While Malachi Pearson (also known for playing Flounder in Disney’s The Little Mermaid) provided the voice of the friendly ghost, his human form was portrayed by Devon Sawa, whose chemistry with Ricci earned him the part according to a Twitter exchange between the actor and director Brad Silberling on the day of the film’s 25th anniversary.
In a later tweet, Sawa mentioned how Ricci would recommend him to play her love interest in the coming-of-age drama Now and Then, adding that he “owe[s] her the world.”
While The Addams Family was Christina Ricci’s first comic book movie, the most successful would be the 1995 Harvey Comics adaptation Casper, in which a 15-year-old Ricci plays Kat, whose paranormal researcher father (Bill Pullman) encounters the titular spirit and his uncles in an infamous haunted mansion.