Chapter 17 Dead To Me #3
The filming schedule for the last season was supposed to be only ten weeks, shooting about an episode a week.
If you’ve seen the show, you might imagine that the scripts for that season were changed because of my diagnosis, but the truth is, those scripts were written a year before I got sick.
Not a word was changed—the only thing that was changed was the blocking to lessen how much I had to walk in each scene.
We started in the summer of 2021 because James Marsden, the movie star that he is, was needed on a different project.
We had to shoot the fugly twat’s scenes first for a month.
(I adore this man—he knows he’s hot, I know he’s hot, everyone knows he’s hot.) Accordingly, we were shooting totally out of order, and in the end, the final season took just shy of a full year to complete.
There were some days I simply couldn’t make it to set.
I remember trying to get down the stairs of my house at six o’clock in the morning, and I could make it to only the ninth stair.
I know exactly how many stairs there are—six and then nine, and then two more—and I couldn’t make it any farther.
I fell to the floor, dropped my bags, and waited.
I sat on that ninth stair for a while, my driver outside, but eventually I called Joe Hardesty, one of our co–executive producers and one of the loveliest people I’ve ever known.
“I can’t come,” I said to Joe. It broke me—me, the good kid who never missed a day of work in her entire life, the good girl who listened, kind to everyone, never complained, on time, and who didn’t bring her shit to work.
So much so that one day years earlier, while working on Married…
with Children, I called my then agent and told her I was suffering from crippling menstrual cramps.
She, in turn, called my manager to say, and I quote, “I don’t think Christina’s fit to work right now because of her mental state.
” So much for female solidarity. I went to work anyway, because there was nothing wrong with my mind.
I wasn’t drooling over my sorrows or talking about my difficult childhood—it was just that my uterus was on fire.
Eventually, my disability was showing up so much on camera that Netflix wondered if perhaps we needed to shut the show down—they could see my pain in the dailies and didn’t want to torture me. Even Liz Feldman suggested we end early, so understanding was she, as were the rest of the crew and cast.
“We can wrap up what we’ve done already,” she said, trying to save me from further agonies.
“No, fuck no,” I said. “We have a story to tell. We have an obligation to these two characters.”
I meant it. To me, Judy Hale and Jen Harding, the two people Linda and I embodied, were very much alive. I believed we had an obligation to finish their story.
So that’s what we did.
By the end of making Dead to Me, I had to have three people help me down the stairs of my trailer to get to my wheelchair to even get to set.
I was completely stripped of my independence, my autonomy.
Linda would say to me, “Whatever you want to do, I’m good.
I love you. It’s more about you and your life and your health than everything else. ”
I was dead set, though. “No, I’m finishing this.” I danced through the pain, and when I was done, I collapsed, and it was 2022, and I’ve been collapsing ever since.
On our last night of filming, Linda and I shared an incredibly emotional scene. Liz Feldman kept stopping us and saying, “Can you guys stop crying so much? It’s really not helping the scene.”
We were sitting in bed together. Linda says,
—I’ve had the best time, Jen.
I misunderstand her and think she’s talking about Mexico, where we are.
—Me too.
But she corrects me.
—I mean, I’ve had the best time… with you.
—Me too.
I don’t think either of us was acting then.
On every take, when she spoke, my whole stomach lurched because I knew it was our last moment together, and we’d been through so much.
I think this was the first time in my life that people saw I was good at what I can do.
And it was all being taken away.
I don’t like not finishing things. That’s another reason this illness has been so brutal.
When I got sick, I realized quickly that my career was finished, and so prematurely.
It’s not just having an illness that makes work impossible; it’s everything that goes into making movies and TV shows.
I can’t get up at five thirty in the morning, can’t sit in a car for long periods on the way to set, can’t bear people touching my face. I just can’t do it anymore.
The last time I truly felt a part of Hollywood was at the 75th Emmy Awards, when I was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for my role in Dead to Me.
I took Sadie as my date. I don’t think I would have made it through without her by my side—mostly because she forced me to stay so she could see all her favorite people on stage. Cough, Natasha Lyonne, cough.
I was terrified that night. It wasn’t my first time in public with my disease, but it was my first time in a room full of my peers. I was so scared, and I was the first presenter of the whole show.
My dress was heavy, and I grabbed the arm of my pal Anthony Anderson to stabilize me. As I walked out, every single person in that room stood up.
It was something I’d always dreamed of, walking onto a stage and having people stand up and clap for me.
But in that moment, I kept thinking, They’re standing up because I’m sick.
They’re standing up because I’m sick and not because they appreciate all the work I’ve done.
That’s why I made a joke. I wanted everyone to know that it was okay, they didn’t have to feel sorry for me.
Even in a room full of my peers giving me a standing ovation I couldn’t accept their approval.
I started to cry.
No one had ever stood up for me for my acting before, and here they all were. Christina, look at everyone and see that this is a moment and they are all loving on you. It was hard for me to accept it, but I hold on to it so dearly in my heart. Thank you.
But then, they stood up for the next person, and the next person, and the next. Up and down and up and down. Sadie and I couldn’t keep it together. We were doubled over laughing.
“I thought it was just for me!” I said, as we all stood up yet again. “Guys, come on. I thought I had a moment, you assholes!” Eventually, after the millionth standing ovation, we just sat in our seats, too tired to get up again, losing our shit giggling at the ridiculousness of it all.
I didn’t end up winning the Emmy that night, but it was still a special evening.
Regardless of my self-deprecating nature, I know deep down that it was all love and appreciation.
In a room filled with some of the best, most talented people I’ve come across in my five-decade long career, I felt their warmth in my heart, even if I have to fight my inner critic to fully embrace it.
It’s a moment I will forever be grateful for from my peers.
One that plays over and over again in my mind.
Sometimes my daughter’s friends tell her, “Oh my god, your mom, your mom!” It fills me with that familiar shame. I still hear those words, “You’re doing it,” echoing endlessly.
But then, recently, my daughter said, “You are the best actress I’ve ever seen.”
She’s the person I love most in this world, and I think maybe, just maybe, her voice echoes the loudest.