She has successfully made the transition from child star to grown-up A-lister, and carved out a career of bold, interesting choices. CHRISTINA RICCI talks to EVE CLAXTON about coming of age on camera, and why she will definitely be walking up the aisle in white.
An unassuming-looking young woman steps into a restaurant on the Bowery in New York, escaping from an early summer rainstorm. She unwraps a raincoat to reveal skinny jeans and a simple gray T-shirt. As she turns to say hello, her quietly pretty face breaks into a smile. I have to look twice before I’m sure it’s actually her.
Only then do I realize that I’ve been expecting the actress Christina Ricci to arrive dressed head to toe in black and sporting a frown. After all, the former child actress – who made her name as the famously morbid Wednesday Addams in the Addams Family movies – has never been known for playing it pleasant. Case in point, her turn as a troubled teenage seductress in 1997’s The Ice Storm, not to mention her chilling role asa serial killer’s lesbian girlfriend in 2003’s Monster.
Yet as we slide into a booth and begin to talk, it is clear that, in person, the actress is far from gloomy. At the age of 33, she cuts a tiny figure and could easily pass for 22. Her hazel eyes are large and expressive; her shoulder-length hair falls in brownish-red waves. “It’s not a day for dressing up,” she smiles, apologizing for seeming a little rain-bedraggled (the T-shirt is J.Crew; the jeans Rag & Bone; the boots last season’s Target).
When I explain I’d love to talk clothing, she launches into a detailed description of the shoot you see here. “The clothes were beautiful,” she enthuses. “There was a lot of lace; very pretty and ladylike, but not overly frilly – exactly what I like.” In other words, Ricci may play dark roles, but her conversational style is sweetly chatty – and her sartorial preferences skew toward feminine, modern and romantic. “The minute the sun comes out, I’m wearing little dresses,” she says.
This appreciation of fashion has been a constant in a career that started almost 25 years ago. Even at the age of nine – when she secured her first movie role as Cher’s daughter in Mermaids – she was watching Style with Elsa Klensch on CNN, looking for tips. Her mother, Sarah, a former Ford model, was also a big influence. “I’ve always loved ’60s clothing, ladylike stuff,” Ricci muses. “Seeing all my mother’s tear sheets must have had an impact on me.”
In her early years in the film business, dressing for a premiere meant shopping with mom. “It was the mid-’90s, so you didn’t have to borrow clothes, or wear the latest thing,” she remembers of the era before every actress had a stylist. “The first time I went to Cannes – for The Ice Storm – we went to Barneys and picked out the gowns ourselves.”
Although her fashion-aware mother made certain her frocks were always pretty and appropriate, the teenage years were evidently a struggle for Ricci in terms of self-image. “I was a 17-year-old fright fest!” she says of her appearance during that first visit to the iconic film festival. “I’d dyed my hair blonde for a role and I was overweight. But then, I don’t know anyone who looks back and says, ‘Oh, you should see what I looked like at 17…’”
As she made it to her twenties, Ricci started to find confidence. “I got smaller and more comfortable with myself,” she reveals. “It was a gradual thing. As I got older, I became more like my mother. I began to wear what I wanted to wear.” Meanwhile, she worked consistently, cleverly avoiding going down the familiar road of former child-star crack-ups.
At 5ft 1in, Ricci’s long been conscious of making the best of her doll-like figure (she’s so petite that even sample sizes can swamp her). During her twenties, she stuck to what she knew worked well: strapless sweetheart necklines, nipped waistlines, pencil skirts – these have been her red-carpet go-tos. Since she turned 30, however, Ricci says she is becoming more experimental.
"I’m finding I don’t want to stick to my rigid rules any more," she explains. “Now I think, ‘Well, I’ve never worn those kind of pants before – let’s try them!’” This new sense of daring has paid off. At the Met Ball this year, she was one of the few who nailed the evening’s punk theme, in a ruffled plaid, leg-exposing Vivienne Westwood gown that sent her straight to the top of every best-dressed list.
No wonder, then, that Ricci’s current favorite designers for red-carpet appearances include Thakoon, Tom Ford and Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, all designers who manage to push the envelope while still creating “the beautiful, classic clothes that I love”. She’s also aware that – as a former child star who continues to look preternaturally girlish – she needs to dress in ways that accentuate her maturity. “I do have this mentality of trying to dress older,” she notes. “I find people treat me more seriously if I’m well-dressed and put together.”
Over the next few months, Ricci will be making one of her biggest dress decisions yet: picking out a gown for her upcoming wedding to her fiancé, James Heerdegen. The couple met two years ago working on TV series, Pan Am. He was the member of the crew; she was the star. Ricci is coy about the details of their romance. “It was pretty much like everyone else,” she says. “You just start dating.”
And she’s equally tight-lipped on the subject of the dress itself. “I’m still waiting for confirmation from the designer that I can announce that,” she says carefully, with the kind of professionalism that comes from a lifetime in the industry. Contrary to reports, however, she will not be designing the gown herself. “A reporter asked me about it,” she recalls, “and I said I was looking at sketches. Somehow that ended up as ‘Christina’s designing the dress!’, which I have no intention of doing.”
In terms of the color, at least, she’s already clear. “My mother wore a baby-blue Betsey Johnson for her wedding,” she says. “At first, I thought it would be sweet to be a bride in blue, and then I thought, no. It’s the one time, God willing, that I’ll wear a wedding dress, so I’m wearing white.”
As the planning for the big day becomes more intense, Ricci is determined to stay calm. “I just want everyone to have a nice time and to feel happy,” she says of her wedding. “I could have easily gone the other way, where I was controlling every detail, but it’s so unpleasant to be like that. If the flowers aren’t exactly the right shade, then so be it.”
Meanwhile, Ricci is getting ready to promote her new film, an Australian indie coming-of-age tale, Around The Block, and is also the voice of Vexy, in soon-to-be released Smurfs 2. Ricci is turning her thoughts to the future, too. She and Heerdegen have talked of buying a brownstone in Brooklyn. “I definitely want to have a family,” she says, her face lighting up at the thought. “But it seems impossible to plan that kind of thing. So for me, when it happens, it happens.” Until then, the two are living a happily under-the-radar existence in stylish Williamsburg, just across the river from our rendezvous.
Ricci huddles back into her raincoat, bracing herself for the rain. Outside on the Bowery, I watch as she walks toward the subway. The storm clouds begin to shift and the sky momentarily brightens. Definitely not gloomy, I think, not gloomy at all.
Around The Block is out later this year
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