Christina Ricci Talks About Robert and "Bel Ami" with The Sunday Times

Christina Ricci Talks About Robert and "Bel Ami" with The Sunday Times

With her blunt fringe, flat boots and tweed overcoat, which swamps her tiny 5ft 1in frame, Ricci certainly blends in with the local crowd. Barely a pork-pie hat nods in our direction; the hipsters appear too absorbed in their eggs, or, more likely, are too aloof, to make a fuss. It’s all a far cry from the corsets and crinolines of her latest film, Bel Ami, a raunchy costume drama set in late-19th-century Paris. Based on the 1885 French novel by Guy de Maupassant, it stars the Twilight pin-up Robert Pattinson as Georges Duroy, an ambitious, amoral former soldier and social climber who ruthlessly seduces every woman who wanders into his life. Ricci plays Clotilde de Marelle, who becomes his mistress, while his other creamy conquests include Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Holliday Grainger.“It’s fun to do stuff that’s realistic, but it’s really fun to get far away from reality, too,” she says, tucking into a bacon slab with yoghurt and blood-orange segments. She stopped short of offering her co-star, the much-hyped R-Patz, any tips about the tricky transition to adult movies.

“Oh, he doesn’t need any help from me,” she raises her eyebrows. “He is doing just fine.”

Whatever her self-image issues in the past, Ricci has never been one to shy away from nudity on screen, and Bel Ami is no exception — we see her sprawled on the bed in her birthday suit, awaiting a ravishing from R-Patz. Ricci rolls her eyes. “After we made this film, I said I didn’t think I should do any more nude scenes for a couple of years. Then, in Pam Am, I’m in my underwear in every episode!”Her new, albeit theoretical, policy has nothing to do with prudishness. “I trained my brain not to care about nudity at work,” she says. “It’s like going to the beach. You could spend the whole time obsessing, or you could just go to the beach, forget about how you look and have a good time.” She was, it seems, rather more worried about her reputation. “I felt I was becoming known as that girl who is always naked in films, and I don’t want to be known for that.”

Source => The Sunday Times / Via => @barnsie_com---Bel Ami Movie