Are Christina Applegate & Linda Cardellini From Dead To Me Friends In Real Life?

Over three seasons, "Dead to Me" traced the story of a close friendship between two people who should never have been friends. Sure, we can point to plenty of odd pairings when it comes to friendship, but considering the fact that Linda Cardellini's Judy Hale killed the husband of Christina Applegate's character, Jen Harding, a friendship between Judy and Jen would not seem likely.

By the series' end, not only is Judy confessing to killing Ben Wood (James Marsden) to shield Jen from taking the blame — over Jen's own objections — but the two accompany each other to a secluded home in Mexico, where Jen says goodbye to a terminally ill Judy. It is, even told through such extraordinary circumstances, quite a touching story. And this isn't even to mention how the series is often hilarious.

But the characters' connection was more than good acting, as it turns out. "I feel very lucky that the show is about friendship," Cardellini told Buzzfeed. "Our performances are about friendship. Our relationship to each other, onscreen and off, is about friendship. I think I was very lucky when I first met her. We instantly got along." Though she and Applegate had never met before starting "Dead to Me," Cardellini described their relationship as easy and fun from the very beginning.

Perhaps the biggest challenge faced by the cast and crew in finishing "Dead to Me," and Christina Applegate, in particular, was her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, which came just a few months into filming the third season in 2021. Production paused filming while she underwent treatment, but Applegate later insisted that filming resume and that the series finish telling its story. 

Applegate also told the New York Times that Cardellini became her biggest on-set advocate, often demanding that shooting take a break when she sensed that the famously hard-working Applegate was hesitant to ask for one. "It was like having a mama bear," said Applegate. For her part, Cardellini says she also leaned on Applegate during her more trying times, though she didn't elaborate exactly on what those times have been. 

"Anything you go through in life that's very challenging — and we all went through different things, because you do go through things throughout the years, and they've been interesting years, of course — everybody leans on their friends," Cardellini told Buzzfeed. "So you're lucky if you have those people at work, and I've leaned on Christina and relied on her, and I hoped I would do the same for her. So I think that's just what friends do."