Anna Faris Looks Back on Scary Movie, Her Breakthrough Role
Anna Faris has opened up about the anxiety she experienced while filming the original Scary Movie movies, revealing that she often kept a low profile, hoping to go unnoticed as she feared losing her role.
“I remember being so scared that I was going to get fired because I had no body of work behind me. I didn’t even have an agent,” the 49-year-old actress and comedian told PEOPLE.
Scary Movie, released in 2000, marked Anna Faris’s first major film role, and she recalls being “so quiet and so intimidated” during the first two films, often staying on the sidelines rather than connecting with her castmates.
Things began to change with the third instalment in 2003.
“For me, it felt like I got to pay more attention. I did get to involve myself more. I did feel comfortable making small talk and having banter and doing what normal people do as opposed to just hiding in the corner, hoping that no one will notice me,” she says.
More than two decades later, Faris returns as Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie 6, and the experience feels entirely different.
When she received the call, she was “shocked and immediately thrilled.”
“I couldn’t believe that there was a world where I would be feeling so good about doing Scary Movie, not just good, but great,” she says.
The reunion has also given her a chance to finally express gratitude to the Wayans brothers, who took a chance on her early in her career. Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Keenen Ivory Wayans wrote, created, and produced the original films.
“It’s a little healing in the sense that we got to be back together again. That is, for me, a personal celebration because I got to thank them. I’d never thanked them properly,” she says.
“It felt like the Wayans brothers were casting me. This time, I got to thank them and feel like I wasn’t gonna get fired.”
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