Christina Ricci Reveals Her Near Legal Dispute Over Declining a Sex Scene
Christina Ricci has been in the entertainment industry for long enough to establish her comfort level when it comes to filming sex scenes. The actor spoke candidly about how she doesn’t particularly enjoy them. This preference once could have landed her in legal trouble. The Yellowjackets star explained that while working on a project, she refused to film a sex scene. The boundary nearly got her sued.
Christina Ricci said she was threatened with a lawsuit when she refused to film a sex scene
In an appearance on The View, Ricci spoke about how film and television sets have changed over the years. Actors can state firm boundaries and have them respected by the crew and their co-stars. This wasn’t always possible in the near past.
“It’s really great,” she said, per Variety. “Us older ladies talk about it all the time. It’s amazing to see that they don’t necessarily have to go through the things we had to go through. They’re able to say, ‘I don’t want to do this sex scene,’ ‘I’m not going to be naked.’ They can set boundaries for themselves that we were never allowed to do.”
She explained that it was not always this way. While working on an unnamed project, she nearly got sued for setting a boundary with a sex scene.
“Someone threatened to sue me once because I didn’t want to do this sex scene in a certain way,” she said. “It’s really changed and it’s great to see.”
She previously mentioned the situation in Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series with Sydney Sweeney.
“That would never happen now,” she said. “I didn’t do it anyway. And they didn’t sue me.”
Christina Ricci said she does not particularly enjoy filming sex scenes
Part of Ricci’s problem with sex scenes is the level of discomfort from everyone else on set.
“The thing that made me more uncomfortable was other people being uncomfortable with me being naked,” she told Sweeney. “So what I did, and you probably wouldn’t be allowed to do this now — I just stayed naked. I was like, ‘Don’t make me feel weird, like I’m the person who has to be ashamed.'”
She added that she hasn’t done a sex scene in several years, which has been a relief. She has never particularly enjoyed them.
“I haven’t done a sex scene in a couple years,” she said, adding, “I’m at that age where they don’t ask you to do them so much anymore. I mean, I don’t really enjoy them.”
The actor is raising her son to be a feminist
Given Ricci’s advocacy for women on set, it makes sense that she wants to raise her young son as a feminist.
“My husband, Mark, is, I hate to say it because it sounds really obnoxious, a feminist,” she told The Guardian. “And Freddie is going to see that, and see his working mother. I think he’ll see women in a much more layered, complicated way, just by having grown up watching his mom do all this stuff.”
Having children of her own has also introduced her to another thing she wants to avoid on set.
“I would never be able to play someone who is mean to a child,” she said, adding, “I can’t even read it if it’s in scripts. I have a lot less ability to handle extreme misery.”
