Christina Applegate recently appeared on “The View” to promote her new memoir, “You With the Sad Eyes,” and she discussed how Will Ferrell and Adam McKay gave parts of their “Anchorman” salaries to her when the studio’s original offer for her to play Veronica Corningstone came in well below her male co-stars.
“When they came in with the initial offer, it was, you know, a little offensive,” Applegate noted. “And I said I can’t. I know my worth, and I can’t do that. They wanted me bad enough, and they said, ‘Well, we’re gonna chip in.’ Thank God they did because it was one of the best experiences of my entire life.”
Applegate continued, “It was such a lesson. I had never done improv before. Learning from that group of dudes… that is the masterclass that people pay for. Steve Carell, like, taught it. Adam McKay developed an entire new way of doing it with his group. To get in there and have that happen was absolutely magic and it’s been invaluable to me and my career.”
“Anchorman” centers on Ferrell’s San Diego news anchor Ron Burgundy as he clashes with his new female co-anchor (Applegate’s Veronica Corningstone). The support cast includes Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Fred Willard. The movie is one of the most quoted comedies of the early aughts and spawned the 2013 sequel “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” which also starred Applegate.
Applegate and Ferrell reunited in 2024 on the former’s podcast to mark the 20th anniversary of the classic comedy. Ferrell remembered the first test screening for “Anchorman” and how it did not go according to plan due to an original ending that riffed on Patty Hearst’s kidnapping by having Applegate’s Veronica be “abducted by a vigilante group.”
“We put the movie together, we do our first test screening. You test screen your movie and it’s a score from zero to 100,” Ferrell said. “We were like, ‘That seemed to play pretty great.’ We get the score back; it’s a 50. Not good. It’s not good. That can either go one way or the other. There’s a panic button that’s hit, or, luckily, the studio was like, ‘Let’s figure it out.’ They gave us a budget for reshoots. Judd [Apatow] really helped to be a steady hand in that regard. And so all of that, the whole pandas and the bears and all that, that’s five days of a reshoot. An entirely new ending was shot.”
“Anchorman” was released in theaters on July 9, 2004, and earned $90 million at the worldwide box office.
