Christina Applegate on her first public appearance since being diagnosed with MS: “It’s very difficult”

Christina Applegate discovers her life after being diagnosed with curved multiple sclerosis.

The actress – who has long graced the screen, first as Kelly Bundy on Married with children and now as Jen Harding in dead to me — will receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on November 14. The ceremony, which was due to take place in 2020, will be the 50-year-old’s first public appearance since learning she had the central nervous system disease. system last year.

“Now my life is a different story,” the actress said Variety. “People are going to see me for the first time as a disabled person, and it’s very difficult. So for me, two years ago it would have been so much better!”

However, she stopped and added, “But maybe this time it’s more poignant. I don’t know.”

Applegate publicly shared her diagnosis in August 2021, saying she learned of it a few months earlier. At the time, she was filming the final season of Netflix Dead for me and production was halted for five months so she could begin treatment.

“I was diagnosed while we were working,” said Applegate, who serves as an executive producer in addition to the star. “I had to call everyone and say, ‘I have multiple sclerosis. What the fuck!'”

Completing work on the series “was as difficult as one would think,” she said, noting that she couldn’t walk and needed a wheelchair to get to the plateau. She was also so tired that she needed sleep breaks to get through the day. “It was kind of a learning curve – we were all learning – what I was going to be able to do.”

The cast – including co-star Linda Cardellini who plays Jen’s Judy Hale – and crew rallied around her to complete the project after producers came up with the idea of ​​ending the series.

“It felt like torture — and they felt like they were torturing me too,” Applegate explained. “But I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, Nope: We have to finish this story… We have to let [fans] their closing too. So if that meant I had to take a break in the middle of the day so I could go to sleep – or just leave because I couldn’t do anything anymore – then that’s what we had to do.”

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Will Ferrell, she Presenter co-star and EP of dead to metold the outlet, “Words that come to mind are courage, fearlessness, passion” as well as “funny eff’n badass mother.”

The last season of dead to me premieres Nov. 17 — and Applegate is getting questions about her future as an actress.

“I’m pretty sure that was it, you know?” she says, suggesting this is her last role on camera. She doesn’t rule it out, she explained, but her body has limits. For example, she can only work five hours a day, which is not the norm as a television leader.

“I’m just a newbie to all of this,” she said. “I’m trying to understand – and I’m also grieving for the person I was.”

And even if she quits or stops acting altogether, she can still work. Ahead in development is an animated version of Married with children for which she would lend her voice. She also wants to continue producing, saying she has a lot of ideas. For now though, she enjoys devoting “100%” of her time to her 11-year-old daughter, Sadie, with her musician husband Martyn LeNoble.

And she is mentally preparing for her big star ceremony. Last month, she revealed she had ordered some stylish new canes for the big day because she can’t walk without a cane. She also previously revealed that she had gained weight – the last thing she should be worried about, but something she wanted to say preemptively in this age of social media criticism.

Applegate, who started acting at the age of 5, was nominated for an Emmy (winning one in 2003 for her guest role in Friends) and Golden Globes, but the upcoming star ceremony is something very special for her.

It means “leaving your mark” she says. “It’s something that’s going to be there forever. And it’s something my daughter can go see when I’m gone.”