Christina Ricci has been drawn to dark roles and morbid plotlines since she was in elementary school. After making her debut at 9 in “Mermaids,” Ricci has played the witch Katrina in “Sleepy Hollow,” a haunted teen in “Casper” and, most recently, outcast Misty Quigley in “Yellowjackets.”

“I prefer to play complicated people because happy people don’t generally do much. They’re complacent,” Ricci, 45, says. The most interesting characters, she said, “usually have to be motivated by some unhappiness or dissatisfaction.”

When she’s not acting, Ricci looks for projects to produce. She’s waiting to hear from Showtime about whether “Yellowjackets,” which is currently in its third season, will be renewed for a fourth.

Ricci lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Mark Hampton, and her two children. Here, she talks about learning to love muay thai, getting caviar delivered to her door and her love of tarot.

What time do you get up on Mondays?
I have a toddler and a 10-year-old. It depends on whether the toddler woke up in the middle of the night and we’re all still up from 4 a.m. But ideally I wake up at 7:20. That gives me 20 minutes to get my son ready for school and make his lunch and breakfast. Monday is my carpool day.

How do you take your coffee and breakfast?
I generally do not eat breakfast, and I am a person that only drinks coffee for the functionality of it. I didn’t drink coffee until I was 34 and had a baby. I usually tip some sugar in and pour enough milk in there that I don’t notice the taste. I don’t care if it’s heavy cream, half and half, skim milk, whatever. I’m super punk-rock about milk.

What’s your workout routine?
Mondays I do muay thai. I take my son to Renzo Gracie in L.A. I was sitting there watching him take a muay thai class. The instructor was this amazing woman who’s super capable and looked really strong. I thought, “I think adults do that here, too” and they did. So I just went to a class. That’s not like me. I’m very afraid of new things, but I just showed up to a 10 a.m. class and now I train privately with coach Al Lanier at Renzo Gracie.

Do you meditate or journal?
No, but I have a very busy internal monologue. I think about lots of things at the same time.

Is there anything you like to splurge on?
I splurge on nice food. I love caviar and you can get it delivered to your house here from Bristol Farms. I’ll just have a caviar night at home if I want to.

What do you wear to feel powerful?
I tend to dress like a little boy in their dad’s clothes, and that does make me feel powerful. As a woman, it’s like, try to sexualize this. Try it. It’s impossible and that makes me feel stronger.

Without giving anything away, how do you feel about the ending of this season of “Yellowjackets”?
When I read the last scene I was in, I was like, “Ohhhh. Oh, my God, oh s—, what’s gonna happen in the next season?” I’m pretty excited about seeing, if we get our pickup, what next season holds.

It’s been over 25 years since “200 Cigarettes” came out. The film has a stacked cast: Gaby Hoffmann, Paul Rudd, Ben and Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Janeane Garofalo and Courtney Love, to name a few. Were you surprised to see the movie achieve cult status?
I never have an opinion on whether people are going to love it or not. I’m focused on the work. But I will say that, like you said, the cast is so full of all these people that, at the time, in New York City, were really exciting. Some were right on the cusp of becoming iconic actors and actresses and some already were. So I’m not surprised. It’s a movie where you get to see all these young versions of really amazing actors that we know as adults.

It must’ve been a fun set.
I was named “Gaby’s Guardian,” even though I was only one year older than her. We would shoot almost all night and then have the teamsters drop us off at our favorite East Village bar to meet our boyfriends. It was really quite fun.

Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?
I believe in energy and that animals are closer to the universe than us. In my times of crisis, or in the past when I’ve been in desperate situations, I’ve literally talked to the birds outside in my garden and begged them to help me.

Do you feel like you’ve gotten answers back?
I desperately needed shifts in my life and those things happened. When we talk about this stuff I tend to be a little bit more pragmatic and use more grounded words because I don’t feel super mystical. Maybe it’s just focusing your own mind on what it is that you want, and every choice you make after that gets you closer to the thing that you need.

What led you to releasing your own tarot deck, Cat Full of Spiders?
I was reading a book once and [tarot] was described as, basically you come to the table with all of your knowledge—of your past, all your scars, your victories, your tragedies—and then you ask a question, you draw a card. That card has a certain theme or meaning. Then if you look at your question again, through the lens of that, you’re all of a sudden looking at the problem from another perspective. That can help your mind answer your question, through your own self knowledge. For me, it’s much more a tool that allows us to use our own amazing mental power.

Where did you get that name from?
Ever since I was little, I was afraid spiders were crawling inside of me. In my 20s and 30s, whenever I was super anxious, I’d say the spiders were going crazy. Later, I realized what I was saying was a metaphor. We go through our lives swallowing spiders, those spiders actually represent our experiences, tragedies, victories, scarring moments and traumas, all of that stays with you and in your body.

What’s one piece of advice you’ve gotten that’s guided you?
In my career, when things weren’t going well and I had to work on projects that I wouldn’t have chosen for myself if I didn’t have a family to support, I saw someone on television saying that the best advice for anyone was to bloom where you’re planted. I thought that was amazing, and then I tried to do it. At the time, I was on a project that I really didn’t love but I did my best, and got a SAG nomination for a Lifetime movie, which is rare.