Out Of The Shadows

Small-screen Zelda Fitzgerald Biopic Z : the Beginning of Everything Sees Christina Ricci Return to the Limelight. The Enigmatic Actress Tells Empire How She’s Survived Lifelong Fame.

- Hayley Campbell

She doesn’t mean right now, of course — not to brag, she assures us Empire is “wonderful” — but the coming weeks, as she is grilled about her new Amazon Studios show, Z: The Beginning Of Everything. She was just nine when she made Mermaids with Cher; she was Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family a year later. Although in recent years she has stepped out of the glare, generally taking supporting roles and doing fewer interviews, she’s a veteran of the game and knows just what’s coming. “You’d be shocked at the insulting things people say directly to you, and then ask you to comment on,” she says, laughing. “It’s like, ‘Fuck you!’ And I have to be polite to you still?!”

But for the first time in Ricci’s life, the project she’s here to talk about is entirely her baby, so she’s sucking it up and telling herself, “It’s going to be awesome,” like a mantra. She stars in and produced Z, a series about the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, novelist, dancer, socalite and wife of F. Scott. Zelda is currently in vogue, with both Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Lawrence set to play the flapper icon in separate biopics, but Ricci is up first. It’s not difficult to see why this particular story would speak to her: it’s a story about an extraordinarily famous yet enigmatic woman, and the challenges she faces in navigating celebrity without being torn apart by it.