ... ‘TRAUMEDY’

Netflix’s “Dead to Me” is a deft example of how genre lines are becoming meaningless in this streaming age of

long-form storytelling. The series is a wacky comedy about female friendship, a serious drama about grief and a twisty mystery, and it does

all those things well. Co-lead Christina Applegate (with Linda Cardellini), who has her fifth Emmy nomination (she won a guest actress

award for “Friends”), dropped by the Times video studio to talk about the popular new genre-blending series that she calls a “traumedy.”

Kirk McKoyLos Angeles Times

BYMICHAELORDOÑA>>>

CHRISTINA

APPLEGATE

plays Jen

Harding in

“Dead to Me.”

S6

THE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019

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