Christina Ricci stars as free-spirited Amanda in Woody Allen's new romantic comedy, Anything Else. Jason Biggs plays Jerry Falk, an aspiring writer, who falls in love at first sight with Amanda. But he soon finds that being in love with the unpredictable Amanda isn't like anything else at all. "She's very much like a typical Woody Allen girl, very neurotic, very insecure, very self-absorbed, almost like infantile in her emotions," Ricci says about her character. She explains how she played someone so neurotic. "It's mostly on the page, like all the ways that they manifest themselves are on the page. You might feel like a little bit of something and just to make it register, especially in something that's very comedic, you just make it larger than life."In the film, Amanda has some infidelity problems, but Riccie doesn't believe the character actually thinks she did it for Jerry. "No, I don't think she really believes that, I think she's just scrambling for any excuse that he might buy. I think maybe that's why some of her contemptuous actions come from the contempt she has for someone who actually buys that."
While Amanda is really out there, Ricci says that Biggs' character isn't perfect either. "Amanda is ridiculous and the overtly screwed up one, but he's cheating on his girlfriend in the beginning. So it's sort of like he got paid back a little bit. He's cheating on his girlfriend in the beginning, he seems very apathetic towards both of them. It's not like he's really upset when she leaves. He's sort of upset, but he doesn't seem to really care that much. There's a detachment to his character."
Working with writer/director Woody Allen is an experience, she says. "I think Woody is just uncomfortable sometimes in new situations. Certainly, I'm really shy, like he was actually always asking me why I was so quiet. I was just like 'I don't really know you. So, I'll talk later.' I think that he's sort of the same way, which is probably why he talked to me a lot and talked to Jason as well because we were both very professional, there to do our jobs. We joke around a little, but especially if we're nervous about something. If we were both nervous with Woody, then we were just sort of quiet and respectful. That's probably why he spoke to us more than I hear he speaks to other people. I don't know, we had fun. He joked around with us, he teased us, stuff like that. He's very blunt with criticisms, and at first you sort of, you know, you're a little taken aback by it, but then towards the end I kinda learned to give it back a little bit. So it was fine."
She didn't change what Woody Allen had planned much. "I'm not comfortable with changing the words. I generally don't do that and he's such an amazing writer that it seems not to make any sense to do that. Also, it's a very particular vocabulary he uses and just the way all of his characters speak, and even the pronunciation he uses are uniformly different in all his films. Like I would say 'nye-ilism,' Woody Allen actors say 'nih-ilism.' It's just like all those things you don't change because they all go with his style. I mean, we ad-libbed a little bit. He wanted no dead air and everything should be moving all the time. If something happens you make something up to cover it, stuff like that."
Christina Ricci is making her directorial debut with The Speed Queen, about a woman on death row who wants to set the record straight about her criminal past. "I'm attached to direct. We had our financing but our financing fell through so we have to go other places for financing." She would also star in the lead role.
Meanwhile, she co-produced Prozac Nation, based on the best-selling novel. Set in the mid-1980's before the prevalence of anti-depressants, it follows a young working class woman's (Ricci) bout with depression during her first year at Harvard. The film explores this generation's struggle to navigate the effects of divorce, drugs, sex, and an overbearing mother. The film's release date has been moved around many times, but Miramax is believed to be targeting an April release now. "I of course want it to come out, and I feel confident that it will, it�s just a question of the right time," she adds.
Ricci also stars with Charlize Theron in the crime drama Monster. Based on the true story, Theron plays Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was executed in Florida for killing seven men during the 1980s. Christina plays her girlfriend, Selby Wall. "No one knows if she was aware of what was going on or not, if she's really na�ve and not very bright," she says about Wall, "Or if she's actually incredibly intelligent and just knew how to manipulate this woman and everything else around her. That's one of the things I loved about that character. She's completely ambiguous."
She gets to lock lips with Theron in the film, which is already a much-talked about topic. "She was a very good kisser. At first, we were so uncomfortable and nervous, kinda like what the hell are we doing, and we couldn't stop giggling, Charlize and I. Everyone was prepared for us, you know, everyone was quiet and it was like a closed-off monitor and everything, and she and I just couldn't stop laughing and making really lewd jokes."
But what you'll get to see on the big screen is not all fun and games. "I think people are gonna be a little horrified when they actually see what we look like in the movie. It's not hot, it's not necessarily hot lesbian action. We look like as close to those girls as we could. Charlize put on 30 pounds and she has prosthetics on her face and fake teeth and contacts, and they like bleached her skin out, and she's dressed kind of like the highway hooker looking, but not the hot hooker, it's like white trash early 80s hooker, really poor. And then I have this weird boys haircut and big boy clothes. I was actually the most comfortable I've ever been in my entire life. I actually liked it. I had lots of boys clothes. It was pretty good. I wore no makeup whatsoever. There's no glamour involved."
See Christina play the ultimate nightmare girlfriend in Anything Else, out this Friday.
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