Christina Applegate: Pop Goes Christina

TV's stars like Married...With Children's Christina Applegate rarely get a second chance in Hollywood. But thanks to her persistence (and an assist from Cameron Diaz), she's back in the spotlight as Will Ferrell's nemesis in Anchorman -- and she's got a date on Broadway.

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CHRISTINA APPLEGATE is a little on edge today. In a few short hours, one of the fresh-faced warblers on season three of American Idol is going to be sent packing, and the actress is petrified it might be one of her beloved favorites. "I think I voted seven times last night," says Applegate, plopping onto a sofa at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont hotel, just down the hill from the home she shares with her husband, actor Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do!). Hold on a second--a big star like Applegate actually bothers to vote...repeatedly? "Oh yeah, are you kidding me?" says the L.A. native. "For the finale last season, my friends and I called like 30 times each on our cell phones for Ruben [Studdard]. And he won!"

The Idol, as she likes to call it, is but one of Applegate's pop culture obsessions. She'll also happily talk your ear off about FOX's latest car wreck of a reality show, The Swan, her addiction to the videogame Dance Dance Revolution and her mad crush on Conan O'Brien. "I have to wear earphones when I watch him so my husband can sleep," says Applegate. "I just laugh and laugh and poor Johnathon is like, 'Can you just laugh internally?'"

Applegate's straight-out-of-Tiger Beat fanaticism comes as a surprise considering she's been around famous people all her life. (Her parents, now divorced, are record executive Robert Applegate and actress Nancy Priddy). And she's been famous herself for over half of her 32 years, thanks to her 11-season stint as the sexually precocious airhead Kelly Bundy on the sitcom Married...with Children. Given that background, you half expect Applegate to be one of those been-there, done-that, and-now-l-don't-even-eat-regular-food-anymore kind of celebrities, but she's not. She's the kind of celebrity who programs My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé and The Real World into her TiVo. "I'm a fan," she says with a shrug. "When you stop being a fan, then what?"

Applegate's own fans have had plenty to crow about of late. Her recent scene-stealing sidekick turns opposite Cameron Diaz in The Sweetest Thing and Gwyneth Paltrow in View from the Top proved that a decade in the Bundy household taught her a thing or two about funny. Now, with lead roles in Anchorman opposite Will Ferrell and Surviving Christmas with Ben Affleck, Applegate is enjoying the kind of career renaissance that just about never happens to actors who rise to fame on long-running TV shows. So how'd she do it? "I'm a big one for perseverance and trusting yourself," she says. "When the doors were closed, I kicked them open as much as I could."

And she's got the battle scars to prove it.

DENNIS HENSLEY: How hard has it been to get Hollywood to take a fresh look at you?

CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: How hard was it? This is like my fourth time [laughs].

Q: What did persevering mean to you--auditioning your ass off?

A: Absolutely. You've got to not only be willing to audition but you've got to be the best one that comes in. You've got to kick ass. I tried to keep focus and not let what people were saying or thinking get me down. As a little girl, you have the dream of what you think your life is supposed to look like. Well, I just never stopped until my life looked the way I wanted it to.

Q: And you feel like you've achieved that now?

A: I had to let go of some images because I think that oftentimes we have a tendency to not be happy where we are. After Married...with Children, I spent a lot of time not wanting to be where I was and not being very grateful, but when you're a kid, you don't understand that everything can be taken away from you. You feel invincible.

Q: Did you have a rude awakening in the form of a particular event?

A: I was humbled by silence. I was humbled by inactivity. So I went and did projects that really inspired me, whether anyone saw them or not.

Q: What turned things around for you?

A: Doing [the sitcom] Jesse, for the short time that it was on, changed things. But Cameron Diaz is really the one who made a difference. She really fought for me to be in The Sweetest Thing and I'll always be grateful to her.

Q: Tell me a nightmare audition story.

A: I had just gotten married and I met with this director and the first thing out of his mouth was, "So you think it's gonna last?" I almost threw a chair at him.

Q: I take it your Anchorman audition went much better. You play a newscaster in the 70s named Veronica Corningstone. Something tells me she made up that name herself.

A: I'm sure she did. Her mission in life is to break down the barriers in this male world of TV news. She's all about busting balls. For research, I watched some footage of Jessica Savitch with Mort Crim that showed how they interacted between newscasts. The second the camera was off you could just see the chauvinism. She was trying so hard to fit in and he just kept shutting her down.

Q: Do you and Will Ferrell make out?

A: Oh, yes. Originally it was very animalistic and kinky, like, "Beat me, beat me," but it was cut out to get a [PG-13] rating.

Q: You also have two indies coming out--_Employee of the Month_ and Grand Theft Parsons--both of which played this year at Sundance. Be honest. How much free merchandise did you get just for showing up at the festival?

A: It's so sick. We had to get an extra bag because the swag was unbelievable. The best thing we got was a 40-inch flat-screen TV. At first I hesitated, then I was like, "Let's get the damn TV." It's just wrong on every level. [The interview is interrupted when the song "Milkshake" starts playing on Applegate's cell phone.]

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