Anna Kay Faris (/ˈfærɪs/; born November 29, 1976) is an American actress. She rose to prominence for her work in comedic roles, particularly the lead part of Cindy Campbell in the Scary Movie film series (2000–2006). She has appeared in a number of films, including The Hot Chick (2002), May (2002), Lost in Translation (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Just Friends (2005), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Smiley Face (2007), The House Bunny (2008), What's Your Number? (2011), The Dictator (2012), and Overboard (2018).
On television, Faris had a recurring role as Erica in the final season of the NBC sitcom Friends (2004) and starred as Christy Plunkett in the CBS sitcom Mom (2013–2020). She has also had voice-over roles in the film series Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009–2013) and Alvin and the Chipmunks (2009–2015), as well as The Emoji Movie (2017).
In 2015, Faris launched Unqualified, an advice podcast, and in 2017, her memoir of the same name was published, which became a New York Times Best Seller.
Early life :
Faris was born on November 29, 1976, in Baltimore, Maryland, the second child of Jack, a sociology professor, and Karen Faris, a special education teacher. Both her parents, natives of Seattle, Washington, were living in Baltimore as her father had accepted a professorship at Towson University. When Faris was six, the family moved to Edmonds, Washington. Her father worked at the University of Washington as a vice president of internal communications, and later headed the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association, while her mother taught at Seaview Elementary School in Edmonds.
Faris has an older brother, Robert, who is also a sociologist and professor at the University of California, Davis. In interviews, she has described her parents as "ultra liberal" and said that she and her brother were raised in an irreligious but "very conservative", traditional atmosphere. At age six, her parents enrolled her in a community drama class for children, as they usually encouraged her to act. She enjoyed watching plays and eventually produced her own material in her bedroom with neighborhood friends. She has said in interviews she often imagined her orthodontal retainer talking to her, and that she pictured herself "on talk shows to talk about [her] talking retainer".
Faris attended Edmonds-Woodway High School (where she graduated in 1994), and while studying, performed onstage with a Seattle repertory company and in nationally broadcast radio plays. She once described herself as "a drama-club dork," and said she used to wear a Christmas-tree skirt in school. She then attended the University of Washington and earned a degree in English literature in 1999. Despite her love of acting, she admitted she "never really thought [she] wanted to become a movie star" and continued to act "just to make some extra money," hoping one day to publish a novel. After graduating from college, she was going to travel to London, where she had a receptionist job lined up at an ad agency. However, she ended up living in Los Angeles "at the last minute," once she committed to the idea of pursuing mainstream acting, and eventually got the starring role in Scary Movie. At 22, she lived in a studio apartment at The Ravenswood in Hancock Park.
Her parents encouraged her to pursue acting when she was young, and she gave her first professional performance when she was 9 years old in a three-month run of Arthur Miller's play Danger: Memory! at the Seattle Repertory Theater. She made US$250 for the role, which was "huge" for her at the time. "I felt like I was rolling in the dough," she recalled. She went on to play Scout in a production of To Kill a Mockingbird at the Issaquah, Washington, Village Theatre, and played the title character in Heidi and Rebecca in Our Town. While in high school, she appeared in a frozen yogurt TV commercial. Around this time, "my third or fourth job was a training video for Red Robin, which is a burger chain out West. I play, like, the perfect hostess. And I think they still use it," she said in May 2012.
