Christina Ricci born February 12, is an American actress, who began her acting career appearing in commercials and received early recognition as a child star. Her debut performance in Mermaids was followed by a breakthrough role as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values when she was eleven and thirteen years old, respectively. Following her success with the Addams Family films, she earned somewhat of a "teen icon" status thanks to appearances in various big budget productions, notably Now and Then and Casper , which were marketed for younger audiences, before making a successful transition into adult-oriented roles with the art house drama The Ice Storm , at the age of seventeen. Ricci continued acting in small-scale independent films such as Buffalo '66 and The Opposite of Sex , for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She made a departure from independent cinema with Tim Burton's big-budget Gothic horror Sleepy Hollow and later received praise for her performance in the drama Monster , portraying the girlfriend of a notorious female serial killer. Ricci has also acted in various television productions.