After earning praise and escaping child-star status in several edgy indies, the inimitable Christina Ricci is starring with Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. Though she claims to be "much more into trying to enjoy life now," her success has not, thank goodness, dulled her acerbic wit or undermined her willingness to admit such things as the fact that she likes the smell of her own feet.
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Christina Ricci has a knack for raking her career in a new direction just when it needs to go there. At age nine, she avoided all annoying child-actor mannerisms while playing Cher's adorable youngest daughter in Mermaids. Then she turned around and delivered a hilariously deadpan Wednesday Addams in the blockbuster The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values. In Casper, she played an everyday, appealing teen and won a sizable fan base. Though there was little opportunity to show off much of her talent in Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain, Now and Then or That Darn Cat, she made up for it when, at the risky career juncture at which most kid stars topple into oblivion, she created a scarily revelatory portrait of adolescence in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Then she immersed herself in a long indie phase that included John Waters's Pecker, Don Roos's The Opposite of Sex, Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66 and Morgan J. Freeman's Desert Blue, all of which earned her strong reviews and a growing throng of older fans. Now, at 19, Ricci is playing the heroine who wins the heart of Johnny Depp's quirky, stalwart Ichabod Crane in Tim Burton's lushly filmed, bodice-ripping horror epic Sleepy Hollow.
When I arrive at the Chateau Marmont to have lunch with Ricci, I wonder if she'll be the same outspoken, all-original wild card I met the last time we spoke, almost two years ago. I find her sitting at a table on the hotel terrace looking unfussily hip in a rhinestone-studded, vintage Joan Jett concert T-shirt and worn-in jeans. She's wearing next to no makeup and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. After I say hello and seat myself, a gushing waiter approaches and asks whether Ricci herself applied the rhinestones to her T-shirt. In an eye-flashing, smoke-blowing gesture worthy of early Bette Davis, Ricci declares, "I wish I'd applied the jewels myself, but I actually bought it this way, cheesy as it is to admit it." Yeah, she's still the girl we love.
STEPHEN REBELLO: The last time we talked, you'd spent part of the morning fishing one of your credit cards out of a toilet. No calamities today, I hope.
CHRISTINA RICCI: Actually, this morning someone hit my car as I was driving on Rodeo Drive. I went there to buy linens because I'm going to Paris in a few days and I want the loft I'm staying in to seem more like mine. Have you ever tried buying linens in L.A.? I went to Neiman Marcus, but apparently they're too high-class to have linens. Saks? Too high-class, too. The woman at the counter said, "Oh, try Rodeo Drive." So I'm driving around Beverly Hills, where people drive like idiots, and this moronic girl turns into my lane and hits me. Then, when I'm in the middle of giving the police report, this teenage girl comes up and asks for my autograph. I'm like, "Not now!"
Q: Well, at least casting agents are as eager as teen fans to get to you.
A: All of a sudden, I'm a serious actress instead of the girl from Casper, which I still am at airports around the globe. The plan is working. People are giving me more respect. Plus, they understand I want to do both independent and commercial movies.
Q: Sleepy Hollow is your first commercial outing in years. What about this film made you want to take a break from indies?
A: I've always wanted to make a fairy tale, and when I read the script to Sleepy Hollow I thought it was pretty close to one. Also, I'd always wanted to work with Tim Burton and, of course, I love Johnny.
Q: Do you think you two have chemistry?
A: It's weird to think of anything sexual with Johnny because I've known him since I was nine years old, when I filmed Mermaids. He'd come to the set because he was dating my costar, Winona Ryder. Johnny's really sweet, really generous. I guess we must have some sort of chemistry. But I haven't seen the movie, so who knows?
Q: Tim Burton has said that he wanted to make the film in the style of those old Hammer movies, like The Brides of Dracula and the Frankenstein series. Does Sleepy Hollow come off that way?
A: I haven't even seen the trailer, nothing, so I don't know. The studio certainly seems to think it's good. They're starting the hype. A friend told me there's some big, ridiculous billboard of the film that's basically me and my cleavage--my costumes were all, like, push-up bras. I just thought, "God, they must be aiming for teenage boys."
Q: Tim Burton is often pegged as being more interested in spectacle than in actors. How was he with you?
A: Very visual and technical, which is fine with me. His direction was more about the way I'd turn my head than about character discussion. I don't really need a lot of help from a director. They don't cast you because they think they can bring something out of you--they cast you because you're there already.
