It's safe to say that Dead to Me, Netflix's completely-insane, soap opera-style dramedy, hasn't lost any of its fire going into season 2. The show's popularity, particularly with women, could reasonably be chalked up to the easy rapport between leads Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, who play Jen and Judy, respectively. While both have already enjoyed lengthy careers working across film and television, you might be surprised at just how many major on-screen roles Cardellini has had.

Cardellini didn't pop up on our screens until the glorious nineties. In 1996, she got her first big role as Sarah in Bone Chillers. A few bit parts followed, but it was the short-lived but beloved 1999 teen sitcom Freaks and Geeks that really put Cardellini on the map.

The show, which ran for just one season, also launched the careers of the likes of baby-faced Seth Rogen and James Franco and is now considered a cult classic.

Just a couple years later, Cardellini made an impression as another lovably grumpy outsider when she appeared in the Reese Witherspoon-led film Legally Blonde. She's featured in several big movies in the years since, from Brokeback Mountain to playing Velma in the live action Scooby Doo movie and its 2004 sequel, Monsters Unleashed.

Cardellini has remained a TV stalwart, too, starring in ER and Bloodline, among others, including an Emmy-nominated turn on Mad Men. As she's matured as an actress, film roles as a variety of disapproving mother types abounded, including in the Daddy's Home movies and horror flick The Curse of La Llorona. She even popped up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, alongside virtually every other actor in Hollywood, as Hawkeye's wife.

Dead to Me represents another fascinating twist in Cardellini's Hollywood story, which is assuredly far from over. On her reasoning for taking the role in the first place, the actress gushed to Indiewire:

"I've been trying to just say yes to things that scare me or challenge me or are completely different from things I've done before. This fit in all of those categories for me. It was a total adventure."

Although Cardellini is incredibly passionate about the work that she does and is willing to try new things that come her way, the key roles she's enjoyed in her career have sometimes complicated matters for her in the real world. Aside from juggling motherhood and relationships, being interchangeable with her characters causes fans to confuse who Cardellini actually is off-screen. She told Elle:

"It's a double-edged sword. You want people to believe what you're doing, so if they believe it, feel passionately about it, and, in turn, dislike you for something unlikable that your character does, in one way, that's a good thing. But as a person, it's not easy to digest."

Cardellini then recalled how, when she was on Boy Meets World and her character split up lovebirds Cory and Topanga, the backlash from fans was intense.

She revealed:

"I remember a bunch of kids running up to me and yelling, 'Homewrecker!' and then running away. It was the first time I'd been recognized in public: a group of little kids calling me a homewrecker."

Still, Cardellini understands it comes with the territory given what she does for a living, even if viewers' reactions don't always make sense.

Looking back on her impressive, and impressively-varied, career with Rolling Stone early in 2020, Cardellini explained her approach to choosing roles.

"What I tended to do, and what I think I still do, is try to take a left turn after each role and do something that's different. It keeps me alive inside my mind...and keeps me challenging myself."

She sees herself in every part she plays. Of Freaks and Geeks, Cardellini said:

"I felt that Lindsay represented the struggle that I had, that she wanted to be grown up in some ways but was still a kid."

As for iconic cartoon character Velma, the actress didn't even think she had a shot. A fan of the character since childhood, she took the role very seriously, admitting:

"I had a tape where I would listen to Velma from the cartoon everyday before I went to work.'"

For someone who got her start at age 11, playing an elderly woman in her school's production of The Music Man, it's been a long road, but Cardellini's mother instilled a "Why not you?" mentality in her that's clearly stood the test of time. Watch the video to learn Why Judy From Dead To Me Looks So Familiar!

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