The 39-year-old first-time mum has just wrapped a scene of her new comedy, which premiered recently, and a production assistant is speaking into a headset, trying to determine when Applegate's infant, Sadie, will be shuttled onto the production lot. Her mummy really, really wants to see her. So much so that an interview has to be rescheduled because it interferes with bonding time.
A week later, the conversation commences with Applegate cooing about her tot: Sadie recently started clapping, Applegate boasts, impersonating two palms connecting.
"I'm totally that mum, aren't I?" she said, catching herself.
The infatuation is one the working mum shares with her new TV persona. In Up All Night, Applegate stars as Reagan, a talk show producer who (along with her husband, played by Will Arnett) becomes a parent in her late 30s and who is struggling to hold on to the kid-free lifestyle she knew for so long.
"It's the closest I've ever been to myself in a character — the sense of humour, the baby love. It's there," she said.
Dozens of baby bottles distance this character from Kelly Bundy, the sexy teenage ditz Applegate played on Married With Children for a decade starting in the late '80s. The shift is just as drastic in her own life, with the lingerie she once wore as a founding member of the Pussycat Dolls now replaced by a girdle: "I still haven't lost my baby weight... There was a human being inside me."
Rock 'n' roll mum
Despite the parallels in Up All Night to Applegate's real life, the comedy is actually a semi-autobiographical take on creator Emily Spivey's experience as a later-in-life mum working "rock 'n' roll hours" as a writer for Saturday Night Live. It translates into scenes like the one in which Reagan turns down the opportunity to attend a picnic at Stevie Nicks' Santa Barbara home in favour of spending time with her tiny tot. In another, she longs to put on her "slutty outfit" like in the "old days", when she might have been found dancing on pool tables and doing shots.
"The reality is, it's really hard," said Spivey, who also serves as an executive producer along with SNL overlord Lorne Michaels. "I was really set in my ways by the time I had a kid. There was a lot that I wasn't willing to give up. And I thought the idea of extended adolescence and the way a baby can sort of bamboozle all of that would be funny to explore on a show."
The comedy isn't without heartache for Applegate. A typical day on the set begins at 6.30am, with a workday that lasts 14 to 16 hours.
"I get text messages from [Sadie's] dad or the nanny saying, ‘She just started doing this and this' — that's when my heart starts to break," Applegate said. "I even jokingly said to her nanny, ‘If she tries to walk, push her back down.'"
If the star who overcame breast cancer two years ago seems uncertain about her decision to appear in the series — a decision she made six weeks after giving birth — it's mainly an adjustment issue, she insists.
"To be honest, I didn't want to go back to work. At all," she said. "I was given the script and I just loved Emily's voice. She came over to my house and I thought, ‘Hmm, I could get along with this lady.' I was really unsure for a minute though."
Revisions
Working to Up All Night's advantage is the quirky writing of Spivey and the comedic pedigree of costar Maya Rudolph, an SNL alum still riding high off her role in the hit summer film Bridesmaids, and Arnett, who's managed to retain his Arrested Development prestige through stints on Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock.
The series has also gone through a number of revisions. Applegate's and Rudolph's characters were set to be sisters when Spivey first wrote the script. That morphed into friends who worked at a publicity firm. Now, Reagan's workplace setting is a talk show, with Rudolph as the show host. They're changes producers hope will attract viewers during a time slot that's likely to be dominated by reality powerhouses.
"We're not going to beat The X Factor. And we're not going to beat Survivor. Let's just put us against two of the biggest shows on television and then expect us to do well!" Applegate said. "I don't know if that's really going to happen. And I think NBC knows that. I think we all kind of know that it's not going to get big numbers. This is the world we live in. It may live or die there, who knows?"
She paused, adding, "I am that mother! I put everything into perspective now."
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