[IMG:L]Samantha Newly (Christina Applegate) is vain, selfish and an adulteress–and she just doesn’t know it yet.
When the recovering alcoholic wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers, she doesn’t remember a thing, including the hit-and-run accident that landed her there in the first place. Suffering from retrograde amnesia, Sam must make sense of her past life, while forging a new one.
Samantha Who? star Christina Applegate gives Hollywood.com the scoop on her new unforgettable new role.
Hollywod.com: What are you most interested in learning about Sam?
Christina Applegate: There are so many things I’m excited about. I think when people have this type of amnesia they know what pizza is, but not if they like it or what it tastes like. So I think that is a miniscule part of what we get to do every week. That’s what I look forward to discovering as an actor we deal with characters that have an opinion and a thought and a want and a need and it is all based on zero to that point. Everything is new and she gets to discover her own opinions about everything as she goes along. It is going to be really interesting to be able to refine that.
HW: Right out of the gate we see she has a mean streak. How will that play out?
CA: Yeah, in some of the outlines I’ve seen, I get to do some pretty naughty things and to be a completely different person with a different voice, a different stance and different way of being, a different vocabulary and vernacular, and different hair.
HW: How vulnerable is Sam at this moment in her life?
CA: She’s petrified. Wouldn’t you be petrified to wake up and not know anything about anything or anyone or where you are? I mean there is a sense of urgency and it breaks my heart. I’m a very vulnerable person too so I’m in everything that I do and you can’t deny your own soul so if that is coming through then it is a part of who I am.
HW: Do you see changes coming in her career or group of friends as she discovers herself?
CA: No, because then we would have to rewrite the show! I think she’s going to have to make do, but maybe in some sense she’ll change them and get them to look at life differently, because they are sort of on their path and we have so many things to discover.
HW: What have you learned about Sam’s fashion?
CA: She’s in a high powered job, but we don’t know what that is yet. It is like shopping, she doesn’t put clothes together in the same way like Sam would have before. In the episode we just did, I’m in my pajamas, a hospital gown and a dress. Basically we haven’t gotten into a really defined look, but I think it is going to be a bit of a mish mash of her grabbing stuff out of this person’s closet that she doesn’t know and just trying to put it all together the way that she feels more comfortable.
HW: I think teens can relate to this character. Are you going for that younger demographic?
CA: There is one thing about being a teenager that, as you grow up, your parents tend to still treat you like a kid. That is what Sam’s going through. These people are treating her as she was before and she doesn’t get to be the person she is now. That’s something all kids experience and start to struggle with. I think it is a great element.
HW: This role is almost a complete reversal from Married with Children’s Kelly Bundy in terms of perception. Has it been tough to get people to take you seriously?
CA: It wasn’t because I wasn’t her–and I’m being firm about that. I’m telling you that is the truth of it. What my experience was when I left on Friday nights I put on my long flowy skirt took off my make up, put up my hair in a ponytail and lived the life of somebody who was completely different. If someone had that in their mind when I sat down in a room with them that’s gone because its not that person anymore and the way I approached my work was not that way and I never did anything like that ever again since that moment. I hated her. After maybe a couple of months it was gone…That was almost 20 years ago. So I’ve had a long road since then doing a lot of different stuff.
HW: We haven’t seen you for awhile. After Anchorman you disappeared!
CA: I did the unthinkable. I got off of Anchorman and left and went and did [Sweet Charity on] Broadway for a year. Probably in the minds of most people in this business, that is one of the stupidest things I could have done because I could have been doing films this whole time. I even had huge producers say to me “You’re an idiot,” but you know what? That’s something I had to do, so each thing that I do is something that I had to do for me and a great opportunity and for me to completely change as a human being and as an actor and it did, it changed my life.
HW: Did you feel like you needed to protect yourself from being pigeonholed?
CA: I don’t think anyone would ask me to be Veronica Corningstone again. I will audition for stuff. You have to understand that I go in and audition and I come in with a different character. Every time that I go in, it is somebody different. That’s what we do for a living: we get to put on different hats and wigs and become somebody else. So no I got the chance to be on Broadway I got the chance to be in my favorite musical of all time that I’ve loved since I was a little girl. When do you get that opportunity?
Samantha Who? premieres Oct. 15 at 9:30/8:30c on ABC.
