There’s a bit of a Ricci-sance upon us, and Christina Ricci’s feeling pretty good about it.

She was a child star who began her career in 1990’s “Mermaids” and became a household name with the “Addams Family” franchise, “Sleepy Hollow” and other films. At 42, she’s now garnering Emmy talk for her fan-favorite role in Showtime’s hit “Yellowjackets” and embracing the confidence of “the pure person I was when I was younger,” Ricci says.

“Sometimes through your life, you diverge from who you are and try to change and adapt or try to be what you think you need to be and all these things. I definitely went on that journey and came back around and now I feel more like the person I was at 11 or 12, which is not a bad thing for me.”

In her new 1950s-set horror film “Monstrous” (in theaters and on demand Friday), Ricci plays a single mom who flees with her 7-year-old son from an abusive ex but is haunted by a spooky creature at their new lakehouse sanctuary. The actress, who appeared in last year’s “The Matrix Resurrections,” also has a role later this year in Tim Burton’s “Wednesday” series for Netflix, which stars Jenna Ortega as a teenage version of Ricci’s iconic character. “I can only say that I do not play Wednesday,” she quips.

By end of summer, she hopes to be back filming the second season of “Yellowjackets.” In the psychological survival drama told over two timelines, Samantha Hanratty plays teenage Misty Quigley, the nerdy equipment manager for a girls soccer team that crash-lands in the wilderness, and Ricci is the grown-up Misty 25 years later “born of decades of rejection and learning to gain power.”

Ricci talks with USA TODAY about her “Yellowjackets” role, working with kids and her cool vintage ride.