Christina Applegate, who underwent a double mastectomy in 2008 after being diagnosed with breast cancer, has opened up about why she decided to have her character in her new Netflix show, “Dead to Me,” undergo the same surgery.
While her character, Jen Harding, is a resentful widow who befriends her husband’s killer (played by Linda Cardellini), in the fourth episode of the season Jen reveals she had her breasts removed as a precaution after her mom died of breast cancer.
The 47-year-old actress explained that she wrote in this character detail to help round out her character and make Jen more relatable to herself and other women who went through the same traumatic surgery.
Applegate told USA Today of the show’s script, “It wasn’t clear to me sometimes why Jen was so angry and broken. There had to be some underlying reason.”
She continued, “Plus, it hasn’t really been discussed on shows before; I don’t think there’s a lot of characters out there with double mastectomies. But I went through it, and it’s a horribly painful process – emotionally, spiritually, physically – and I never really talked about it. I thought this was my chance to tell a little bit about me, but also all the women that have gone through that.”
Although years have passed since her surgery, Applegate says she still struggles with the aftermath.
“I think about it every day,” she said. “Girls who go through this, we say to each other, ‘Yep, it’s been 10 years,’ but you’re never not aware that that’s something you’ve been through. Everything looks different. You have to shower and you’re like, ‘Oh, there they are. That happened.'”
The Netflix star also wanted to use her platform to create a community for anyone who had or is thinking about having a mastectomy as a preventative measure.
“It’s such a personal choice,” Applegate said. “I don’t know what anyone’s going to take away from that moment or scene, except for ‘Wow, I felt that way, too, and I’m going to be OK.’ Because you will. It’s OK to admit that you feel that way.”
In 2017, Applegate also revealed that after surviving breast cancer, she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.
“Two weeks ago, I had my ovaries and [fallopian] tubes removed,” she told Today.com at the time. “My cousin passed away from ovarian cancer in 2008. I could prevent that.”