Celebrity
Three decades into theYellowjacketsstars career, Hollywood finally got hip to Riccis brand of off-kilter heroines.
When she doesnt book the part, its because shes too specific.
It wasnt always this way.
While female actors often fear growing older in the traditionally ageist film industry, Ricci longed for it.
Women of a certain age are allowed to be frightening.
They’re allowed to not have to always be focused on being appealing to men and audiences.
EnterYellowjackets frighteningly unappealingMisty Quigley.
And how could they resist?
Or as Twitter put it:The Christina Riccissance is alive and real.
Ricci as Misty inYellowjackets(L); as the titular character inPenelope(R).
In the murderous golden retriever Misty, Ricci has found a worthy vessel to channel her own latent rage.
While Mistys anger is born out of her inability to fit in (She’s not cool.
She’s not pretty.
It was really hard, Ricci says of her attempt to transition from teen roles to leading ladies.
I was pressured, and I put pressure on myself starting in the year 2000 to be more traditional.
Yet rom-coms likeThe Sweetest ThingandShallow Halwere the antithesis of the morose indies Ricci found herself booking.
The message was I had to be in some sort of romantic comedy.
I had to be in comedy.
I had to figure out how to succeed by being more like my peers, I guess.
But it didn’t work.
I actually think it was a detriment to my career.
I started thinking, Why am I trying to make myself round when I’m clearly square?
I started to lean in and embrace the kind of actress I am.
Yellowjackets,Ricci notes, is the first example of that effort.
But Ricci shrugs off any mention of her newfound success.
At 41, she knows her specificity is an asset its Hollywood thats finally hip to it.
It can’t really hurt that much, she says now of that too-common piece of audition feedback.
Art has a lot to do with who you are inside, so I can’t change that much.
This article was originally published onJan.
