Christina Ricci Reveals How The Industry Has Changed Since She Started Acting, Shares One Thing She’s ‘Argued About’ Her Entire Career

Christina Ricci has seen numerous changes within the acting industry over the years.

The actress, who shot to fame as Wednesday Addams in the 1991 movie “The Addams Family”, tells Deadline how things have changed since she got her first roles: “For me? Well, when I started, I was a child and just happy to be in that environment and away from home and working.

“It was exciting and fun, so all I focused on was being really well behaved so that I would get more jobs. But now that I’m past my difficult 20s, and all of the distraction that goes on in that time, I feel like I can really look at my work from a creative, artistic, intellectual standpoint, with all the calm that comes with age.

“It’s really lovely for that to be what I drown myself in and focus on, and it allows me to shut out all the other kind of stuff about being an actress that is superfluous.”

Ricci addressed her transition from child actor into more mature acting roles, saying, “Actually, I didn’t have a hard time, because, just as I became 17, independent film became a huge thing and for the first time, filmmakers wanted to cast actual teenagers to play teenagers.

“The kind of material was so meaty and gritty. That really helped me to not struggle in my transition to doing adult films — but, again, it’s just a time-and-place kind of thing. I got really lucky.”

Ricci admits there were “a lot of leading-lady standards” she didn’t fall into when talking about whether casting agents would have preconceptions of her.

Talking about that now changing, she insists, “I’m not at that age anymore. I’m not in my 20s and it’s not the 2000s, when you were either a leading lady or a character actress, and there was no in-between. Now they’re melding and blending. I’m not sure what it’s like to be in your 20s now, as an actress. But I do think, from what I see as a TV- and film-watcher, that they’re also benefitting from playing much more complicated, interesting women.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the star talks about her production company, revealing, “I spend a lot of my time mining for material, articles. One of the pieces I have is an obscure piece of true crime that I found. Another piece is an article from Vanity Fair about old Hollywood lore. I spend most of my time looking for IP and material and then trying to package it, find partners. And I’ve been successful with a few things.”

She admits she goes for the underdog when asked what kind of stories appeal to her. “I usually look for something that’s a little bit different. I love a story; I love an antihero. I love it when the protagonist is just a scumbag, but you’ve got to follow them anyway and figure out why,” she explains. “And I like being challenging — I like the idea of the audience having that sort of emotional character arc experience. You know what I mean? I like turning the tables.

“I don’t know how to really eloquently describe it, but I like the idea of people seeing something that they think they couldn’t possibly relate to — but then being intrigued enough to want to understand it and follow along with it. I do not believe that audiences have to see themselves in a character to want to watch them and understand them, and that has been something I’ve argued about for my entire career.”

Insisting she’s “always been like that,” Ricci adds, “I’ve always been that person who stands too close to the abandoned dog and then gets bitten. I’ve always really over-empathized with, maybe, the wrong types of people, because I’m fascinated by deviant behaviour.”