Playboy's 20Q: Christina Applegate

Anchorman's newsgal gives us the scoop on Will Ferrell's mustache and cussing in nursery school

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[Q] Playboy: Your new comedy, Anchorman, is set in the freewheeling 1970s. What's your disco-era time-travel fantasy?

[A] Applegate: Studio 54. I never got to go because, well, I was six years old. I'd get wasted and dance and watch people have sex. How cool would that be? Of course, most of those people ended up dead or in rehab, but it would be fun to go once just to see the debauchery. It doesn't happen anymore. Or maybe it does, but I have no clue where they're holding that particular party.

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[Q] Playboy: You play an ambitious TV reporter fighting Will Ferrell's male chauvinist pig broadcaster. Do you think Barbara Walters got her fanny slapped back in the day?

[A] Applegate: Well, Jessica Savitch was one of the first female anchors, in the 1970s in Philadelphia. There are these incredible tapes of when they would leave the camera running between segments. They're all smiles, and then the newscast goes off and you can feel the pecking order. You can feel that she was the low figure on the totem pole and wasn't going to win with these men.

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[Q] Playboy: When you travel to different cities, do you tune in to local news?

[A] Applegate: Oh yeah. It's hysterical. It's like a time warp. They think everything they're saying is really charming and funny, and it's so sad. But they definitely have less entertainment value than our news in Los Angeles. Here the top story is "Pamela Anderson got another boob job! She took out her implants and then put 'em back in! All in one weekend!"

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[Q] Playboy: Does Will Ferrell, to crib his line from Zoolander, take crazy pills?

[A] Applegate: I don't think he takes crazy pills as much as he has an incredible imagination. He goes beyond what you think a character should be thinking and into the whole spectrum of what the character could possibly think in six lifetimes. His improvs are so out there, you go, "How the fuck did you come up with that?" That's why you watch Old School 50 times--because you're just trying to get to the Will Ferrell parts. I think he's a genius.

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[Q] Playboy: And yet he doesn't seem like the typical tortured comedian.

[A] Applegate: Not at all. The difference with tortured comedians is that you can tell they're not connecting with other actors. All they want is for you to look at them--"Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!"

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[Q] Playboy: What was it like to pucker up to Ferrell with his industrial-strength Anchorman mustache?

[A] Applegate: Foul. There's a scene in the movie when we finally get together, and it's supposed to be the Tracy-and-Hepburn moment, like Bogie and Bacall, except when you see me I'm not even touching his lips. I thought, Christina, why weren't you submerged in the moment? Because that mustache was so prickly. Subconsciously I didn't want to touch his mouth. Look, guys, pubes on your face that thick? It's horrible.

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[Q] Playboy: In the battle of the sexes, what's your weapon of choice?

[A] Applegate: I don't want to have a pissing contest with a man. I find that when women embrace their womanhood, the battle is over, because y'all can't live without us. We went through a period when women were trying to be a little too masculine. What if we had a bunch of guys trying to be more feminine to fit in with us? We like the maleness of men--the take-charge, take-care-of-everything attitude.

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[Q] Playboy: What other male stereotype do you find accurate?

[A] Applegate: Sports guys and ball scratching. They just seem to go hand in hand, so to speak.

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[Q] Playboy: What's the status of sexism in Hollywood today?

[A] Applegate: Everyone's trying to be politically correct, but when it comes down to it, women aren't treated equally in this business. With every script, it's "We've got to find the guy first, because the guy brings legitimacy to the project." During rehearsals, ideas and rewrites are constantly geared toward what the man has to say. It's a subtle difference, and I have never been treated poorly by any men. But in the scripts I'm getting I'm not seeing anything that hasn't been done 5,000 times before. Predictable female roles.

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[Q] Playboy: Does it make you happy that Cameron Diaz now commands $20 million a picture?

[A] Applegate: Of course I'm happy. She's one of my dearest friends. Cameron Diaz deserves $20 million a picture because she brings in more than $20 million a picture. She's worked hard and has a quality about her that people fall in love with. So hey, give her the $20 million. I will say that it makes me sad that the Kate Winslets of the world don't get $20 million a picture.

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[Q] Playboy: You started in showbiz when you were very young. What's your earliest acting memory? (continued on page 153)Applegate(continued from page 131)

[Q] Applegate: I was five years old, and I was playing a drug dealer. That's the kind of movie it was. We didn't call them indies then--it was just a low-budget piece of crap. My line was "It's really good shit, man." And I just loved that, because when I was a kid I loved to cuss. Constantly. My mom said it was a need.

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[Q] Playboy: Did you pick up your bad-language habit on sets?

