The Talented Ms. Ricci

Hollywood veteran Christina Ricci is no stranger to edgy roles, but her latest incarnation as Jazz Age icon Zelda Fitzgerald is making her the most nervous. Here she talks to Lucy Pavia about full frontals, industry politics and keeping it real

- Lucy Pavia

If you don’t know much about 20s icon and the ‘first American flapper’ Zelda Fitzgerald, you soon will. Not only are there two Hollywood biopics about the Jazz Age writer and socialite in the pipeline (with both Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson lined up to play Zelda), but this month Christina Ricci is bringing Zelda’s turbulent life story to the small screen.

Ricci got the idea for her new series Z: The Beginning Of Everything, which she both executive produces and stars in as Zelda, after reading a biography that sheds fresh light on the woman so often referred to simply as ‘the wife of The Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald’. The book indicates that Fitzgerald may have pinched some of Zelda’s writing without credit and calls into question whether she was mentally ill or just an inconveniently outspoken woman. Ricci, who has been acting for over a quarter of a century, says she’s never felt this nervous about a project. ‘I’ve never really cared,’ she says from her home in New York, ‘but I’m so invested. This [show] means the most to me.’