The containment of horror. Like many women, Christina Ricci has been through hell during the pandemic. Victim of violence from her husband James Heerdegen since the start of their marriage, the actress had decided to file for divorce in December 2019. Unfortunately, confinement occurred in California in March 2020 and Christina was trapped in her own home at the mercy of his executioner. “I found myself stuck at home with a man who had physically abused me and who knew that I wanted to end our marriage,” she explains to the police, supporting photos: twisted fingers, swollen wrists, arms covered with bruises… The star was very afraid for his life. A first time on June 2, 2020, when James Heerdegen grabbed her by the hair, dragged her into the courtyard of the property before rushing her into the hearth of the garden fireplace. A second time a few days later when his attacker spits in his face before throwing his coffee in his face. All in front of Freddie, their 6-year-old son…
Woman beaten during confinement
America discovers with amazement the drama of the one who was revealed at 11 years old in the role of Wednesday in the horrific comedy The Addams Family, in 1991. The film had been a hit and propelled the young Christina and her face so singular to the firmament. The actress was not especially predestined for the cinema. In the family home of Montclair (New Jersey), Ralph Ricci the father, an ex-lawyer turned psychotherapist, is a follower of primal scream therapy. He has set up his practice in the cellar and receives his patients until late in the evening. What he forgot was that the basement vent opened directly into his youngest daughter’s bedroom. And little Christina to fall asleep every night to the sound of the fantasies and screams of her father’s clients. As a result, the girl turns out to be very good at imitating cries of hysteria with her mother, Sarah (model for catalog), as her first fan.
His career
1990: THE TWO MERMAIDS
She is ten years old and co-stars with Cher, Bob Hoskins and Winona Ryder in this lovely family comedy by Richard Benjamin.
A nice start.
1991-1993: THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1&2)
She embodies the freaky Wednesday Addams in these two successful parts of Barry Sonnenfeld adapted from a cult series. Triumph and fame on arrival.
1997: THE ICE STORM
She shifts into high gear in front of Ang Lee’s camera, where she plays a troubled teenager who discovers love in a 70s America shaken by sexual freedom.
1998: LAS VEGAS PARANO
Adapted from the work of Hunter S. Thompson, an acid comedy by Terry Gilliam, which allows him to give the reply to Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. A cult movie.
1998: BUFFALO ’66
Directed by Vincent Gallo with whom relations will be strained, an initiatory road-movie which highlights the left-behinds of the American Dream. His best performance according to some observers.
1999: SLEEPY HOLLOW
Gothic icon, Christina is logically chosen by filmmaker Tim Burton for this dark tale. With Johnny Depp whom she finds again after Las Vegas Parano.
2003: MONSTER
In this harsh film by Patty Jenkins, Christina plays an immature young girl in love with a serial killer, played by Charlize Theron. Beautiful duo of actresses.
2006: BLACK SNAKE MOAN
Strange film and new beautiful performance by Christina Ricci as a white trash nymphomaniac summoned to control her impulses by a pastor played by Samuel L. Jackson. Critics praise the performance.
2021: MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
Already present on the poster of Speed Racer (2008), she finds the universe of Lana Wachowski for this fourth part of Matrix. A nice comeback on arrival.
