Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci (born February 12, 1980) is an Emmy Award-nominated American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family (1991), and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993).
Her movie roles have ranged from art house films such as The Ice Storm (1997), dramas such as Monster (2004), independent comedies such as The Opposite of Sex (1998), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, and blockbusters such as Sleepy Hollow (1999).
Ricci endured the transition from a child star to teenage idol and adult actress and currently holds her own production company, Blaspheme Films, responsible for Pumpkin and Prozac Nation. She has recently appeared in Black Snake Moan (2007) and Penelope (2008), and stars as Trixie, the female lead role in the The Wachowski Brothers’ feature film adaptation of Speed Racer, in 2008.
Biography
Early life
Ricci was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth and youngest child of Sarah (née Murdoch), a former Ford Model and real estate agent, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and psychiatrist. Regarding her ancestry, Ricci has stated that “the Italian blood has been bred out of me. There’s an Italian four or five generations back who married an Irish woman and they all had sons. So they married more Irish women, there were more sons, and more Irish women. Now I’m basically Scots-Irish.”
Her family was reasonably financially comfortable from its inception; her father, before becoming a lawyer, was a psychiatrist who specialized in shrieking therapy. While a child, Christina could hear the therapies through the vents in her room, and would act them out in front of her mother. The family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where she grew up attending Edgemont Elementary School, Glenfield Middle School, and Montclair High School as well as the Morristown-Beard School. After one year she left the high school for a private school in New York City (the Professional Children’s School), which was also attended by various other celebrities such as Sarah Michelle Gellar, Macaulay Culkin, and Jerry O’Connell. Her siblings are Rafael (born 1971), Dante (born 1974), and Pia (born 1976). When her father and her mother eventually separated in 1993, Ricci stayed with her mother, who took custody of the children. Ricci has not spoken to her father since this took place in 1993. Of her siblings, she is closest to her brother Rafael. After her parents’ divorce, Ricci experimented with self-injury, and began cutting herself as a child as she felt that she couldn’t handle her body developing—Ricci stated that this problem affected her self esteem as a young teenager.
Personal life
Ricci owns her own production company, Blaspheme Films, responsible for Prozac Nation and Pumpkin. Ricci told a magazine in a 2005 interview that she is a Christian. She is on the national board of VOX-Voices for Planned Parenthood. She will also be appearing in national ads for emergency contraception. She supported John Kerry’s presidential bid in 2004. Ricci maintains a close friendship with former child star and actress Gaby Hoffmann, with whom she starred in Now and Then and 200 Cigarettes. She is also a friend of Black Snake Moan co-star Samuel L. Jackson.
After making the top of PETA’s worst-dressed list and receiving a letter from the animal rights group, Ricci decided to give up wearing fur. Ricci also owns two dogs (The Sheriff Steve Goldburg and Buzz Goldicci).
In 2004, Ricci appeared as the first model in the Spring/ Summer 2005 Louis Vuitton show, and also appeared in advertisements for the popular French fashion house that year.
In April 2007, Ricci became the national spokesperson for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network for the United States, which assists victims of these crimes and promotes programs that help prevent them from occurring. She cited some of her research in Black Snake Moan role as educational on the importance of the issues that RAINN deals with.
She has cited Pulp Fiction, Lord of the Rings, Gangs of New York, and My Own Private Idaho as her favorite films. She drives a Porsche Boxster. Her favorite musicians are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty, The Ramones, R.E.M., The White Stripes, Weezer, and the Pixies.
Ricci also has many tattoos: a lion on her right shoulder blade (a reference to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a favorite novel of hers as a child), a fairy on the inside of her right wrist, praying hands on her left hip (this tattoo was originally a bat), a bouquet of sweetpeas on her lower back, the words “Move or Bleed” on the left side of her ribcage, the name “Jack” on her right thigh for a dead pet, a sparrow on her right breast, and a mermaid on her left ankle.
Filmography
Films
- The Hero of Color City (2010)
Long Time Gone (2009)
All’s Faire in Love (2009)
Alpha and Omega (2010)
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (2008)
New York, I Love You (2008)
Speed Racer (2008)
Home of the Brave (2006)
Black Snake Moan (2006)
Penelope (2006)
Cursed (2005)
Monster (2003)
I Love Your Work (2003)
Anything Else (2003)
Miranda (2002)
Pumpkin (2002)
The Laramie Project (2002)
The Gathering (2002)
Prozac Nation (2001)
All Over the Guy (2001)
The Man Who Cried (2000)
Bless the Child (2000)
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
No Vacancy (1999)
200 Cigarettes (1999)
I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998)
Desert Blue (1998)
Pecker (1998)
Small Soldiers (1998)
The Opposite of Sex (1998)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Buffalo ‘66 (1998)
The Ice Storm (1997)
That Darn Cat (1997)
Little Red Riding Hood (1997)
The Last of the High Kings (1996)
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain (1995)
Now and Then (1995)
Casper (1995)
Addams Family Values (1993)
The Cemetery Club (1993)
The Addams Family (1991)
The Hard Way (1991)
Mermaids (1990)
Television
- Grey’s Anatomy (2006)
Joey (2005)
Ally McBeal (2002)
Malcolm in the Middle (2002)
The Simpsons (1996)
H.E.L.P. (1990)