June 25–July 2, 1998

movies

All Grown Up

Former child star Christina Ricci is big-time bitchy in The Opposite of Sex.

by Brian Howard

		Dye Cast: Ricci in The Opposite of Sex

There was a time (last year, actually) you could take your kid sister to see a Christina Ricci flick. The pouty little kid's oeuvre tended toward family fare—she was drop-dead adorable in Mermaids, charmingly sadistic as Wednesday in the Addams Family franchise and her mere presence in a groaner like Casper made the film (almost) watchable. You could rest assured that l'il sis would leave the theater placated and with no lasting psychological scars.

But Ricci, 18, who grew up in Montclair, NJ, and now lives in Manhattan, has been giving her image a big-time makeover. Evidence her wickedly chilly performance in last year's excellent The Ice Storm ("I'll show you mine if you show me yours"), her turn as strung-out Streisand-portrait painter Lucy in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and upcoming roles in 200 Cigarettes, Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66, and John Waters' Pecker. The pouty little kid has developed almost overnight into a ubiquitous, barely legal, not-quite-guilty-pleasure sexpot. Web sites devoted to the rising star's career are numerous, and posts on a fan newsgroup include discussion of her bra size and the legitimacy of nude pics of the just-18 star. (Apparently, the photos are just "good fakes.")

Sitting in the Rittenhouse Hotel with Don Roos, director of Ricci's latest type-buster, The Opposite of Sex, she shows nary a trace of the pert 10-year-old who made her film debut as Cher's daughter Kate Flax (talk about psychological scars) in 1990's Mermaids.

Wearing jeans and white T, sporting a jet-black shoulder-length coif, visibly drained from a rigorous publicity tour, she and affable Roos laugh back and forth about, as Roos puts it, "the best worst movie you'll ever see," Showgirls, and fave line from South Park—"Pig Fucker." Chain-smoking Parliament lights ("I can't really talk for extended periods of time without smoking"), Ricci insists that while her recent roles more accurately reflect the real Christina, her approach to playing them hasn't changed.

"I feel I've always done the same thing, just in different films and kinds of movies. It's always been me… I've just been seeking out good roles [lately]."

And her role as Dedee Truitt—16-year-old white-trash vamp who bails on her fucked-up Louisiana family to live with her gay half-brother, Bill (Martin Donovan), an Indiana high school teacher she's never actually met—is a ball-breaker. She's crass, rude, inconsiderate and about as politically incorrect as they come.

"She knew this character inside and out," explains Roos.

"I am this character inside and out," laughs Ricci.

"She's really much much more considerate than Dedee, other than that, same person," retorts Roos.

Dedee then embarks on a vicarious crime spree which includes seducing Bill's boyfriend, Matt (Ivan Sergei), into "changing teams" and committing statutory rape; convincing him that she's pregnant with his child; persuading him to steal $10,000 from Bill, and then running to L.A.

Roos, who wrote the script (his directorial debut), was initially unsure if Ricci would be right for the part. "I thought she was too young for the role—I envisioned her as like 12 or 13. But after I heard that she had liked the script, we flew to New York, she did a scene for us, and we got into negotiations right away. She was perfect."

Roos has made a living attracting big-name actors to his female roles (Single White Female, Boys on the Side, Diabolique). "I think it comes from being gay, if you want the honest truth," he explains about his knack for writing strong female parts. "When I was a child I always wanted to hang with the women and the girls. The boys would make me throw a ball, which I couldn't do, so I'd much rather sit with the girls and talk about other people. And I think it's more interesting to write about people who are, in a way, outside the power structure, like women or blacks or gays, than to write about people who are inside the power structure, like straight white men."

The Dedee character, according to Roos, wasn't based on anyone specific. She's a manifestation of a sort of universal id. "Inside all of us there's a Dedee, that kind of uncensored person who really acts without killing themselves thinking about the consequences. I think there's a pretty strong character like that in all of us, so it was easy to write—it's not hard to figure out what Dedee will say in any circumstance, it's the kind of things I would want to say."

Getting Dedee from script to screen, however, was tricky. Ricci's age at the time the film was shot, 17, and the character's age, 16, presented problems. It's illegal to portray an underage character, even one played by an actor over 18, having sex onscreen.

"It's to fight child pornography. It's a really bad law," bemoans Roos.

"Yeah," chimes in Ricci. "Because then you can't have any more coming-of-age movies… not that we really need any more, but still."

"True, we were concerned about that," admits Roos. "We skirted right up to the edge of that law."

Ricci's parents, however, were not a problem. "My mother loved it. She was the one who read the script first and she said that I had to read it, 'cause I'd love it," explains Ricci.

"I was really surprised that her mom liked it," adds Roos. "I thought, 'Wow, that's a cool mom.' To be able so see past some of the things other mothers might be offended by. For a young actor it could be a very good role because it's a very real character, and those are always hard to find."

A real character herself, Ricci also finds herself growing up into another new role—head of her own production company. Though she was rumored to have been considering college ("What does she need to go to college for?" remarks her publicist in the elevator after the interview), she begins production on her company's first film, starring Ricci of course, this fall.

See Sam Adams' review in Movie Shorts.