At the age of 9, the idea of making films came to him after an end-of-year performance at school. In the room is an agent, the father of a classmate. After the performance, he goes to see Christina’s mother and tells her: “Your daughter is made to act.” From then on, the preteen passed castings, turned in pubs, a series (HELP, in 1990) and landed the same year a role in The Two Sirens by Richard Benjamin, with Cher and Winonna Ryder. A year later it will be The Addams Family which will permanently install him in the Hollywood circuit. However, her parents refuse to take her out of school and when Sarah and Ralph decide to divorce, Christina takes up her mother’s cause and leaves with her, her brothers and her sister (Rafael, Dante and Pia) for Santa Monica in California. As a teenager, her body changes and it becomes difficult to get her to play little girls. Her agent, the casting directors and her mother then ask her to bandage her breasts, hide her hips by wearing baggy pants and oversized T-shirts, typical of 90s fashion. What had to happen happens: Christina no longer eats, abhors his body and becomes fatally anorexic at the age of 14. “I let myself be caught in my own trap and, at 16, to get out of it, I decided to go see a shrink”, she analyzes in the columns of Elle in October 2010. Two films , during 1998, will prove decisive for her personal development and the acceptance of her image: Sex and Other Complications and Buffalo ’66, where she plays a sexy girl who sports pretty curves. It was the time when some saw in her “a mix between Madonna and Elizabeth Taylor” and when she became a muse of grunge, then gothic. Rock bands as obscure as Reverend Bizarre (who do doom metal) or Anthrophobia (trash metal) worship her absolutely and she doesn’t complain about it. On the contrary, she adds to the freaky-sexy register: “I love scandal”, she balances in Parisian, in June 1999. She then claims to suffer from botanophobia (fear of plants), smokes cigarettes on cigarettes during interviews, clashes with Vincent Gallo, her director in Bu ff alo ’66 (“an asshole”, Liberation, April 2008) and slips up severely when she dares to praise incest. “I became outrageous because I was tired of answering stupid questions in interviews. That’s when I started saying some awful things. I was a child who was applauded for nothing, so I did everything to get people to stop applauding me. And then it bothered me”, she apologized in 2002. Nine years later, Christina, a little losing momentum, is thinking of relaunching her career with Pan Am, a series broadcast by ABC which deals with the daily lives of hostesses. air in the sixties. The program that wants to be a female Mad Men will crash and quickly disappear from the small screen. However, Christina is happy, she met on this film set a machinist named James Heerdegen, whom she will marry in stride before giving birth to a little Freddie, in 2014. The rest, we know it… Today , Christina Ricci is better. She divorced the dreadful Heerdegen, who is under a restraining order against her. The actress found love again and remarried in April 2021 to a hairstylist named Mark Hampton. Good news, a few weeks ago, she gave birth, at the age of 41, to a little girl baptized Cleopatra. On the job side, after a series of independent films unknown to the battalion and nanars which had made her disappear from the radar a little, Christina Ricci came back in force with the final part of the Matrix saga. The most beautiful of resurrections.
A fresh start in 2021
Young, pretty, endowed with a personality and a body apart, Christina Ricci has always had success with guys. If she has been credited with adventures with Johnny Depp or Vincent Gallo, her play partners, she also had relationships in the 2000s with, in particular, pop star Moby (2000), actor Chris Evans (2007) or again the stand-upper of the American alt-right Owen Benjamin (from 2008 to 2009). In 2011, the actress decides to pose with the cameraman and machinist James Heerdegen, who will become the father of her son. Bad pick. From 2013, James will prove to be violent and will make him live through hell. She divorced in April 2021 to remarry in October of the same year with hairdresser Mark Hampton. In December 2021, the couple announced the birth of Cleopatra. By changing guys, the actress had a nose.
Her fight against rape
A feminist, she is an activist in RAINN, a network fighting against sexual abuse, of which she became spokesperson in 2007. RollingStone. I decided at that time to devote time and energy to this cause”, she explained in Elle, in April 2008.
From gothic teenager to mature forty-something mom
Her looks
“As a child, I looked like an Alien”, likes to repeat in interviews the star who is able to change her look over the years and according to her desires. Grunge, gothic, luscious, wiry, glam or sexy… inspiring Christina knows how to reinvent herself to the delight of photographers and filmmakers.
Her BFF: Reese Witherspoon
These two appeared at the same time at the dawn of the 90s. Reese with Freeway, Christina with The Addams Family. And they have become bankable despite (or thanks to) their unique physique rather far from classic beauties. It was therefore quite logical that the two actresses become friends.
What Christina confirmed in 2009 in Liberation: “I am close to Reese. We’ve both been in this industry for a long time, and very pragmatic, with real convictions, especially feminist ones. We are not the type to make low blows like others…”
See also:
Renaud Leclercq¦