Samuel L. Jackson and former child star Christina Ricci once starred in the 2006 small feature Black Snake Moan. But getting the role wasn’t easy for Ricci, who planned on leaving the industry altogether if it wasn’t hers.
Christina Ricci told her therapist she’d quit acting if she wasn’t hired for Samuel L. Jackson’s ‘Black Snake Moan’
Jackson and Ricci once teamed up for the 2006 film Black Snake Moan. Ricci played a troubled character in the film who Jackson ends up imprisoning in an attempt to help her. After first hearing about the project, Ricci was determined to star in the movie. So much so she confided that her acting career depended on being hired.
“I just felt really passionate about the subject matter and the issues. If ever there was a role that could point out the reason I’m an actress it was this one. I even told my therapist, if I didn’t get the part, I was going to quit because I would have no idea what it was that people in this industry wanted from me,” she once told Total Film.
But in the beginning, it seemed unlikely that she’d be hired. Because of her looks, she wasn’t even considered for an audition.
“I think they just didn’t feel I looked, well, Middle America enough. She’s described as having freckles and blond hair and I’m seen as having a very distinctive look – even though I think I look like every other Irish-Italian girl that you see but… whatever,” she said.
How Christina Ricci ended up starring in ‘Black Snake Moan’
A chance encounter with one of the film’s producers turned things around in Ricci’s favor. The producer told Black Snake Moan director Craig Brewer that she might have had the look they were going for after all. The Addams Family alum was eventually asked to audition, but the audition didn’t go as planned.
“Well, what happened – and this happens a lot when you audition – is you may focus on one emotion. I made the assumption that what they would want to see is someone actually having a nervous breakdown, so I focused on the emotion and pain of the character. And their response was, ‘Well, she wasn’t really that sexual’. I couldn’t believe it,” Ricci recalled.
Ricci and her agent’s solution was sending the director her past magazine photoshoots of her looking ‘sexual.’
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“They do that. They keep reams of photographs so if someone says, ‘We need to see more innocence!’ they’ll send over pictures of me looking innocent or ‘interesting’ or whatever they’re looking for,” she said.
The tactic must have worked, as Ricci would end up snagging one of her most critically praised roles.
How Samuel L. Jackson reacted to Christina Ricci being almost naked every day on ‘Black Snake Moan’
Ricci wanted to do what she could to get into the mindset and skin of her Black Snake Moan character. Part of how she accomplished this was walking around the film set as much as possible wearing very little. This helped Ricci feel more comfortable showing her body than ever before.
“Her body has never done anything but cause harm and she has no regard for herself so she wouldn’t care if she were clothed or not. And as an actress, when you’re playing someone like that, I think it’s inappropriate for you to have any kind of vanity,” she once told Collider.
But it was equally important for the cast and crew surrounding Ricci to get used to seeing her in that way as well.
“I stayed the way I would be for the scene all the time in order to get the crew really used to seeing me that way so that I was comfortable — not only was I comfortable but I would look at anybody’s face and not see them uncomfortable — because if someone else is uncomfortable, it makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong,” she said.
For Jackson in particular, it took no time at all for him to grow accustomed to Ricci’s method acting.
“Well you know after about I guess an hour of looking at Christina in those little panties and that shirt you kind of get over it because that’s what she had on every day. And she didn’t put on a robe between shots and hide herself. She just kind of hung out, so you get over it pretty quickly,” he said in a separate Collider interview.
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