Q: Tim Burton has said he thinks you look like the daughter of Bette Davis and Peter Lorre.
A: That's pretty nice, but I don't know who Peter Lorre is. Pathetic, right? It shows you how completely gross and uncultured my generation is.
Q: You have a reputation for being very outspoken. Have you felt pressure to tone that down now that you're looking to get mainstream leading-lady roles?
A: Actually, I've changed a lot since the last time we talked. My personality has changed, my tastes have changed. I didn't use to think anything was worth keeping private. Now I do.
Q: Oh no, does that mean you don't want to discuss your "life rage" anymore?
A: I don't have life rage anymore. I'm less into being angry. I'm much more into trying to enjoy life. Maybe I'm just growing up.
Q: What else has changed?
A: I didn't like the way I looked and I used to be more insecure about other actresses. I thought, "She's prettier than I am. Of course I'm not going to get the part."
Q: But aren't you pretty satisfied with where you are?
A: Pretty satisfied, yeah, but you always want everything. And you can't have that, especially in this business.
Q: What would "everything" be?
A: I don't have any problems with the way I look, I really don't. But you know how sometimes you see those cheesy magazines with lists of people who are considered really beautiful? Sometimes, I'd like to be on those lists. I know how that sounds, but a lot of times you just want to be like everyone else.
Q: You mean you know you should know better, but you think it'd be fun to be on a list with someone from "Dawson's Creek," "Friends" or "Buffy"?
A: Fuck yeah, man. I say that. But then my boyfriend [actor Matthew Frauman] says, "Why would you want to be any of those people or even on a list with them?"
Q: Do you watch any of those shows?
A: I used to watch "Buffy" all the time. "Sabrina" I also enjoy. I love that crap. I love those teenage shows. They're ridiculous. I don't like "Dawsons Creek" with all those new characters. It was much more interesting the first season when it was just really good bad TV.
Q: The press seems to pick on you a bit.
A: Yeah. Recently I've been targeted as the plus-size spokesperson, which is ridiculous. For the past two months, every magazine I've opened has had something about my body type. One magazine did a story on three different body types and mine was described as soft, round, no muscle. They also said I had no neck. W called me "the young Delta Burke." Then, Good Housekeeping did a story on Hollywood heavyweights and named me as one. It's so silly. I weigh 105 pounds and wear a size two, but, for some reason I'm a heavyweight.
Q: Maybe you should write a book titled "Wake Up, I'm Thin."
A: [Laughs] Maybe. I was so happy to read an US interview where Janeane [Garofalo] said it was ridiculous that I always get slammed for my weight because, in real life, I'm not fat. At all. Maybe short, but not fat. And I do have a neck.
Q: Lately you've been looking very striking. You must be getting compliments.
A: I was in my car stuck in traffic waiting for the light to change when a guy next to me said, "Are you who we think you are?" I was like, "Probably." Another guy in the car said, "You're growing up beautifully. Want to go to the beach?" I said, "Well, no, not really." Later my boyfriend had a weird experience going with a friend of ours to rent a movie at a video store that's filled with sketchy characters. Just after our friend said to him, "You might not want to bring Christina here," two guys walked by and said, "I've rented every movie Christina Ricci's been in. When's she going to show her tits?"
Q: Do you ever think about what fans might do when they watch some of your videos at home?
A: That's so gross! The whole idea of someone I don't know doing weird things to pictures of me--so nasty. And I haven't done anything really gross in my movies--I'm not even that much of a sex symbol. Imagine what it would be like to be someone like Pamela Anderson.
Q: You've got a different kind of sex appeal than she does.
A: Yeah, dirtier.
Q: Ever had a weird experience with a fan?
A: In Toronto, some asshole, a creepy guy in a jogging outfit, followed me for seven blocks while I was walking my dog. Every time I stopped, he stopped. I started walking toward my hotel and tried to think, "Don't be paranoid. Maybe he's staying at the same hotel." But when I got to the hotel, I noticed him--and he was steadily coming toward me. When he was two feet away, I grabbed my dog and walked through the lobby, but I was afraid he was going to get on the elevator with me, so I started talking to someone at the front desk. Then the guy came right up to me and just stood there. I turned to him and said, "What the fuck are you doing?" He said, "Are you Christina Rich-y?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Can I have your autograph?" I just looked at him and said, "Is that why you've been following me like a fucking freak for the past seven blocks?" He said, "Uhh ... yeah ... sorry ... did that ... bother you?" He wouldn't leave so the man at the front desk called security.
