The way I like to operate is to always be professional, period. It’s not that I’m trying to act professional, it’s that I really do believe that you don’t show up late to things. That’s just rude and it ruins everybody else’s operation. There are set [production assistants] PAs who’ve been there for hours before you even get there at four o’clock in the morning. Don’t complain and don’t be late. That’s just respect. Each and every person is such an integral part of what you’re doing. … Nobody’s job is less important than anyone else’s because you take one piece out of that puzzle and the whole thing collapses. For me, it’s about always being kind and loving. It’s much nicer to be happy and have a loving set than it is to have some dick running it. And I’ve been there too and it’s very uncomfortable.
—Christina Applegate, on her first major movie role in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, via Buzzfeed
Just before reading this article, I was listening to the most recent episode of the Magnum Rewatch podcast from the folks at Loading Ready Run because it’s interesting to me to hear folks who are younger than I am talk about things I remember experiencing first-hand while I was growing up in the 1980s. The movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead is one of those thing I also remember watching, probably in the theaters because we had a great second-run theater near our home and my parents enjoy light-hearted movies.
In reading this article, I realized that this attitude that Applegate has towards work is one of the reasons why she’s been in show business for as long as she has. Like several other ingenues of the age, she could have flamed out or fallen on hard times, but as Jarett Wieselman writes about her work after this movie came out, Applegate “was nominated for a Tony award, three Golden Globes, and four Emmys (one of which she won in 2003 for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy on Friends).”
Kinda makes me wonder what she’ll be working on now and how soon I can get to see it.