Christina Applegate compares acting with Will Ferrell to playing a championship ping-pong game.
"I tried to be a great opponent but I know there were days Will was a bit disappointed. My brain would dry up and Will would still be going full on," says Applegate, of filming Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
Set in the world of local TV news of the 1970s, Applegate plays Veronica Cornerstone, a TV reporter determined to break into the male-dominated world of news reporting. Against her better judgment, Veronica finds herself falling in love with Burgundy, the man she's determined to replace as top news anchor.
"Will and most of the guys in the film got their start with the Groundlings and Second City, which specialize in improv. Our director, Adam McKay (who co-wrote the film with Ferrell), even taught improv classes.
"I come from a school of acting where the director corrected you if you weren't word-perfect each time out."
Applegate, 32, admits she was apprehensive at the thought of ad libbing lines but "got better as the shoot progressed.
"We'd do one take delivering lines exactly as written then up to 15 more takes just winging it to see what would happen."
She says that "at least half the film came from the improv takes. I couldn't believe how fast those guys' brains would work. They'd come up with lines that my brain couldn't possibly work itself around."
Applegate insists she was not shocked by even the most outrageous lines and gags.
"I got my start on Married ... With Children so absolutely nothing shocks me, which was good preparation for working with Will and his gang."
The most bizarre sequence in Anchorman for Applegate was covering a cat fashion show where the felines are dressed in outlandish outfits.
"Cats in clothes is not something I'm used to so that day I really questioned what I do for a living."
That is rare for this lifelong actor. At five months, Applegate appeared in a commercial for Playtex nursers and was acting in TV soaps such as Days of our Lives as a child. She was cast in her breakout role as Kelly Bundy on Married ... With Children when she was just 16.
"I love acting. It's my life," says Applegate, who is married to actor Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do).
In April 2005, Applegate will star in the Broadway revival of the musical Sweet Charity.
"I've been a dancer my whole life. I was taking jazz dance classes from the time I could walk but I am back in dance and voice classes big time. Sweet Charity is a particularly demanding dance musical. We start rehearsing in New York in December."
She is eager to get back in front of a live audience because "I miss the exhilaration of the immediate response you get from a live audience. We filmed Married ... With Children in front of a live audience."
Applegate recently completed filming the fall comedy Surviving Christmas with Ben Affleck and starred opposite Johnny Knoxville in Grand Theft Parsons, which premiered at this year's Sundance Festival.
"I've been doing a lot of small independent films, which end up having their first runs in second-run houses, but I still love making them. The only difference for me between a studio film and an independent one is the size of my trailer. I never say no to a good role.''
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