[A] Applegate: No, at nursery school. This kid in my nursery school whose father was a drummer would come to school with all these bad words. Everything was "fucking this" and "fucking that" and "cocksucking this." Really bad words. Well, my mom made a deal with me that I could say them only around her, not around other people. So I was very excited to get to say "shit" in front of other people. The joy that was welling up inside me was so strong that I almost couldn't say it. It's a weird thing now. I don't cuss very much. When I say a curse word, I feel as if I must be offending someone in the room.

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[Q] Playboy: How competitive was the child-acting world back in the 1980s?

[A] Applegate: Unbelievably. Everything was kid-dominated. It was the era of Silver Spoons, Family Ties, Charles in Charge. Every girl my age had long blonde hair, and we'd all curl it for our auditions. It was really important to get on a show, get on a show, get on a show. I used to pray, "Oh God, I just want to be on a sitcom. I really, really do."

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[Q] Playboy: How did you kill time when you weren't curling your hair for auditions?

[A] Applegate: We lived in the Hollywood Hills, and when you lived in a canyon you couldn't go anywhere without a car, and there was nowhere to walk. So we'd run in front of cars and scream, "Aaaauuggh!" The drivers would slam on the brakes and be like, "What? What? What?" And we'd be like, "You got a cigarette?" People would get really mad at us. Sometimes they'd give us cigarettes, though. Sometimes they'd offer us other things and we'd have to decline.

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[Q] Playboy: An inordinate number of child actors wind up in trouble with drugs or the law. How did you make it out the other side in one piece?

[A] Applegate: My mom was a huge reason. She would say, "If I ever catch you doing anything, I will not only kill you, I will kill whoever you're with." So she threatened me with death. But she gave me a lot of freedom, and because of that I would call her at one in the morning and say, "This is where I am and this is who I'm with and this is what's going on." She kept me from turning into a statistic.

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[Q] Playboy: Is there an article of clothing you'll never wear again after playing Kelly Bundy for 10 years on Married With Children?

[A] Applegate: Miniskirts. I almost wore a minidress type of thing to some event recently, and at the last minute I couldn't do it. I felt like a hoochie.

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[Q] Playboy: Have men finally stopped assuming you're Kelly?

[A] Applegate: Some studio heads still think I'm her. It's the oddest thing. There was this movie I wanted to do, and the director thought I wasn't "upscale" enough. That was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard about why I wasn't getting a job. Am I walking trash? I mean, I have a beautiful home. I don't eat fast food. I love caviar and champagne. My eyebrows are tweezed. I mean, I'm wearing Prada fucking shoes right now.

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[Q] Playboy: Describe the financial security that comes from starring on a popular sitcom for 11 seasons.

[A] Applegate: Not so secure, honestly. Fox didn't give us residuals. When it came time to negotiate for syndication pay, Fox claimed it wasn't really a network. So we didn't get what we would have if we were on Family Ties or one of those other shows. Those people can live off their residuals the rest of their lives. I think about it every once in a while and get a little pissed off, but we were stupid to accept it. Married With Children is showing five times a day on three different networks in almost every country in the world, and the checks I get are hysterical, literally for 75 cents.

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[Q] Playboy: Weren't you called for jury duty in the Robert Blake murder trial?

[A] Applegate: It was horrible. Everyone who'd received a notice was in this huge room, and they came in and said, "We have a very important case, and we'll need people for at least five or six months. Can we see a show of hands of who would volunteer?" I turned around, and right there was Robert Blake and his attorneys. They'd brought him into the jury pool room, which I found really odd, like, "Here he is on display. Want to be a part of it? Woo-hoo!" And out of 400 people only three raised their hand. I have to work, plus I don't want to be the sideshow at a trial of this magnitude, so I filled out my hardship paperwork and handed it in. And out of all those people, I was one of 30 or so who had to explain myself to the judge, who said, "That's no excuse. You're coming back." She kept cutting me off and putting me in tears. I think she was pissed off because I'm a celebrity. Anyway, a week later Blake fired his lawyers, and everyone in that jury pool was dismissed. If he hadn't I guess I'd be sitting on a jury for six months.

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[Q] Playboy: As someone who's devoted to physical fitness and exercise, what do you eat when it's time to pig out?

[A] Applegate: Pizza. I can eat more pizza than any man, more than anyone I know. I don't understand, when someone sits down with a pie in front of them, how they can eat one piece, maybe two, and just leave the rest! No, no, no, no. Eat the whole fucking thing, or at least half of it. Not a lot of people see me do that, though, because it's usually at home, with delivery. When I'm out I try to be a little more dainty. You know, a little more upscale.