The Controversial Comedy Christina Ricci Regrets Filming

Christina Ricci has been making waves recently as part of the ensemble of the much-talked-about "Yellowjackets" on Showtime, a series that currently holds a perfect Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes. On the show, Ricci plays adult-age Misty, one of the survivors of the plane crash that led to a girls' high school soccer team being stranded for months.

Before taking on her current "Yellowjackets" role, Ricci made a name for herself with roles such as in 1991's "The Addams Family," 1999's "Sleepy Hollow," 2005's "Cursed," and 2018's "Distorted." She also had notable arcs in TV shows "Ally McBeal" and "Grey's Anatomy." And in 2014, she took on the infamous figure of Lizzie Borden, starring in "Lizzie Borden Took an Ax." She then reprised the role of Borden in the following year's "The Lizzie Borden Chronicles." Next, she'll be seen in the highly anticipated "Matrix Resurrections" when it premieres next month.

However, within her long filmography — which has been growing longer since her earliest roles in 1990 — there's one film that Ricci has some regrets over being a part of. It's certainly natural for actors to later regret taking on a specific role, but, in Ricci's case, it's a bit more complicated than viewing a past role differently in retrospect.

Just by reading the premise of writer-director Craig Brewer's black comedy-drama film, "Black Snake Moan," it's easy to see that the film was bound to have some controversy attached to it. The 2006 film follows a bluesman-turned-farmer from Mississippi named Lazarus Redd (Samuel L. Jackson), who takes in sex addict Rae Doole (Christina Ricci) as a captive in his home and tries to cure her nymphomania. With content that includes forced captivity and nymphomania — all under the genre of black comedy — it makes sense that the film may have garnered some controversy.

However, it wasn't the film's content that Ricci later took issue with — but rather the marketing. The film's poster features Ricci in scantily clad clothing with a chain, held by Jackson, around her neck. Explaining her disappointment (and initial reasoning for choosing this role), Ricci told the Irish Examiner, "The way that movie was marketed was probably one of the most disappointing and upsetting things that's ever happened to me in my career. I have no interest in exploiting women any further than they've already been exploited. The whole reason I made that movie was to say: 'Oh yeah, that girl you called a sl*t probably went through this, so you might not want to use her and throw her away or judge her.'"

Ricci concluded, "All [the marketing team] cared about was college-age boys going to see it."