Christina Ricci Recalls How Johnny Depp Explained to Her 'What Homosexuality Was' as a Child

Years before they starred together onscreen, Christina Ricci learned an important life lesson from Johnny Depp.

The actress, 42, recently opened up about discovering "what homosexuality was" from Depp, 59, over a phone call when she was 9 years old, while filming 1990's Mermaids alongside Cher and Depp's then-girlfriend Winona Ryder.

"There was something going on on set and someone was not being nice to someone else. And they were like, 'Oh, well, he might be homophobic,' " Ricci told Andy Cohen during a phone call for his SiriusXM show this week. "And then I was like, 'Well, I don't understand what that is.' "

"And I was in Winona's trailer and she was like, 'I don't know how [to explain].' So she put me on the phone with Johnny, and Johnny explained it to me," the actress recalled.

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LUCY NICHOLSON/AFP via Getty Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp in 1999

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According to Ricci, Depp explained it in "the simplest terms" and "very matter-of-factly."

"He was like, 'It's when a man wants to have sex with a man and when a woman wants to have sex with a woman.' And I was like, 'Ah, okay,' " she said.

"I love it that Winona Ryder had to put you on the phone with Johnny Depp to get that story that she couldn't spit it out in some way, or, I mean, you've got Cher in the next trailer," joked Cohen, 54.

"I know, we should've run right over there," Ricci said.

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Though Depp and Ricci first met when she was a child, they went on to star together in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Sleepy Hollow (1999) and The Man Who Cried (2000).

The latter marked Ricci's first sex scene, which she had with Depp. And as she told ABC News in 2000, "I've known Johnny so long, he's protective of me as an older brother and it's weird to think of having sex with him."

"So we know enough about each other to laugh at it. He said it was 'like we were rooting around together like pigs,' " she added.

According to Ricci, who also played Depp's love interest in Sleepy Hollow, a decision was made early in the production of The Man Who Cried "that Johnny and I would never be unclothed because in gypsy culture women are forbidden to be nude."