7 Questions with Christina Ricci

Five sort of relevant facts about Christina Ricci: 1) She was born in Santa Monica, California in 1980 to a former Ford model (the agency, not the car) mother and a psychiatrist father. 2) She’s most known for her role in awesome indie films like The Ice Storm, Monster and The Opposite Sex for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. 3) Her breakout role was in The Addams Family where she played goth daughter Wednesday. 4) She has her own production company called Blaspheme Films which produced Prozac Nation and Pumpkin. 5) She modeled for Louis Vuitton in 2004, is good friends with Samuel L. Jackson and stars as Trixie in the big budget Wachowski Brothers’ feature, Speed Racer which hits theaters May 9, 2008.


Zimbio: Did you see a resemblance between yourself and Trixie in the original cartoon?
Christina Ricci: Well, people have told me that I looked like anime for a long time and so after a while you're like, "Okay, fine." I have big eyes and a small chin, I would imagine. You don't see it?

Zimbio: I don't watch a lot of anime.
Ricci: Me neither.

Zimbio: Are you hoping to bring back the phrase "cool beans?"
Ricci: My sister says "cool beans" and I said, "Okay. This might not be so hard. I’ve heard my sister use this term before." So I think it's already here and I don't need to bring it back.


Zimbio: Do you like the sort of visual style of this film, even if it's not your own movie?
Ricci: Yeah, I actually do. I find that incredibly gratifying and satisfying because you get to see all these colors and the flashbulbs breaking into hearts and stuff. It's stuff that people wouldn't normally do in film because they think, "Well, you can't really do that." But they did it. They were like, "We want sparkles. We want hearts and rainbow colors." It's just like, "Yeah, sparkles!" I found the whole thing to be so fun. It's indulgent but a really fun indulgence. It was like, "We're going to do whatever the hell we want to and it's going to be awesome."

Zimbio: This is kind of your first big action movie. How did you like doing the fighting and stunts?
Ricci: It was great. It was really fun and it was something that I loved. That really is the sort of ultimate feminist thing where you can be as girlie as you want to be, but you're still as capable and as able to do everything that the boys can do. But I still want more. I would like to be a spy.


Zimbio: Retro '60s type spy or high tech and current like Alias?
Ricci: High tech and current. Like, I love the boy movies. I love them. That would be awesome, doing something like that.

Zimbio: We never heard crazy stories about you getting into trouble as a teen. How did you stay so normal being a child star?
Ricci: I went through the same sort of growing up pains and partying and everything in my late teens and early 20s, but there wasn't the level of scrutiny and media attention and paparazzi then that there is now. So I got to go through all of that without people taking pictures of me and judging me. I did it already and I'm not interested in that anymore. Had there been the same amount of media attention, I certainly would be in as much trouble as everyone else is these days. I mean, you're a teenager and in your early 20s. You do stupid things, really dumb things. If people are there documenting the whole thing, that's going to add a whole level of self-consciousness and confusion and shame that leads to more trouble.

Zimbio: Did your sense of humor help you deal with the media?
Ricci: Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn't help that much. Sometimes the sarcasm doesn't really translate. It's true.

Zimbio: I always got you.
Ricci: I appreciate that.

Watch the Speed Racer Trailer here.

Q&A by Fred Topel