Q: How do your siblings handle your growing fame?
A: I'm the youngest, so everybody's grown up already. My brothers, who've always been supportive, are much older. I'm very close to my sister, who's on my side. She hates the people I hate for the same reasons I hate them. She's actually more competitive than I am and says things like, "Why is she getting these parts? Didn't you go up for that?"
Q: Do you think you're getting a crack at the best material?
A: Mostly. The best material for me, yeah. Most of the material you get sent, though, isn't great. In fact, it's shit.
Q: Tell me about an especially shitty role you were offered.
A: All my lines were like, "I swallowed your cum and you won't let me sleep on your couch?" I was like, "Why would I ever do this? What makes you think I would actually allow myself to be a part of such a disgusting thing?"
Q: Why do you think people want to cast you so often as the dominatrix, the man-killer or the Lolita?
A: I don't really get it. I'm the furthest away you can be from any of that stuff. I mean, I do like spiky heels, until I remember how hard they are to walk in. Especially when I have to balance my gigantic head on my non-existent neck. [Laughs]
Q: With whom do you compete for roles?
A: When you get to this point, it becomes less competitive. It's a lot more competitive when nobody knows who you are and you go to auditions and see the same girls. It's like the [producers] are saying, "You're not individual enough as actors, so we're going to group you with every 14-year-old girl we've ever heard of."
Q: What's it like being with other actors who try to psych you out by mentioning how they've been out socially with the director or how they don't know what they'll do if they get the job because they're already booked?
A: I'm so bad because I see it and I think, instinctually, "I hate this person." Then I feel bad about hating them without really knowing who they are, so I try to be really nice to them. Then I become a victim of all that psyching out and I say to myself, "My God, they really are better than I am" when they're just talking complete shit.
Q: I ran into you here at the Chateau a few months ago and you and Norman Reedus had just met with Penny Marshall about doing a movie together. What happened?
A: I didn't get it, quite obviously. Norman was sweet. I'd met Penny Marshall when she was a producer on one of my finer movies, Gold Diggers. I thought the meeting this time went fine, but I didn't do it correctly. I was reading for the part of a teenage mother who's really fucked up on drugs. I tend to read seriousness into things, so I treated it as if it were, you know, reality, like this girl was really in pain. They were like, "You're supposed to be tough, funny--you don't let it get to you."
Q: What's been your ugliest casting experience in the past few years?
A: I went to audition for this director who did one movie that was really popular. He thought he was such a hot shit--really obnoxious. After I read for him, he said, "That was about a five. Why don't you give me a ten?" I should have gotten up and walked out, but I tried to give him a ten.
Q: So, despite how well things have been going for you, it's not like people are lining up to kiss your butt?
A: Nobody's kissing my ass, unfortunately. I could use a little. But then again, my personality isn't conducive to butt-kissing. People are a bit intimidated by me, especially the ones who tend to kiss ass. They don't even want to talk to me. But, of course, there are also times when you go in for a role and absolutely no one in the room knows you and you go, "Oh, OK, reality check."
Q: There are casting agents who don't know you?
A: Usually, when you're at a certain level, they have the courtesy to make sure you're the only person at the audition. Recently I went to one and there were a couple girls there. I just thought, "Well, that's a little strange, but I'm early." I'm looking at my lines when this guy comes out and says, "Hi, I'm Scott, the casting assistant. We're ready for you now." I said, "I'll be a minute," and he said, "No, no, no. They're ready for you now." I was like, "OK!" and he says, "I have to Polaroid you," and I'm like, "Polaroid me? Oh, OK." He's like, "What's your name again?" I told him, and he asked me to spell it, so I did, and then he asked me my height, weight, whether I had another number, who my agent was. I'm like, "I'm with Toni Howard at ICM," and he's like, "With a 'y' or an 'i'?" I tried to think that he was overworked and tired, but he just honestly didn't know who I was, that I've done 24 movies, whatever. I go in and the casting director said to the director, "Christina's done a lot of work" and he tells him what I've done. Then, they put me on tape, which they also don't usually do. I read the lines and the director said, "Do you want to get more angry? Maybe act out the scene?" I said, "No, actually, I don't. This is an audition. I'd be angrier if we were actually shooting." I should have said, "You're lucky I'm here. Fuck you."
