Christina Applegate Confirms She’s ‘Probably Not Going to Work On-Camera Again’

Christina Applegate may be done with acting on screen. The Dead to Me star now says she may give up working on-camera because of the difficulties of living with multiple sclerosis. Almost two years after she was diagnosed with MS, Applegate told Jessica Shaw in a recent Vanity Fair interview, “I’m probably not going to work on-camera again.”

Shaw followed up by asking the Married…with Children alum if she has “back-burnered” her acting career after having wrapped filming on Dead to Me. “I can’t even imagine going to set right now,” Applegate said. “This is a progressive disease. I don’t know if I’m going to get worse. I can do voiceover stuff because I have to support my family and keep my brain working.” 

When asked how she was feeling, Applegate answered, “With the disease of MS, it’s never a good day. You just have little s— days. People are like, “Well, why don’t you take more showers?” Well, because getting in the shower is frightening. You can fall, you can slip, your legs can buckle. Especially because I have a glass shower.” She added, “It’s frightening to me to get in there. There are just certain things that people take for granted in their lives that I took for granted. Going down the stairs, carrying things—you can’t do that anymore. It f— sucks. I can still drive my car short distances. I can bring up food to my kid. Up, never down.” 

Shaw then noted that “it must help to have friends like Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Selma Blair” in terms of navigating the industry and MS simultaneously.

“It’s impossible for anyone else to understand,” Applegate said. “And we know that. And we’re not trying to make people understand because they never will understand. But yes, it is imperative for me to have people who say, ‘It’s 80 degrees. What the f— are we gonna do?’ People don’t understand that heat makes us sicker. And the disease attacks different parts of our bodies. It can attack your organs, it can attack your digestive system. Hence why I sometimes have to end up in the hospital.”

Applegate also addressed the new animated Married…With Children project she is currently attached to and its prospective premise. “I can’t really say much, but all I know is that all four of us are attached to it,” she said. “It’s not in our hands now, so we’re just kind of waiting.”