Bundyology - An Interview with Christina Applegate

Maxim (Magazine):
Interview with Christina Applegate

Last update August 24, 1998

Back to «Articles and Interviews»

From MAXIM
Issue June 1998

As posted by Randel J. August at alt.tv.mwc on August 18, 1998

She was America's favorite blonde joke for 11 whopping seasons on Married...With Children. Now, with a meatier role in her own must-see sitcom, Christina Applegate is the girl we most want to turn on this fall.

By Chris Geitz
Photographs by Andrew Eccles
Styled by Karen Shapiro

She is instantly recognizable, even from across a busy Los Angeles street. That's what being on a hit show for more than a decade -- not to mention being gorgeous to the point of cruelty -- will do for you. After watching her breathe life into the always wiling body of Kelly Bundy since she was 15, you might think seperating Christina Applegate from her cunningly clueless Married...With Children image would be tricky. But before she's even finished sitting down and stirring her coffee, it's clear this Californian-born 26-year old is no ditz -- she only played one on tv. Her new high profile fall tv series, Jesse (NBC on Thursday night, right after Friends), could make us forget the formidable mental vacuum that was Kelly. We'll miss Miss Bundy, but Christina's new character-a single mom who does amazing things -- with a St.Pauli Girl dress as a barmaid in German-style alehouse -- just may ease our pain.

MAXIM: When you auditoned for Married...With Children,did you ever dream you'd play a scantily clad airhead for more than a decade?

CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: No, I thought I'd get to be a scantily clad airhead for... maybe 13 weeks. Each year, I could never quite believe the show was still on.

M: How aware were you that guys everywhere saw you as their fantasy girlfriend --

CA: -- and some women judging from the show's mail.

M: I even heard that the U.S. troops in Iraq during the gulf war voted you the most beautiful woman on tv.

CA: {laughs} I wonder how they voted. "Hey guys, could you hold your gunfire for a second? All right,raise your right hands. Applegate?" I can't imagine CNN filming the soldiers sitting out in the desert with their ballots.

M: Fox didn't give Married a farewell show like NBC's huge Seinfield finale. How would you have liked your character, Kelly, to end her days?

CA: Exactly the same as she started. The beauty of the show was that no one ever evolved. They almost regressed, in a way. Everyone thought the Bundys would win the lottery or Kelly would marry this wonderful man and actually start wearing long skirts. I thought she should stay perfectly vacant. [Pours liquid sugar into her cofffee. The sugar container, with its long shaft and metal-tipped head, plainly resembles, well, a penis] Very erotic this liquid sugar. I like it shoots out-oh,look, there it goes! [With a finger wipes some foam from the tip of the container and swallows it down]

M: [after disoriented pause] Do you think men are more attracted to the Christina Applegate image than the real you?

CA: In the past, I got off on it. The fact that a guy would be so into me from the get-go without really knowing me. That's probably why I had so many bad relationships.

M: You once said you wanted a boyfirend "who knows that I can't be there 24 hours a day".

CA: That was more about the fact that I always dated guys who didn't have jobs. Big problem. Now I'm looking for a guy with a job. I don't care what. Just a job-any job.

M: You started acting very early-as an infant, in fact-on your mom's [actress Nancy Priddy] soap opera, Days of our Lives. What was the first job you actually remember?

CA: playing a drug dealer when I was nine. My one line was "It's really good shit, man". That's the '70's for you.

M: What was it like to be the guest host on Saturday Night Live a few years ago?

CA: Petrifying. During the dress rehearsal, I thought my organs were going to shoot out of every orifice; but when we went live, I didn't have time to panic. My favorite sketch was with Chris Farley: It was the first time he ever did his motivational-speaker character. He cranked it up about 100 percent and I thought I was going to lose it on live television. It was like laughing in a church. It was so exhilarating. Took me hours to come down.

M: What do you watch on television?

CA: "Nick at Nite", right before I go to sleep-that's the only time I get to watch. They're having a Brady Bunch marathon right now, so I'm beside myself.

M: Best episode?

CA: The one in which Jan makes up a boyfriend, George Glass. And the one where Peter saves alittle girl's life and then becomes such an asshole that he even throws a party for himself.

M: Do you watch any sports?

CA: Occasionally. Did you know that the Super Bowl is the biggest day for domestic violence?

M: Actually that's been proven a myth, though guys do get pretty pumped.

CA: Yeah. I was watching the game, and I started getting so stressed, I couldn't even breathe. All that aggression that goes through your body when you're really into a sporting event-it's got to be detrimental to your system.

M: Happens to me when I watch the Food Network. What made you jump back into another series?

CA: I love the idea of playing a young single mother, because I was raised by one and I know what it's like. The show's probably going to get a lot of flak because my character gave birth so young, but that's reality.

M: You play a waitress in a German-style beer hall. Quick bar quiz: Can you tap a keg?

CA: [Unfamilar with lingo] Tap a keg? I guess I'll have to learn these things, won't I?

M: Can you pour a pint without ending up with a glass that's more full of foam than beer?

CA: Oh sure that's easy. You just tip the glass and let the beer stream down at an angle.

M: And now the bonus round: Can you balance a tray loaded with pitchers, glasses, pretzels and bratwurst?

CA: Oh, I'm getting very good at balancing. But bratwurst -- that's one disgusting form of food.

M: Ever dress up as a sexy waitress for Halloween?

CA: No. Last year was the first time I actually participated in Halloween. I dressed up as a pimp, and my sister was my bitch. We had to walk down Sunset Boulevard because we couldn't get a ride to the party, and everyone was sticking their heads out of their cars and yelling at us. It was great.

M: You have several tattoos. Any regrets?

CA: No. They all represent things very dear to me. I have one that's a ti-leaf lei -- a symbol of power in Hawaii -- around my ankle. I have a vine that a girlfriend and I both had done to signify our friendship. And then I have an apple -- not for Applegate -- symbolizing the forbidden fruit from the story of Adam and Eve.

M: Where?

CA: Right down there. [Points to a spot below her navel]

M: Wow. Exactly where forbidden fruit should be.

CHRISTINA AT A GLANCE

VITAL STATS: Born on November 25, 1971 in Los Angles and raised by singer and actress mom. Keeps her 5'5" frame in shape with jazz dancing. Single -- and considering only gainfully employed boyfriends.

ALMA MATER: L.A.'s Excelsior High School, which she swears isn't a performing arts school, through she was in classes with other celeb kids, like Milla Jovovich and the Coreys [Haim and Feldman]. "It wasn't like Fame", she says." I wasn't dancing on any cars.

"OTHER NOTABLE TV ROLES: Played a nymphomanic on 21 Jump Street, Ricky Schroder's prom date on Silver Spoons, and a member of Tina Yothers' "band" on Family Ties.

HOW SHE LETS LOOSE: Off-roads in a black Lexus sport-utility vechicle. "Now when I drive an ordinary car, it feels like a go-go cart", she says. Also owns an old Betty of a Ford Falcon converible.

IF ELECTED PRESIDENT: First thing she'd do? Redecorate.

WHY SHE'LL NEVER BE ELECTED: "I'm a really bad liar. When I fib even a little, I turn bright red."

Back to the top of this page

Back to «Articles and Interviews»