Christina Ricci was born on February 12th, 1980 in Santa Monica, California (USA), as the fourth child of Ralph and Sarah Ricci. Her sibs are Dante, Pia and Rafael. After being discovered by a talent scout during a school play (The Twelve Days of Christmas), she got involved in the movie biz early. article continued below.....

• Cursed (2004) .... Ellie Hudson
• Monster (2003) .... Selby
• I Love Your Work (2003) .... Shana
• Anything Else (2003) .... Amanda
• Gathering, The (2002)

She did several commercials starting at the age of six, until she finally got her first movie role in Richard Benjamin's Mermaids (1990), co-starring with Cher and Winona Ryder. The friendship that developed between Christina and Cher still lasts, since she often visits Cher in her New York appartement.

She spent most of her childhood days with her dad, a psychiatrist, in Montclair, New Jersey. Her life wasn't easy as it seems, since she thinks of her family as disfunctional and crazy, and arguments were commonplace. When her father and her mother, a former fashion model who now works in the real estate business, finally seperated in 1993, she stayed with her mom who took custody of the kids.

The summer after she turned 15, the family then moved to Manhattan where Christina attended a private school. She now lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend when she's not shooting a movie. Apparently, she became estranged to her father, who now lives in California. Of course, the divorce did leave its traces in Christina's mind, and she was diagnosed anorexic most likely due to emotional overload.

She started therapy, and she still seeks this kind of advice which seems perfectly normal to her being an actress. She admitted that there were days when school wasn't easy for her, too.

When her acting career started and she was a student at Edgemont Elementary School, she took it all a little too serious, she admitted, and that of course raised the envy of the other students. However, Christina's attitude towards being famous changed quickly, but some guys kept calling her "Wednesday," and that is what really pissed her off. But as it seems, she had no more problems regarding that after moving to New York, and she recently graduated from High School.

Although she wanted to join a writing programme of Columbia University, she changed her mind and decided not to attend. Being way beyond her age, she always hated to be treated like a child. She's now happy that she finally is no longer cast only for "kiddy movies", but for adult roles instead which she always wanted to play.

However, her role in Casper earned her the National Association of Theater Owners ShowEast Star of Tomorrow and Star of the Year awards, which seems impressive since she admits not having invested anything into her earlier roles.

The latest development is a major step in her career and adds a more wide variety of characters to her repertoire, as she now is playing roles where she really enjoys investing all her acting skills and talent. Taking a look at her recent movie projects, one can clearly see that she's just about to start an amazing career as an adult actress with a very bright and promising future.

• Her parents divorced after she filmed Addams Family Values (1993). She has not spoken with her father since.
• Is on the national board of VOX-Voices for Planned Parenthood, which works to promote the mission of Planned Parenthood to young adults. She will also be appearing in national ads for Emergency Contraception.
• Had to turn down the role of Ronna in Go (1999) because of a scheduling conflict. conflicts.
• Her father, before becoming a lawyer, was a psychiatrist who specialized in shrieking therapy. While growing up, Christina could hear the therapies through the vents in her room, and would act them out in front her mother.
• On December 4 1999, she appeared on "Saturday Night Live" as the guest host. During one of her skits, she accidentally punched actress Ana Gasteyer in the face. The skit was a parody of the "Sally" show, in which she played a 13-year-old runaway who sleeps with dogs, and required her to fake-punch Sally (Gasteyer), but accidentally hit her for real. While she initially reacted by putting her hands over her mouth in surprise, she maintained her professionalism and quickly fell back into character.
• Drives a Porsche Boxster.
• Was originally slated to play the lead in _Ghost World (2001)_ , but by the time it was filmed she was too old for the part and had moved on to other projects. Thora Birch took over the role.
• Co-hosted a 10 volume educational video series entitled "Bug City" in 1998.
• Tiny at just over five feet, Ricci stopped growing when she was ten years old.
• Nicknamed Squant by her siblings because of a childhood fascination with the Native American hero Squanto, who helped the first European settlers in America.
• She was the fourth child of Ralph and Sarah Ricci. Her siblings are Dante, Pia and Rafael.
• Her best friend is actress Gaby Hoffmann.
• First nude scene was in the movie Prozac Nation (2001) in which she requested a closed set and had co-star Michelle Williams present to ensure that she did everything properly.
• Auditioned for the role of Young Amy in Little Women (1994) and Claudia in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994). Both roles went to Kirsten Dunst instead.
• Never formally studied acting.
• Was personally thanked by Monster co-star Charlize Theron at the 2004 Academy Awards.
• Presented "Best Kiss" with Ashton Kutcher at the 2001 MTV Movie Awards.
• Presented an award at The 71st Annual Academy Awards on March 21, 1999.
• Wore braces when she was younger.
• Underground Hip-Hop heroes Slug (of the group Atmosphere) and MURS have released a collaborative album entitled "Felt: A Tribute to Christina Ricci".
• Has an album by Slug/Murs named after her. "The Christina Ricci EP," and is commonly referenced to in the lyrics and verses of rapper Sean "Slug" Daley of the group Atmosphere.
• Audtitioned for the role of Ellie Creed in the film "Pet Sematary" (1989), but lost the part to Blaze Berdahl.
• Hosted "Saturday Night Live" (1975) on 4 December 1999. She parodied Britney Spears and the Olsen twins.
• Is of Italian descent.

