Q: Working with James?

CR: James is great. He’s amazing. He’s such a good actor and very dedicated. When you work with a really great actor you sort of have this feeling of being like partners in crime, and he certainly gave that sense of trust and teammateness. Yes, it’s so funny. We block all those things immediately. I don’t think anyone realizes it. I can’t remember a sex scene. I can’t remember making out with any specific people. It’s all just hitting your mark, not blocking the other person’s light, that kind of stuff.

Q: Can you talk about working with Catherine?

CR: It was great. I really love her. I’ve always been a huge fan of hers and she was always everybody’s first choice in this movie. And she’s just hysterical. And finally one day, Simon and I got up the courage to sort of gush and tell her everything we loved about her. And she is such a lovely person so she was just very gracious about it. And then I asked her, how do you do your drunk? Because your drunk is the best drunk I’ve ever seen, like in Waiting for Guffman. I saw that movie 4 times in the theater, and that opening scene in the Chinese restaurant, it’s a wide shot. It’s all four of them, but you are like, in one second, immediately it cuts to it. And you are like, what’s wrong with Catherine O’Hara? And then you realize she’s drunk. But even from far away, she just gives off like, she’s not doing anything! And you can tell! It’s just sort of a quality and she just encouraged us to be more spontaneous and not worry about getting yelled at if we ad-lib or make something up. And she taught us how she had put her own drunk together and how we needed to do the same. I was like, alright, it’s cool.

Q: Reese Witherspoon as producer?

CR: She was very hands-on. She was there all the time because it was in the middle of awards seasons and it’s when she won her Academy Award and everything. So she was not there the whole time, but she was very involved. She saw dailies every day and she sent notes to set and all that stuff. And then when she came we had a good time. We were just running around the streets of London doing stupid things.

Q: Favorite stories?

CR: It was pretty funny at one point. We were on the process trailer on the Vespa and she’s riding through London and she’s just won the Academy Award and everyone is just like screaming at her, yelling, that’s Reese Witherspoon! And I was like, yeah, two days ago, you were in a gown accepting the Academy Award. And now you are freezing cold in a ridiculous looking motorcycle helmet on a Vespa in the middle of London looking as twee as possible, both of us.

Collider: I wanted to switch to another subject and just ask you what your experiences were like in Berlin.

Christina Ricci: Really good.  We had—I always say we because the cast was together all the time and you know it was very ensemble but I had the most…I had a great time making that movie.  I love those directors so much.  They’re just amazing.  And the cast was great and everything we got to do was so much fun, you know.  I think we were like little action figures.

Collider: What was your reaction to seeing the trailer for the first time and was that your first time seeing footage?

Christina Ricci: No, at the end of the film the Wachowski’s had like a little…not a gift really…but a little moral booster for everybody, they edited together 15 minutes with some scenes that had shot—scenes that had been completed with effects and some without effects but just so that we could really get a feeling of the movie and we were just—I was just so excited.  I couldn’t really express my excitement properly so I just pogoed Andy and it’s just like nothing I’ve seen before and it’s so much fun and exciting and the car chase stuff is just like crazy and sort of like on the edge of your seat stuff but then there’s a story to it that’s really touching and really moving.  There were boys crying after 15 minutes.  I had to tell you if I had a heart…

Collider: What was the most surprising thing about working with the Wachowski Brothers?

Christina Ricci: Surprising?  I guess I’m just at a point where I don’t go into situations with any preconceptions because I’ve been in so many different situations.  Like they told me Woody Allen would never speak to me and I walked on-set and he was like why aren’t you talking to me?  So, at this point I don’t really put any expectations on things but I have gotten to know them as wonderful human beings and as people who really sort of care about our world and are very…they’re just lovely and smart and kind and like true.  Truly great, real people.  And there were so many nights that were just sort of fun in Berlin and they’ve definitely created a family for themselves with the people they work with all the time, the same crew.  And you understand that they do that because they’re really caring, great guys.

Q: How do you prepare for a role like this?

CR: I think to play somebody really well you should fully understand them, who they are, and what’s happening to them. And I think, really for me, it was this idea that your insecurities being blown so far out of proportion that you might as well have a deformity. Because there is a certain age when that happens, then you won’t leave the house because you have a pimple, but it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in your life. Or you get a bad haircut and it’s so blown out of proportion that you really have emotionally turned it into something that you hate about yourself. So I kind of took that and I just sort of used that, her situation as a metaphor, and you kind of slip in how you felt then. And really, this movie for me, it’s all about people and their insecurities stand in the way of them having a wonderful, fulfilled life.

Q: A situation in your life you could relate to this?

CR: No, just generally the idea of you choose to be happy. The whole idea of what the kids says, it’s not the curse, it’s the power you give the curse. It’s sort of like, if you choose to be criticized and to feel that criticism and to then carry it with you, then you are going to be miserably unhappy and insecure. But if you choose to lose that self-consciousness and the importance you place on the physical appearance, then you’ll actually get to be present in the situations and see the world and enjoy yourself.