CARDELLINI Will you repeat the question? I was listening to the answer.

APPLEGATE She asked me what I was wearing, what designers. And then I just decided to talk about loss.

CARDELLINI When you lose somebody, you do the best you can. There are two things in life that you should be able to handle because they’re sort of inevitable: Loss of life and loss of love. And those two things are impossible to know how to deal with, no matter how many times they happen to you.

Did you personalize these characters? Christina, did you suggest Jen’s bilateral mastectomy?

APPLEGATE I wanted Jen to have something that made her vulnerable. Making the choice to have a prophylactic mastectomy caused problems in her marriage. So she lives with an insane amount of guilt and shame. Exploring what it’s like to be someone who’s had an amputation, that was the most personal thing that I brought to it.

Linda, what did you bring to Judy?

CARDELLINI There’s a scene at the end of the show where I lose somebody and I say, “I didn’t get to say goodbye.” That was not in the script. But it came out of my mouth. Because I’ve lost people that I didn’t get to say goodbye to. [Starts to cry.] I’m sorry.

And now we’re all going to cry.

CARDELLINI This show, we call it a traumedy, because there’s so much traumatic stuff that happens, and then there’s humor to sort of alleviate that tension and stress.