• "I can be young and cute when I want to be, and I can be really mature when I want to be. It's kind of weird, like I'm the incredible changing girl,which is good because I can relate to ADULTS and to people my age."
• "My first kiss was with the most chivalrous little boy I ever met in my life. It was in kindergarten. There was this kid who was really a jerk, and he wouldn't let me on the school bus. He was about to hit me when this little boy named Nicky shoved me down, stood up and took the blow. So Nicky instantly became the kindergarten stud. The day he got hit for me, I lined up all the little girls, and everyone kissed him. That was my first kiss, too. It was my way of thanking him."
• "There are two sides of me, One is the professional side. When I'm working, I'm not a kid - and can't be. Otherwise no one would take me seriously. When I'm not working, I think I'm a normal 15-year-old."
• "When I do interviews they seem to supplement things into the piece that I never said. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just so far from where you are.It's totally other people's perceptions."
• "Too much attention for anyone is a little strange, but in high school all you wanna do is look at the floor and keep walking, and it's a little hard when people are shouting across the cafeteria, "Wednesday! Wednesday!"
• "I'd love to work with Tarantino, but that is such an annoying thing to say. I see people that I hate going "Yeah, Pulp Fiction."
• "When I was little, I didn't want to hear anything about the movie business being bad and now I've seen, like, someone jumping on someone, and it's sort of weird. I know it's growing up, but still it's kind of annoying."
• "People just assume that because you're a teenager you're going to do certain things. But I think if people listen to us, we've got some pretty good things to say."
• "When I was a kid, I thought everything was perfect. I trusted everybody. I thought everybody was just doing something good for me. But you can't be ignorant like that, especially being in the movie business, because there are so many manipulative people. I think that manipulation is one of the things that make teenagers act out and be upset about stuff: they realize what's up with their surroundings. They realize the bad things, where as before, maybe everything seemed perfect."
• "I think when I came off of Mermaids, I was like a very obnoxious child. I mean, I didn't think I was better than people, but I just thought, Oh, well, everybody knows who I am now. I didn't really deal with it very well, especially with my peers."
• "Why should a kid be stuck in a home that's abusive? Why should people have the right to abuse their kids? I think it's great that kids can divorce their parents--I mean, not if they just ground you. But why not if they're beating you, and it's a really bad situation, even if it's just mental abuse?"
• "I spend a lot of time with my mother. When I'm doing movies, she's always with me. We spend days being bored in an apartment together waiting for someone to call and say I'm needed for a shot. Because we're together so much, we have to get along. We have to find ways to get to know each other. We've gone through a lot of stuff, you know, and I think we're pretty close."
• "A lot of people who use drugs are messed up like that. As much as they say it's just for fun and stuff, I think they're doing Sometimes, there's no other way out. I mean there are other ways out, but they're not made available to some kids."
• "In order to do the kind of films I want to do, the smaller, more artistic ones, then I need to make a name for myself in the business. Hopefully, this movie [Casper] will help me to establish that kind of clout."
• "I know how to talk to my friends parents sometimes and get my friends out of trouble. If I have to, I know how to reason with adults."
• "I am a teenager, I'm still going through my awkward stage and sometimes I just want everyone to leave me alone"
• "I think people are constantly playing roles. We're doing what other people want us to do. In 7th grade I had this group of friends and I was trying so hard to understand how much I counted to them and in the end I realized they weren't actually good friends after all."
• "I hate Math"
• "You have to excuse me because I am a teenager, so I'm allowed to sound illiterate and make really stupid statements."
• If I hadn't gone into acting, I would have been one of those wierd runaways on Hollywood Boulevard. No, It'd be uglier. I'd probably be dead."
• "If people don't think that their teenagers are having sex then they've really got their heads in the clouds. I mean, it would be different if I was having sex with knives or being raped in every movie I did; then maybe I'd be a little bit concerned. [My characters] seem kind of realistic about me."
• "I'm very shy. I can't even act that well when the camera's not on. I get really embarassed."
• "I got this big kid to throw me into a bookshelf, because I love confrontation and causing trouble"
• I don't have any training, and I don't believe in training. of corse, people who don't have any training always say that."
• "It would be awsome. I'd be like, 'Hit me, hit me please, no I'm serious, hit me.' Then once they leave evidence, I'd just pull out my gun and shoot them in the knee and claim self-defence."
• "People are saying that I'm like this gothic, dark, wierd girl. I'm actually really really really normal."
• "Here comes the stop sign. We're stopin' at the stop sign."
• "There's still a part of me that feels I'll never succeed because I'm never gonna be thin enough."
• "Gaby sometimes thinks I'm out of control because she doesn't really want to be out late or doesn't like the people we're with."
• "Me and Casey just tried to beat the shit out of each other. Bruises all over my body; it was fun"
• "I was doing a sex scene with this guy once, and he got up in the middle of it and said, 'Can I take a shower after this?' It was sort of offensive and embarassing. I found out later he just meant a cold shower, but at the time I didn't know."
• "I eat whatever I want whenever I want."
• I wanted people to take care of me. I loved it when I got skinny enough to buy stuff in the childrens section.
• I'm not, like, this crazy angry person, I'm-boring.