Erika Christensen Says Mother’s Death Shaped Her After All Performance

After losing her own mother to breast cancer in 2023, Erika Christensen channeled her grief into her most emotional role yet — a daughter forced to face loss head-on in After All.

“My mom was so positive, and she made the life that she wanted,” Christensen, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly while discussing the upcoming family drama. “She was fully aware that it was her life to live, and she would say the things out loud, and she would do the things that she wanted to do. I probably wouldn’t be an actor if it weren’t for her, because when I was 12 and I told her that I wanted to be an actor, she was like, ‘OK let’s do it.’ She was amazing, and she was just like that right up until the end.”

In After All, Christensen plays Ellen, who reconnects with her estranged mother, Verna (Penelope Ann Miller), after a stroke leaves Verna unable to take care of herself or Ellen’s daughter, Hailey (Kiara Muhammed), who had been under her care. Battling substance abuse, depression and unemployment, Ellen is thrust into a caretaker role that forces her to get her life back on track fast, but navigating the trio’s new dynamic turns out to be surprisingly more enjoyable and enlightening than anyone expected.

Christensen explained that while her relationship with her own mom was “incredibly different” from the dynamic Elle finds herself in with Verna, experiencing the death of a parent inevitably and innately changed how she approached the role.

The Parenthood alum recalled the final week of her mom’s life, which came just days before her brother’s wedding. Instead of canceling the ceremony, Christensen’s mom insisted that they go through with the nuptials in lieu of a funeral in her honor.

“We were like, ‘Should we postpone or cancel [this wedding]? Like, what do we do?’ And she was like, ‘No, go, get married and have the best time.’ And we’re like, ‘Wow, OK, so that’s what we’re doing,’” Christensen remembered. “There was a moment at the wedding, we were all like, just, sobbing. And then we were like, ‘OK, cool, she’s probably here, so, hi mom!’”

Christensen noted that it might sound “obvious,” but mourning, for her, meant “remembering the good times” and “appreciating it with my husband who knew her, and my kids who knew her, and my brothers and my dad. If something reminds us of her, not shying away from that and just going, ‘Oh my god, wouldn’t mom have loved this? Or wouldn’t mom have hated this!’”

Ellen does her own fair share of reflecting back on her — albeit much more tumultuous — relationship with her mother in After All, as the pair work to push through past traumas before Verna’s ultimately death. Christensen told Us that taking on such a complex character was a three-step process, as she first got a “feel” for who Ellen was through the script before pulling from her own life to find a common thread. Then, it was all about giving it up to the scene.

“Then it’s over to Ellen, and it’s her problem. And when they say action, I let her deal with it, and then I kind of absolve myself of controlling her,” Christensen explained. “I just let her live, and we kind of see what happens. That’s most of my method. It’s those three steps. It’s like, accumulate all the life experience that’s relevant, then really get the feel of who she is —  the feeling is the keystone and the jump off — and then I just stay present with the wonderful actors that we get to play with in this movie.”

Christensen added that while she and Ellen are very different people — they’re both  “unapologetic” in who they are, which she sees as a “wonderful thing” to be.

“This character needs to step up and grow up, and is forced to by circumstances, but even before that, it’s not like she thinks she’s perfect. She’s well aware that she’s just got stuff going on. And she’s like, ‘Yeah, you see what you get,’” Christensen explained. She added that a lot of building who Ellen was became a collaborative on set experience between herself and director Kerstin Karlhuber, from wardrobe to even changing the character’s hair one day before filming.

“As we were working on the costume and the makeup and stuff, we really all came together to make this person,” Christensen said. “And my hair is red, but, like, sort of a plausible color of red? So [Kerstin]  was like, ‘We’re thinking about going, like, brighter with your hair.’ And I was like, ‘OK!’ So literally in the house that they had rented to be the production office, I’m in the bathroom with the colorist. And we came with that, like, carrot orange. Somehow just every little piece that we put together to add up to who she was made sense to me.”

Although Ellen, Verna and Hailey are able to repair their rocky relationships — from finally facing unspoken past traumas to forming new bonds — the final moments of the film see Ellen and Hailey left picking up the pieces again after Verna’s unexpected death. Christensen, for her part, hopes the film serves as a “catharsis,” but also a call to action when it comes to repairing broken bonds with the ones you love.

“II hope that the ultimate takeaway is both to give yourself grace and give other people grace, because you don’t know what they’ve been through, or what they’re going through,” she told Us. “And also to say things out loud, if you can. Those things that get swept under the rug don’t benefit the relationship the way it seems like they should. That’s just not how it works.”

After All will release on demand Friday, November 7.