The following content has been sponsored by Netflix.
Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini each give wonderful performances in Netflix’s comedy “Dead to Me.” When they come together, their onscreen chemistry is greater than the sum of its already great parts.
Season 2 of the award-winning series from creator Liz Feldman found friends-turned-enemies-turned-friends Jen Harding and Judy Hale covering up deception after deception, in over their heads—but sticking together through it all. As played by Applegate and Cardellini, respectively, their tumultuous relationship is one of the most multifaceted and authentic female friendships on the small screen today.
The two Primetime Emmy contenders in the leading actress in a comedy series category chatted recently about their work together on Netflix’s “The Callback” (remotely from their homes), noting that the depth of their characters’ dynamic is rare in scripted television. “It’s written by women and directed by women and produced by women,” Applegate says of the series. “We get that it’s not just one dimension...that female relationship can be this incredible bond and trust.”
“We really rely on each other,” agrees Cardellini, calling Jen and Judy “yin and yang.” So implicit is the trust these two actors have in “Dead to Me,” and to each other, they’re even able to improvise, riffing off each other in key moments. “You and I came into these characters on such a cellular level,” Cardellini says. “And it’s nonjudgmental.”
WATCH: Patti LuPone + Holland Taylor Discuss Their Star Turns on Netflix’s ‘Hollywood’ She also admits the challenges inherent in a character as full of contradictions as Judy. “Because we’re walking the line between drama and comedy all the time, and it’s never just one thing, the genre is just sort of all its own. And all of the stuff that Judy carries, it’s a lot. And yet she still has to be this very buoyant, very spontaneous person!”
Applegate calls Jen “a character so insanely broken and filled with rage and pain and trauma—and yet it’s funny.”
Check out their conversation in full below, or at Netflix’s FYSEE TV page.
To watch more of Netflix’s “The Callback” and other behind the scenes content, go to FYSEETV.com.
