Christina Ricci
Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com
From the time she was a child, Christina Ricci has proven there is absolutely no role she can’t tackle. From her young roles in The Addams Family movies, and Casper to her more mature ones in The Opposite of Sex, Pumpkin, Monster, Black Snake Moan, Penelope, and scores of others, she has proven time and time again, with merely a fraction of the kind of the fanfare given to young starlets like Lindsay Lohan, that youth and talent are not always a potentially deadly mix.
Now, at the age of 28, Christina has returned to once again exceed expectations with her most unlikely role yet. It’s as girlfriend Trixie in The Wachowski Brothers’ long-awaited film adaptation of the classic late 1960’s Japanese TV anime Speed Racer.
Being her most high-profile project in years, Ricci made absolutely no bones about the immense benefits that came with working on a big-budget special effects extravaganza helmed by one of the film world’s most extraordinary filmmakers.
“It was the fact that I really, really would have liked to do the job and also, I’m a huge fan of The Wachowski Brothers,” she replies, “I loved The Matrix.”
However, she claims that despite her immense critical acclaim, Christina’s initially social awkwardness during her tryout almost caused her chances for the role to be passed up.
“I was very nervous,” Ricci recalls, “I didn’t talk much during my audition. They said they were worried about hiring me because I didn’t talk much. I was like, ‘I was nervous, people. Come on.’”
Ricci also notes she made another potentially embarrassing misstep when she was ignorant of the fact that the role required her to learn martial arts.
“I had to do some kung fu,” she says, “I didn’t know I had to. And a lot of the script was action sequences, just pages of describing the races and action sequences and I didn’t read those pages because it was a little dense. And I had to audition in 24 hours.”
“So when I got to set, the stunt coordinator came to see me and I was like, ‘So you’re going to do some kung fu.’” Christina adds, “And I was like, ‘What? Really? I fight in this?’ And he was like, ‘Yes, we fight in this.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, right, of course! I totally forgot about that.’”
However, once she started, the actress soon enjoyed learning martial arts for the film.
“So when they started, I had a couple of training sessions and it was really fun,” Ricci says, “The stunt guys were awesome and really fun to deal with and work with and I had a really good time. I love that kind of thing, so it was great. I tend to be very competitive and athletic, so it’s awesome.”
A highly unique aspect of Speed Racer, the actress claims, was how much of the scenes involved acting behind green screen. Ricci notes that The
