Christina Ricci says she almost got sued over a sex scene dispute

Christina Ricci has been in show business for 35 years and has seen many changes along the way.

“We older ladies talk about it all the time,” the actor said on The View Wednesday during a discussion of some of her younger co-stars in Yellowjackets. Ricci appeared on the talk show to promote the second season of the Showtime series, which is set to premiere later this month.

“It’s amazing to see that they don’t necessarily have to go through the things that we had to go through,” she explained. “You can say, ‘I don’t want to do this sex scene,’ ‘I’m not going to be naked.'”

Christina Ricci attends the Primetime Emmy Awards September 12 in Los Angeles.

Frazer Harrison via Getty Images

“You can set boundaries for yourself that we were never allowed to,” she said, recounting an example of a time when she tried to set such a boundary for herself but was rejected.

“Someone once threatened to sue me because I didn’t want to do that sex scene in a certain way. So it’s really changed, and it’s great to see,” Ricci said.

“Now that it’s more of a choice rather than something you’re forced to do, you can empathize with the artistry or know how important it is to the story,” she continued. “When you take someone out of control of something like that, they just don’t want to do it anymore.”

One of The View’s panelists mentioned that “experts” are now present on the sets, which appears to be indicative of the rise of intimacy coordinators involved in Hollywood productions.

In 2019, HuffPost spoke to Alicia Rodis of the New York nonprofit Intimacy Directors International. She explained the role of coordinators and how they aim to help actors navigate difficult scenes or overcome existing power dynamics.

“After Me Too, people realize that they don’t just have to go along with it. That they have a right to sovereignty over their bodies and their experiences,” Rodis said at the time. “We specifically trained ourselves to have those conversations and get the job done. So if you don’t have the language, we have the language for you.”