"I've been crying all morning," says Christina Ricci, approximately three minutes after entering the Gothic garden patio of Hollywood's Chateau Marmont. She's already introduced herself with a barrage of courtesies — an apology for arriving late, although she's on time; a promise to extinguish her cigarette should the smoke irritate; and an offer to have lunch inside because of the heat. But as hard as this 26-year-old bundle of nerves and niceties tries to put others at ease, it quickly becomes clear that it would be well-nigh impossible to return the favor.

Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan.

"My dog is in the hospital," she explains, removing her sunglasses to reveal the world's biggest, dewiest hazel eyes. "I bought pastels, like Cray-Pas. Sunday night, the Sheriff [her miniature pinscher] just starts throwing up purple and pink and blue. He dehydrated his kidneys so quickly that it triggered a dormant bacterial infection. I think he's going to be okay, but Adam [her boyfriend, actor Adam Goldberg] and I had a dog that within five hours of getting sick was dead in New York. I have his name tattooed on my leg."

To make matters worse, now she has to talk about being chained half-naked to a radiator throughout much of Black Snake Moan, writer-director Craig Brewer's follow-up to his pimps-and-hos hit Hustle & Flow.

"No, it's fine," she says. "I'm much better in a vulnerable state, because when I have my defenses up, I'm kind of an asshole." She doesn't bother to undercut this harsh self-assessment with a laugh.

The Sheriff will recover, and his owner will inevitably find something else to worry about. Perhaps this: "I tend to lose feeling in my arms when I have anxiety attacks. That's apparently good old-fashioned hysteria," says Ricci, who has been in therapy since age ten. "Of course, only I would have Victorian-age traditional hysteria."

• Ricci Photos • Black Snake Moan review

The actress who captured the public imagination as Wednesday in 1991's The Addams Family has steadfastly grappled with life's dark side on the screen. But she's never played a more anxiety-ridden trauma case than Rae in Black Snake Moan, due for release in February. After her equally troubled boyfriend heads for Iraq, Rae relives the molestation she suffered as a child by embarking on a sex rampage that ends in a near-fatal beating. Samuel L. Jackson costars as Lazarus, a farmer and blues musician who discovers her brutalized, panty-clad body on the side of the road and tries to cure her physically and spiritually by placing her under a crude form of house arrest. "I looked up nymphomania and found that most psychoanalysts worth their salt will say that it's an overused term," says Ricci. "In her case, she needed to abuse herself again to alleviate her anxieties by having sex with men she didn't care about, essentially raping herself again."

Ricci fought hard for the role, projecting pure anxiety during her audition but raising doubts as to whether she could also tap into Rae's carnal side. "So my agent started inundating Craig Brewer with photo shoots I had done that are pure sex shots," she says, laughing.