Some time ago, Christina Ricci read Therese Anne Fowler’s book about Zelda Fitzgerald, called her agent and asked who owned the rights for it so she could audition. It turned out nobody was making it, so Ricci decided to do it herself. And she did. The TV series she produces and stars in, Z: The Beginning of Everything, starts this week, its title coming from a remark made by her husband, the writer F Scott Fitzgerald: “I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything.”

Perched neatly on a huge sofa that emphasises her tiny frame, Ricci seems both childlike and worldly. The eyes, cartoonishly big, seem to transmit every thought that flashes behind them, so when she smiles it feels dazzling, although being on the receiving end of one of her withering looks (in response to questions about her childhood) can be unnerving.

“I realised that so much of what I thought about Zelda was incorrect and actually incredibly defamatory,” she says. “And then to discover that no one’s ever done anything that was really about her seemed so strange because, as an actress, you’re constantly searching for great parts.”

Others have woken up to the dramatic potential of Zelda’s story, but she has always been overshadowed by the genius of her husband. Zelda was a writer herself: although not in his league, she was essential to him – their love was passionate and inspired his work, while their marriage was famed for its hedonism, its drinking and wild parties. Zelda – diagnosed with schizophrenia, now thought to be bipolar disorder – died in a fire at a sanatorium when she was 47. Her husband had died eight years earlier of a heart attack.

Ricci’s Zelda is spirited and beautiful, her sights set on bigger things than her small world in her hometown of Montgomery in Alabama. There will be more Zeldas soon – two films are being made and several books were recently published. Why is Zelda having a moment? Instead of dismissing her as an alcoholic, argues Ricci, and buying the Hemingway version that she ruined her husband, “we finally understand her behaviour for what it was. I like that her biggest flaw was just being so genuinely herself. She was very impulsive, very much in her own head. And she was so talented.”

Ricci may be just 36, but she has been in the film industry for nearly three decades. She was scouted by a woman in the audience of her school’s Christmas play – a festive pageant Ricci remembers primarily for needing the loo while she was on stage so badly she started shaking. She did a few TV commercials, then got film roles: after her debut in Mermaids, with Cher and Winona Ryder, came The Addams Family. “I liked being at work and I liked being valued – feeling like I had my own identity and that I was good at something.”

I had read in an early interview that she was the family breadwinner: she was the youngest of four, her parents divorcing shortly after her career started, and she cut off contact with her father, a psychotherapist. But she says that wasn’t quite true. Most of her money went into a trust. “I did help my family quite a bit, but I think that it would be horrifying to call a 10-year-old a breadwinner.” Did she feel under pressure? “No, it was a relief and I couldn’t have been more grateful. It felt like God reached down and saved us. So it wasn’t pressure, I was thrilled.” She didn’t feel she had to keep working? “I wanted to keep working, because all of a sudden my brother could go to college.”



In the 1990s, Ricci’s life seemed to be taking a familiar turn – that of child star careening off the rails. She said stuff about death and incest that seemed incendiary but now just looks like teenage obnoxiousness. There were also periods of self-harm and an eating disorder. Her largely indie film roles added to the dark reputation: Ricci’s mix of extreme youth and worldliness made her perfect for a string of unruly teens and vulnerable women in The Ice Storm, Buffalo 66, The Opposite of Sex and Prozac Nation.



How did that public image fit with her private self? “At that age, I had no idea who I was, so for people to be deciding who I was was very strange.” When she read things about herself, particularly articles criticising her weight or appearance, she felt “very angry. I just thought it was disgusting to be printing these things about a 17-year-old, 16-year-old, 15-year-old. I felt very criticised and analysed. The only thing I can think of was like somebody just twisting in the wind. Being a teenager and being that public, then having to answer questions about other people’s opinions of you, was incredibly uncomfortable.”

How did she cope? “By saying really crazy things. It was like cornering an animal and waiting to see if they attack, that’s how it felt.” It has made her wary which may be why, when I ask about what impact the Trump presidency will have on women who are survivors of sexual assault, she refuses to talk about it (Ricci is a spokesperson for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network). Still, she does feel “incredibly blessed” to have the career she has. “But it’s not something I would choose for anybody else. I wouldn’t let my son do anything public until he’s an adult.”

Ricci has never had the fear some women have of roles drying up once they hit their mid-30s. “No, I thought I would do better as I got older. In my 20s, I wasn’t really considered a romantic lead, but I was also not character-actressy enough. It was a weird position. I was so young-looking. They still don’t like to cast me in anything where I have to be a professional. They’re like, ‘It’s not believable.’ I’ve been waiting to get older so I could get parts.”

But, she says, her kind of mid-budget independent dramas aren’t made as much now – or, rather, they are but for television. She was praised for her role as Charlize Theron’s girlfriend in Monster, but her more recent films have been less memorable (Speed Racer, Bel Ami, Mothers and Daughters). The TV shows she has starred in – Grey’s Anatomy, Pan Am, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles – fared better. Was she not being offered good or interesting film roles? “I’ve never just been offered good or interesting things,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve always had to go after things and, in this case, create my own work.”

‘He’s not that creepy’ … with Vincent Gallo in Buffalo 66. Photograph: Cinepix Film/REX/Shutterstock

She has seen how women’s position in the industry has got better. In 1998’s Buffalo 66, Ricci played a teenager who falls in love with her kidnapper, played by Vincent Gallo. She has said that Gallo, who was also directing, insisted Ricci’s mother – who would chaperone her – stay away, and that he regularly screamed at her during the shoot. Would a film like that get made now, a very young woman working largely alone with someone who is notoriously creepy? “Just because he’s bad at hiding it,” she says, “doesn’t mean other people aren’t really good at hiding it. Everybody’s creepy. He just happens to be really loud about it. And he’s not even that creepy. He’s just kind of a jerk, but he’s not lascivious.”

Today, I say, there’s so much more awareness of the imbalance between powerful men in the industry and young women. “Awareness but …” Her voice trails off. “We’re aware but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t go on. That’s the thing. It’s getting better, for sure, but I actually think I’m one of the few people who has never had a casting couch experience.”

She fixes me with those eyes again. “All of these things – it’s almost like I had this very naive, protected life in Hollywood because I was always the child.”