Stay humble. Anna Faris revealed the life lesson she learned after skyrocketing to fame with the release of Scary Movie.
“I had this time that I got kicked out of a bowling alley right after Scary Movie got released,” the 42-year-old actress told LinkedIn senior editor-at-large Jessi Hempel on the Monday, September 23 episode of the podcast “Hello Monday.”
“And I said the words,‘Do you know who I am?’ And I woke up the next morning and I was like, ‘I am the ugliest person.’ Like, I cannot believe that I accepted the idea that because I get to do what I love — say other people’s words and make faces for a living and sit in the luxurious trailer and get an eggwhite omelet in the morning — that I embraced the idea that somehow that makes me more worthy than anybody else,” she said.
“I just am constantly, like, I just want to check myself with those things,” the Mom star added.
Faris starred in the first four films in the Scary Movie franchise from 2000 to 2006.
The star also chatted about the inspiration behind the 2008 comedy film House Bunny. She said she felt urged to become more “proactive” about her career around the time of the writer’s strike in 2005.
“Kiwi Smith and Karen McCullah, who wrote Legally Blonde, asked me if I had any characters in mind and I said, ‘I’ve been thinking about what happens when a Playboy bunny gets too old, who boots her out and is she judged for having been a lower echelon Playboy bunny.’ And they were looking at me and nodding,” she recalled.
The writers responded with one addition to the storyline.
“And then, they called me later and were like, ‘We loved your idea, but she could become a house mom of a sorority.’ And I was like, ‘Ok, all right. Yeah. All right. But I think we pitched that movie 24 times,” she said. “On the 24th time we sold it to Happy Madison with the support of Adam Sandler and Sony. And a month and a half later, we were starting to shoot. It was incredible.”
The Overboard star also got candid about her need for approval from other people, a feeling she hopes to give more awareness.
“I want other people to know that they’re not alone,” the actress shared. “I have spent my whole life worried that somebody doesn’t like me, or that I’m a failure and I know that there’s so much comfort in the idea that most people feel that way.”
She said her podcast, “Anna Faris is Unqualified,” helps her to be more comfortable with herself and to have control over her narrative.
“I don’t know if it’s affected my acting career, but it has given me a sense of freedom. You spend a career playing characters — which I love — and doing voices and wearing costumes and then, when you do publicity, there’s that horrible uncomfortableness of, I don’t know how to sell this movie or sell this thing without feeling like a jackass,” Faris said. “Because even if you love the project, you’re in it. So it felt to me like such a relief to be able to feel like myself in a somewhat public forum. It feels like this is grounding for me in a wonderful way.”
Faris married Chris Pratt in 2009 in Bali, Indonesia. Their divorce was finalized in 2018. The couple share their son, 7-year-old Jack.
