Christina Ricci has played a wide variety of roles throughout her career. She played death-obsessed Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family movies, brought the enthusiastic Trixie to life in Speed Racer, and took a whack at Lizzie Borden in The Lizzie Borden Chronicles. Another notable role of hers is her turn in the 2006 film Black Snake Moan, which required a significant amount of nudity on her part. While that can be daunting for some, Ricci actually stayed naked on set and has explained why she did that -- and how it empowered her.
While plenty of actors have performed nude scenes over the years, they've mostly had varied approaches to them. Christina Ricci recently took part in Variety's Actors on Actors, during which she spoke to Euphoria’s Sydney Sweeney about on-screen nudity While on the topic, Ricci recalled how cast and crew members were uneasy with her walking around nude while on the set of Black Snake Moan. So she found her own solution to make herself more comfortable with their level of discomfort:
I was going to ask you about that, because there’s so much nudity. Once I had to do a movie where I was naked pretty much the entire time. The thing that made me more uncomfortable was other people being uncomfortable with me being naked. So what I did, and you probably wouldn’t be allowed to do this now — I just stayed naked. I was like, ‘Don’t make me feel weird, like I’m the person who has to be ashamed.’ I would talk to crew members naked.
Being nude in front of a bunch of strangers seems like a mortifying notion, but not all actresses have a problem once they undress. For instance, when Jennifer Lawrence filmed a nude scene in Red Sparrow, she felt so at ease that everyone around started to feel uncomfortable. Hearing a situation like that, one would think that crew members need more preparation going into those scenes than the on-screen talent does.
Other stars have also found unconventional ways to handle such scenes. For example, Dakota Johnson got through her nude scenes in the Fifty Shades of Grey films by drinking whiskey and sucking on mints. After Nicole Kidman was filming her nude scenes in Eyes Wide Shut, she would communicate with director Stanley Kubrick about whether or not she was satisfied with the what was shot, helping to determine what was ultimately added to the film. So this goes to show that filming nude scenes is a team effort, one that requires everyone to ideally have the same level of comfort.
Christina Ricci went on to tell Sydney Sweeney what she perceived to be the only way for her to be comfortable being nude on the Black Snake Moan set. She explained:
I wanted everybody around me to stop reacting to it, because then I would forget that I was naked. And it worked. But it’s one of the only times I’ve ever actually really felt comfortable being naked on camera.
As for what Christina Ricci is up to now, you can see her return back to one of her classic franchises via Netflix’s Wednesday, an Addams Family spinoff. But don’t expect her to play the titular role again, as that part will be played by Scream’s Jenna Ortega, who portrays a Latina version of the character. Still, it's great that the show answered fans’ wishes by casting Ricci in the upcoming show. We don't currently know who she'll play, but she shared that she had a great time reuniting with Tim Burton and went on to praise Ortega's work. Also, don't expect her to strip for this role, either.
Christina Ricci finished the chat with Sydney Sweeney by saying that she doesn’t feel bad about not being asked anymore to do nude scenes, considering that she doesn’t really enjoy them. Plus, I think most of us would agree that the actress has plenty of other amazing talents that she can offer any production.
