Behind the scenes with Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci has played so many over the top vixens (in The Ice Storm, The Opposite of Sex, Buffalo 66' and 200 Cigarettes) that seeing her without skimpy attire, pouty, blood red lips and dark eyeliner is almost like seeing Cindy Crawford without her mole. But at our cover shoot under a tent in an L.A. parking lot, Christina shed her goth-meets-glam style for a look that hairstylist and friend Thomas McKiver describes as "classic Natalie Wood." Offscreen, Christina can be pretty low-maintenance , says McKiver, who has groomed the 18-year-old for numerous photo shoots and premieres over the past three years. "Before I even take anything out of my bag, she'll be saying, 'Don't put all of that crap in my hair!' - that's our standard joke," he says. ( She got her wish this time with just a touch of Aveda Spray Shine.) For her cover outfit, Christina chose a denim jacket that "was very similar to how she would usually dress - young, but not too outrageous," notes McKiver, adding, "Christina is very secure in her own being. She has no vanity." ----Holly Cooper
Okay, she's not all sweetness and light, but who wants her to be?
By Jamie Diamond
Not a single character Christina Ricci has played on screen would own a copy of The Joy of Cooking. Most of her misfits couldn't even boil an egg-not the sullen depressive from The Ice Storm, the unrepentant home wrecker from The Opposite of Sex, the hapless tap dancer in Buffalo 66 or the would-weary manager of the Spin 'n' Grin Laundromat in Pecker. So if the 18 year old actress were to invite you over for dinner, you might expect a pizza guy to be leaving as you were coming in.
But this time, at least, you'd be wrong: Tonight, America's furious teen angel is fluttering around the kitchen of the rented Hollywood Hills home she shares with her 27-year-old actor boyfriend, Matthew Frauman. She's barefoot, humming along to Liz Phair, whipping up a sophisticated three-course meal and consulting not one, but two, cookbooks.
"Oh, dear," she says, breaking her stride for a moment. "I forgot to buy chicken broth for the sauce." No matter. Ricci-in black Gucci pants and a black pullover-deftly opens a can of chicken noodle soup and drains out the noodles.
It's hard to read this picture. This is the pubescenet provocateur who said, "If anyone cries in front of me, I just laugh my ass off," and "I was so preverted when I was a little girl." Has Ricci gone from wild child to Martha Stewart overnight?
Sometimes Ricci defends her reputation. "Actors don't usually talk about being angry, depressed or upset,"she says. "But that's how teenagers feel. I just happened to talk about it." Other times, she says she invented, or at least exaggerated, her image. "I'm really not that dark. I'm disappointingly normal. I love prime-time TV. When I felt that I sounded uninteresting, I'd make up a shocking story. Now I think I sounded so dirty and obnoxious. I'm trying to grow up and not have to be that shocking."
Whatever. But please pass the chicken piccata and spinach soup. Ricci is a great cook.
The Actress Formerly Known as Angry
Dinner's over and Matthew, an unassuming beanpole of a fellow wearing sandals with socks, has cleared away the dishes. The living room-a story affair with cottage-cheese ceilings and white shag carpeting-has been transformed by Ricci with flickering, fragrant candles.
In person, she's more delicate than you'd expect (she's 5'3") and, lacking the forced effervescence typical of many young perfomers, she seems almost defenseless, the opposite of tough. Her voice is also a surprise: It doesn't have that leaden, deadpan quality you hear in many of her films. It's quivering, feminine. "But no matter how sweet I sound," she says, "everyone's going to expect me to play the evil one."
Ricci, the youngest of four, grew up in a comfortable house on a cul-de-sac in Montclair, A New Jersey suburb. Her mom, a former Ford model, met her dad, a primal scream therapist, after she read an article in a magazine. They divorced when Ricci was 13, and Ricci's been estranged from her father ever since-still, it was his spinach soup she made.
Whatever was going on at home, Ricci dealt with it, she says, by psychologically building a wall around herself: "When I was younger, I never wanted to let anyone see my vulnerable side. I thought, How dare they want to see that side! It made me really uncomfortable to be outwardly emotional."
