The 27-year-old - who found fame as a child star inMermaids and The Addams Family - wowed the film-makers with her emotional try-out for the movie's sex-addicted Southern spitfire.

She gushed: "He's a really sweet guy. When I got the part, me and my sister were like, 'Do you think Justin will teach us how to pop and lock? I really want him to.'"

And even though Timberlake's main movie CV consisted of four years dating A-lister Cameron Diaz and a part in Alpha Dog, Ricci insists he was a natural actor.

"I couldn't cry on camera for a long time. It's like his second movie and he does it perfectly. It didn't feel like I was working with a novice." The two became firm friends as they filmed Black Snake Moan in Justin's hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

And, while the co-stars didn't become romantically involved, their friendship caused Ricci to question her three-year relationship with actor/director Adam Goldberg.

But within weeks Ricci was back with Goldberg - who starred in Saving Private Ryan, was Chandler's obsessed flatmate in Friends and can be seen in upcoming movie Zodiac.

Since breaking into movies at age nine playing Cher's daughter in Mermaids, she has been an oddball favourite, playing everything from the gothic Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family to Charlize Theron's lover in Monster.

Yet nothing Ricci does is likely to be as provocative or controversial as the self-destructive, sex-addicted woman she plays in Black Snake Moan.

Ricci played sexy characters before in films The Opposite of Sex and Buffalo 66 - but she claims back than she was "just a kid playing dress-up."

"Her body has only meant pain for her. I really had to have no vanity. I had to say, 'I will leave my body-image problems and self-consciousness at the door.'"

Her weight plummeted to a tiny six stones - but Ricci refuses to blame acting and movies for her weight obsession, adding: "I was 12 or 13. I was in puberty. It was a horrible time."

But despite the success and acclaim she enjoyed as a child star, in her adult years she has only been able to watch as other actresses rose from nowhere to go on to greater stardom.

But the striking actress - whose huge, doe-like brown eyes and heart-shaped face are accented by a broad forehead - moaned: "There is little I could do to change my appearance. My forehead is so big.

Watching one of her favourite trash TV shows recently, she was fascinated when a surgeon operated on a woman to bring down her hairline - she even asked Adam if she should consider it. She said: "He was like, 'Stop. You're not even allowed to discuss that.'"

However, her long-suffering financial advisers may be considering changing the locks on her bank account - because the star 's biggest passion in life is fashion.

She said: "I was told by my business manager that I have to stop buying clothes. I'm not allowed to buy any more fur, no more jewellery. I spent a lot of money."

She has walk in cupboards of clothes and accessories - to the point that in her last home she took the books from the shelves in her study and replaced them with her shoes, conceding: "Well, I have more shoes than books."

She said: "At first I was so embarrassed I didn't want anybody to come over. Then I was like, 'I'm obviously not an idiot.' So I painted it bright pink."

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