Q: It seems that so many people in this business thrive on treating other people like crap.
A: Yeah, but if someone pisses me off, I'll do it, too. If I don't like a person, I'll give them the impression that I'm so far above them that I have no idea who they are. It's obnoxious, but I do it. I've sunk to that level, unfortunately.
Q: Let's talk about your films after Sleepy Hollow. Next you're making The Man Who Cried, which will be the third time you're working with Johnny Depp.
A: Really, three times? Oh, you mean because of my small role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? I'd forgotten about that. Our working together so much is a fluke more than anything. But he knows he can stand working with me.
Q: What's the film about?
A: I play a Russian opera singer who goes out with a big opera singer played by John Turturro. Johnny plays one of the gypsies who takes care of the horses in the opera. I become romantically involved with him. Then the Germans come and I have to flee because I'm Jewish.
Q: Do you sing?
A: I never have before, but I will be singing in the movie.
Q: You just finished filming a small role opposite Kim Basinger in Bless the Child. Why did you do it?
A: The money. [Laughs] I shouldn't say that. Well, the money was great but it's also a really interesting script about the second coming of Christ. And all that stuff intrigues me. I like reading about saints and stuff.
Q: Would you ever like to play a saint?
A: Probably. Maybe Saint Christina, who was crazed and lived alone because she couldn't be around other people. She defecated all over the place. For some reason, though, she was a saint.
Q: When are you going to start filming Prozac Nation?
A: I'm supposed to do that after The Man Who Cried. We have a script and we're looking for a director. The only thing I really care about, besides it being a good story, is that the movie will make people understand what it's like to be clinically depressed, because most people who haven't experienced it don't really understand it. It's also a way for me to say, "See? This is what I meant"--the way anybody who's experienced [depression] wants to do. I really want to have it told and I know I can do it right.
Q: Thanks for not being the umpteenth actress to rave on about wanting to play a junkie.
A: [Laughs] Like heroin is so chic. Hey, I've read those scripts, too, but I don't find that kind of downfall romantic.
Q: How does it feel when Don Roos, with whom you're friends and who directed you in The Opposite of Sex, casts Gwyneth Paltrow in his upcoming film, Bounce, and doesn't ask you to join the party?
A: I'm really jealous. I mean, I've lived with Don. He even watched my dogs at Christmastime. I'm not old enough for that part, though. Still, I want it to be a horrible experience so that he misses me.
Q: Do you still hang out with Don?
A: Oh yeah. You know those fabulous Lifetime Original Movies? Love 'em, they're so good. There was this wonderful one Don and I watched together recently in a hotel in London. Joanna Kerns plays an alcoholic who had an abusive mother and the young Hilary Swank from The Next Karate Kid plays the 14-year-old daughter who beats up her little brother, who's like, 10 and keeps a flask of vodka under his pillow. It was the greatest movie I've ever seen. Don and I just laughed our asses off.
Q: Speaking of basket cases, do you ever feel sympathy for the has-beens profiled on "E! True Hollywood Story"?
A: Everybody unravels. There's just a lot more attention when somebody famous unravels. I have as much sympathy for them as I do for anybody who's had a nervous breakdown or becomes addicted to whatever. People tend to think that when you do that and you're an actor, you're really crazy. If a "normal" person does it, it's more accepted. Craziness and problems, don't come from this Industry. They come from life.
Q: Do you admit to any odd turn-ons?
A: I like the way my own feet smell. I love to smell my sneakers when I take them off. I think my feet smell like stale popcorn, but my boyfriend disagrees completely. He says they're just disgusting.
Q: Do you ever dream about having someone else's career?
A: Maybe Nicole Kidman's. She's an amazing actress, and she's done a good job of being a legitimate actress and starring in huge box-office successes. She carries herself in such a way that everyone respects her and sees her as smart and beautiful. That's hard to do.
Q: Ever fantasize about being out of the business entirely?
A: I've been working for a really long time now and supporting myself, but I'd love someone to take care of me. I could imagine myself as somebody's girlfriend who doesn't make movies. Or only does them every so often.
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Stephen Rebello interviewed Melissa Joan Hart for the August issue of Movieline.