Katey Sagal wishes Christina Applegate got to be more innocent

Katey Sagal is discussing her first impression of her onscreen daughter. 

The actress behind Peggy Bundy reflected on working with a teenage Christina Applegate on Married…With Children during the latest episode of the MesSy podcast, hosted by the Anchorman star. “I never thought of little Christina as ‘Little Christina,'” Sagal told Applegate’s cohost Jamie-Lynn Sigler. “And that’s sort of a mixed bag. First of all, she had maturity beyond her years, so I would say in the ‘old soul’ category.”

Sagal explained that she sometimes wished Applegate wasn’t so grown-up. “There was also a part of her that I wished was able to be little, to be an innocent 16-year-old,” she said. “Because what I learned about Christina — first of all, she had worked way more than I had worked. I had worked as a musician most of my life.”

The actress said her onscreen daughter had far more acting credits than she did. “There’s Christina with all her experience,” Sagal said. “I always felt very much like Christina grew up very quickly and had a sense of maturity about her that was beyond her years. And like I said, there was part of me that felt like, ‘Oh, I want her to be a little girl too.'”

Sagal also noted that Applegate was extremely different from her character and that she took some responsibility for their younger costar, David Faustino. “I also thought that Christina was extremely bright, very smart, playing Kelly Bundy, who was like not the brightest bulb,” she explained. “But she [was] very bright, you know, very funny, very nurturing with David. I mean, I thought she really took care of David. And, I mean, there’s so many things, on and on.”

Applegate responded to Sagal’s reflections with emotional memories of her own. “You were a safe space for me,” she said, noting that her onscreen mom was four months sober when they first started working together. “And what made you so comforting to me is that you had lived. You had lived a lot of life and a lot of scarring and things had taken place. And now you were on that side of strength. And I needed that. I needed that so badly in my life, a stable person. And you were that stability to me always. I always knew if I came to you with something or I cried, that you would comfort me, that I’d feel safe.”

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Sagal then reflected on how her personal growth was intertwined with Applegate. “I became very forthright with my journey, which I think opens the door for other people, i.e. you, Chrissy, to be forthright with yours,” she said. “As you’re saying, I provided a safe space for you, you were also providing that for me because I was learning so much about myself as a person that you would think would be a mature person.”

She continued, “You know, I started using drugs and alcohol when I was really young when I was 15. So when I got sober, it was almost like I was 15. So I felt like I had sort of a youthful — I could relate to you. I could absolutely relate to the pieces of you. And so, I want to say that the safety you were feeling was also the umbrella of recovery.”

Listen to the full conversation between Sagal, Applegate, and Sigler above.