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Anna Faris

Anna Faris has built a career around a rare comic willingness: she will commit completely, whether a scene calls for precision, chaos, vanity or outright absurdity. Born in Baltimore on November 29, 1976, and raised in Washington state from the age of six, Faris started acting young. Her parents enrolled her in a community drama class, and at nine she made her professional stage debut in Arthur Miller’s Danger: Memory! at Seattle Repertory Theater. She later studied English literature at the University of Washington, graduating in 1999. The path to film stardom was hardly mapped out. Faris once expected to publish a novel and had a receptionist job waiting in London before deciding, at the last minute, to pursue acting in Los Angeles. Soon afterward, she landed the role that changed everything: Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie. The 2000 horror spoof gave Faris her first starring credit and became a demanding training ground for her exacting approach to props and physical comedy. She returned for three sequels, making Cindy the foundation of her early screen career. Faris proved especially good at playing characters who are ridiculous without becoming remote. Her bubbly actress in Lost in Translation, self-absorbed pop singer Samantha James in Just Friends and spectacularly wayward Jane F. in Smiley Face each let her push in a different direction. She also produced and starred in The House Bunny, played against type in the dark comedy Observe and Report, and brought her sharp timing to The Dictator. Her voice work includes Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and the Alvin and the Chipmunks films. Television gave Faris room to work on a longer emotional rhythm. Beginning in 2013, she starred as Christy, a newly sober single mother, in the CBS sitcom Mom, remaining with the series for seven seasons. Away from scripted roles, she launched the advice podcast Unqualified and later published a memoir of the same name. More recent film work has included leading Overboard, joining the ensemble of The Estate and taking a supporting role in My Spy: The Eternal City. Across formats, her appeal comes from the same place: an instinct for finding the human pulse inside comic disorder.