MADEMOISELLE: What was it like to be raised by a model and a primal-scream therapist?
Christina Ricci: Things were all about appearances. We were supposed to be socialites when we grew up. She's not like that now, but my mother used to say things like, "When you're older, you can go on a scotch-and-steak- diet." my dad was also very image-conscious.
MLLE: Your public image and private self seem so different-is that hard to handle?
CR: No, it's perfect, because I get to be strong and frank in one side of my life, and in the other side, I get to be just myslef, which is sort of shy.
MLLE: I read that you've put cigarettes out on yourself.
CR: No, but when I was younger, I did self-mutilate. I'd be upset, so I'd do it and it would calm me down. It's a horrible way to feel better. But there are two parts of your brain-one that really wants to destroy the other. And sometimes the idea of self-destruction is very romantic. I got over that.
MLLE: You also said you were anorexic.
CR: In a way, I was trying to get rid of my breasts. Everyone my age wanted them, so it was like, Whoo-oo. Then I started hating them. And for all of my movies, I was supposed to be younger, so I'd have to strap them down.
MLLE: Did alcohol and drugs ever become a problem?
CR: I never did drugs-they made me feel awful physically. Of course, I experimented, but soon I thought, This is not worth the shame spiral the next day. I'm the kind of person who, if I went to a slumber party and smoked a cigarette, I assumed my parents were going to die as punishment. So I'd have to call my mom, tell her I'd smoked and feel really bad.
MLLE: Do you think you've had a childhood?
CR: If you're exposed at a young age to the way people really behave, you become disillusioned quicker. Which I think is good. But when I was a kid-I'm still a kid, I shouldn't say that-I acted out a lot. I was a juvenile delinquent. Had I not started working, that would have continued. Work gave me something to focus on. I'm much more adjusted now.
She's Not Gothic, Evil or Weird, Okay?
Ricci started acting in grammer school and made her film debut at the age of nine, in Mermaids, with Winona ryder playing her sister and Cher her mother. In the Addams Family, Ricci was so winning as the anti-adorable child Wednesday that the sequel, Addams Family Values, focused on her character. but after some kids' flicks (Casper and Gold Diggers:The Secret of Bear Mountain), her career come to a standstill. "I was really heavy when I was fifteen, very insecure and closed off," she says. "I think I appeared angry to people because I was protecting myself. I was sure the next thing out of their mouths would be, 'God, you're fat.' So I was guarded." Then came The Ice Storm, which was tailor-made for an anti-adorable adolescent. Ricci's performance as the sexually curious teenager was so uncompromising, it catapulted her into the world of independent films, where-having completed four indies in the last year-she reigns as queen. Next to be released are two ensemble pictures, 200 Cigarettes and Desert Blue.
MLLE: Why do you get picked to play disturbing characters?
CR: Originally, it was because I was a serious child. You could tell I could handle it and understand the characters.
MLLE: What do you think about not being cast in mainstream films?
CR: I'm not mainstream-looking. I'm not very skinny. I'm not ...like....beautiful. The point of mainstream movies is to cast someone that everyones' going to love. Because of my persona, I'm controversial. I don't do anything in my real life to deserve that. I don't drink, I don't do drugs. But studio people don't want to put me in their movies. They think I might offend.
MLLE: What's the biggest misconception people have about you? CR: That I'm gothic or evil or weird. I caused a lot of that because I like to say what no one else will say in interviews. Like, I eat red meat and love fur and, Screw all those animal rights people! I love to say that stuff. I love to say, Yeah, I want a shotgun and to join the NRA. I like to say, only because it's funny, that I buy only cruelty-intensive products. In interviews, that doesn't come across as kidding. Sarcasm is age-appropropriate for me, but not appropriate for my job. Still, I can say to myself, At least you weren't some stupid, fawning girl who only said what she was supposed to. At least I didn't do that.
And there are many of us who hope she never will.