Christina Applegate Says She’s Never Acting On Camera Again, But Will Return To Best Role
Christina Applegate likely won't ever return to a live-action set, but the actress is still planning to voice Kelly Bundy in the Married... with Children cartoon.
Many of us older fans first fell in love with Christina Applegate when she played Kelly Bundy on the infamous Fox television show Married…with Children. More recently, she has been killing it on the Netflix show Dead to Me, and since that show just finished its final season last year, fans have wondered what the star will be doing next. Sadly, Deadline reports that Applegate is “probably not going to work on-camera again” but clarified she would voice Kelly Bundy in the previously-announced Married…with Children cartoon.
While she arguably never gained the prominence she once had in the ‘80s, Christina Applegate has been steadily working throughout the years, often taking unexpected and challenging parts. She made guest appearances on hit TV shows such as Friends and starred in many movies, with her most famous film role being Veronica Corningstone in the Will Ferrell comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Why, then, would such an industry veteran say that she didn’t want to appear on camera again?
One reason Christina Applegate said she’d stop acting on camera is actually very sweet: in recent years, she has been consistently impressed by her Dead to Me costar Linda Cardellini. She was so impressed, in fact, that she is ready to retire from on-camera work because she doubts that she would ever work with a more talented actor. Heaping praise on Cardellini, Applegate said that “I’m so glad that I went out with someone who is by far the greatest actress I’ve ever worked with in my entire life, if not the greatest human I’ve ever known.”
A sadder but more practical reason that Christina Applegate won’t act on camera again is that she is battling a progressive disease. Two years ago, the star was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And she spoke very frankly about the fact that as the disease progressed, she couldn’t “even imagine going to set right now.”
Why, though, is Christina Applegate willing to return to voice Kelly Bundy in a Married…with Children cartoon? In her own words, “I have to support my family and keep my brain working.” And we have to imagine that it is easier for someone battling MS to simply focus on recording lines in a booth rather than worrying about hair, makeup, wardrobe, and the thousand other things that come with appearing in front of a camera in Hollywood.
On top of that, Christina Applegate, like her onscreen mother, Katey Sagal, is no stranger to voice work. Over the years, Applegate has provided voices for King of the Hill as well as voicing Britney in three of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies. And we imagine voicing a character that she played before, Kelly Bundy, will be much easier than voicing someone entirely new.
Sadly, there haven’t really been any new updates since the Married…with Children cartoon was announced. In the recent interview, Christina Applegate was honest about the fact that the matter is out of their hands and that she and her fellow Bundy family (Ed O’Neill, Katey Sagal, and David Faustino) are waiting to hear any updates regarding the project. As for us, we hope the show gets here sooner rather than later so a new generation can be tormented by the earworm theme song of Married…with Children (admit it: you’re humming it even as you read this).
