[andrew r]

From Daily News.com

Christina Ricci squeals about 'Penelope'

By BRANTLEY BARDIN

Sunday, February 17th 2008, 4:00 AM
Christina Ricci Andrzejczak/Getty

Christina Ricci

(Page 1 of 2)

When she was a teen, Christina Ricci would regularly regale journalists with outrageous proclamations about everything from sex to gunplay. But that was then.

"Now, I'm, like, 'Why on earth would you have said that?!'" the 28-year-old actress, clad in a ladylike, high-necked sea-shell print dress, her ankles demurely crossed, says. "In real life now, I'm not crazy and into 'the dark side' - I speak slowly and have a Southern kind of politeness to me."

Her onscreen life, however ... well, that remains another story entirely.

"I want people to know that if they go to see a movie I'm in that they're probably not gonna recognize me for the first three minutes," she grins. "I'm gonna do something totally weird and different from what they thought I'd do."

Hence, the actress - who has been a risk-taking iconoclast ever since she was 10 and somewhat disconcertingly played death-obsessed Wednesday Addams to perfection in 1991's "The Addams Family" and its sequel - blithely continues, "It would never occur to me to worry about putting a pig nose on and doing a movie about a pig-nosed girl."

That last comment by the 5-foot-1, saucer-eyed actress refers to her new film, "Penelope," opening Feb. 29. A comic, modern-day fairy tale about a girl who has been kept homebound by parents frightened of the world's reaction to their daughter's deformity - a sow snout brought on by a family curse - the movie is, in other words, tailor-made for Ricci.

In her 20-year-and-counting career, after all, she has worked for Ang Lee (in "The Ice Storm," she played a sexually precocious but naive teen), John Waters (in "Pecker," she was a coin-laundry operator), Tim Burton ("Sleepy Hollow," where she was the ethereal daughter of a witch) and Woody Allen ("Anything Else," as Jason Biggs' obsession-inducing girlfriend). She also scored as a troublemaking tramp who steals her brother's boyfriend in 1998's "The Opposite of Sex" and as the girlfriend of convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron) in 2003's "Monster."

Then of course, two years ago, this California-born, Jersey-raised daughter of a former Ford model and psychiatrist father co-starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson in "Black Snake Moan" as a half-naked nymphomaniac chained to a minister's radiator.

"She's just chosen with a vengeance to be 'outside,' to play characters who aren't worried about being loved," smiles an approving Catherine O'Hara, who plays Ricci's overprotective mother in "Penelope." "In spite of the fact that she's an actress in movies, she's succeeded in trying not to worry what people think."

Ironically, that's precisely what the moral of "Penelope," developed and co-produced by Reese Witherspoon (who does a cameo as the first-ever friend Penelope makes upon escaping her house), is all about.

"I love the message it holds for girls," says Ricci, who admits to having battled anorexia in her teens. "It's a metaphor for escaping from the prisons we create ourselves through our insecurities and what society says we should and should not be."

Acting, she says, has helped her do just that. "For years I had a lot of feelings about the way I looked, which is why doing a movie like 'Black Snake Moan,' where I was, basically, hanging in my underwear all day, was so freeing.

"Life should be about having fun. There's no place for self-consciousness - the only person standing in your way is you."

Next up for her is the Wachowski brothers' live-action movie of the cult '60s Japanese anime "Speed Racer," where she'll play Speed's (Emile Hirsch) go-getter gal Trixie, complete with motorcycle helmet.

No problem for Ricci, who, circling back to the subject of Penelope's Miss Piggy nose, just sighs and laughs. "You know, you couldn't find a person who wants to be 'normal' more than me. But putting that pig nose on and wearing weird costumes ... well, to me that's not weird. I guess that's why I'll always be left of center."

Thant last quote I think is why I love her as an actress. Link