Comic Actress Anna Faris Finds Herself In The House Bunny

Feature Interview by Brad Balfour

Thanks to the efforts of comediennes Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and now, Anna Faris, adult-oriented comedy is no longer a boys club—at least for this year. Though the recent feature "The House Bunny" may lower an IQ or two with its abundant flaunting of T&A, the dopey designs of some radical make-overs, and its fairy-tale story of the good bimbette who embraces the cause of an outre sorority as its house mother and helps them crush their rivals—the uber-popular Sosh sisters of the beautiful and snooty Pi Alphu Mu—prompts both laughs and groans.

As the House Bunny, the Baltimore-born actress Faris channels a ditzy Marilyn M. and iconic humor queens from other eras, such as Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett, to update the archetype/cliche of the seemingly clueless but formidable sex kitten. The film has a treacly sweetness that offers more of a fable than a raunchy telling of a former bunny set loose on the world. Inadvertently pushed out of the safe confines of the Playboy Mansion by a scheming rival, the innocent Shelley Darlingson (Faris) sets out, not to wreak erotic havoc but rather to find another place to belong.

Though more self-help advice-monger than sex counselor, the preening Shelley stumbles along until she find herself on a college campus and discovers that this one woeful sorority lacks both a house mother and the 30 pledges it needs to survive before being ousted.

While growing up in a Seattle suburb, the 31-year-old Faris felt more in common with her fellow misfits who populated the Zeta Alpha Zeta house, rather than her sex bomb doppelganger. Ironically, she never set out to be a comedy queen. Yet once she was a hit in the "Scary Movie" parodies, she did a string of them, from a guest stint on "Friends" to "Waiting," "Just Friends," and "My Super Ex-Girlfriend."

Except for a small part in "Brokeback Mountain," Faris has provoked more laughs than anything else in her career so far. But in order to better manage her job opportunities, she has ventured into producing as well, one of the many things she discussed during a recent roundtable.

Q: You conceived the idea for "House Bunny" and are one of its producers. Where did you start—with the character or the situation? Was Marilyn Monroe an inspiration for this?

AF: Marilyn Monroe is definitely someone I admire and I have since I was a little girl but the Marilyn Monroe joke came later in the process.

I started with the situation. I initially had an idea: what happens to the Playboy Bunnies when have to move on from this sort of protected, contained life style where you're at parties all the time and that's your job.

I wanted to have her go on a really dark journey, where she was a drug addict and moved back to her small Christian town. Turns out that's not as commercial as becoming the house mom of a sorority [laughs], but I'm really happy with what we came up with. I pitched the character to the writers of "Legally Blond" and then they wrote the script and figured out the rest of the plot points. They weren't buying the drug addict who moves back home.

Q: Was that meant to be a comedy as well?

AF: In my twisted mind, yeah [laughs].

Q: What was the feedback like from the Playboy Bunnies?

AF: We screened the movie for Heff [Hugh Heffner] and the Bunnies; they all seemed to really love it. I don't think any of them are going to tell me, "Oh, I hated that."

They're really supportive, and really excited; it was really fun working with them. I was anticipating that the experience of being at the mansion would be a highly competitive environment between the women, but from my distant observations, I didn't see that at all.

Everybody was so friendly and nice and supportive, much more so than actresses can be with each other, which was interesting and really refreshing. I have a whole new respect for those girls.

Q: Now you're wearing the Playboy necklace on the cover of the magazine, but not as a centerfold...

AF: They were kind enough to give me a few; but I don't think they were that expensive [laughs].

Q: Do you think too much is still being placed on that myth about the dumb blonde?

AF: One of the things that comedy has given me over the years is a really good ability to laugh at myself and to not take things that don't really matter too seriously. Having done the "Scary" movies and the other comedies that I've been a part of, I feel like very little offends me anymore. I'm really grateful for that because I think I was an uptight little kid. I'm happy to feel that I can really laugh at myself.

Q: How important do you think is for someone to try and develop their own material?

AF: I felt like there's such a boys club with comedy in Hollywood. That's what they do—what Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell do. They develop and create their own comedies, and I would really love to be a part of that as well. I did get a little tired of feeling like I'm waiting around for somebody to cast me in their comedy. That would happen at times, but usually they were the straight girl roles that aren't as much fun to play. I felt like it was necessary to take some incentive with my own career.

Q: Are you going to do more of it in the future?

AF: I feel very fortunate with this one. I certainly wasn't very powerful in the whole process, but it makes me feel that, if I did it once, maybe I can do it again.

Q: You pitched the film in character, costume and all?

AF: Yeah, at our pitch meetings. That was something that I've never done before. The two writers would sit on either side of me on a couch; they would tell the story, and I would be in character and throw out lines and jokes. Sometimes it really didn't go so well [laughs], but sometimes it did. It was a great learning experience for me. It was like putting on a little performance and selling something.

Q: What was it like actually casting Heff in the movie?

AF: Heff was a great sport. With that scene where he is eating all the ice cream, we were in his bedroom, it was like a 100 and ten degrees, and he had to eat a lot of ice cream. But he was great about it. He was always in a good mood, and said "Let's do it again." I think he's hysterical in the movie because it's so clear that he can't be anyone but himself. I love the captain's hat. It was awesome.

Q: What was it like to work with all the other girls in your cast?

AF: That was one of my concerns before shooting the movie. I thought.. "Are the girls going to be able to lose their sense of vanity and wear the unattractive wigs and all the piercing?" But they were amazing about it. They looked forward to those days. Some of them only had to spend five or ten minutes in hair and makeup and that's why they liked it so much. I was really proud of them.

That was something that Keenan Wayans taught me back in the early days of "Scary Movie"—the idea that there is no vanity in comedy. I was really proud that they seemed to embrace that idea so much.

Q: Oh yeah, there's definitely no vanity in the movie. You are running around half naked, perfectly toned. What do you have to say about the Anna Faris blonde bombshell?

AF: I think that Shelley's sexiness was innocent and silly. It's not any kind of sophisticated sexiness. I wanted to create a character where, although she wore really skimpy clothes, it didn't seem like she was sleeping with half the town or that she even knew how to be savvy in a true sexual way. That's why she never got the centerfolds and she was only in small pictorials. If you add too much sexuality and vanity it can really take away from the comedy.

Q: Was this the first time you did a nude scene in a movie?

AF: Yes, and it wasn't supposed to be me. I originally had a body double. But then the body double had some complicating factors. It was sort of a last minute thing where I was like "Oh, I'll go ahead and do this." And…. I was really uncomfortable [laughs]. There was this crew that I've been working with and kind of knows me when I put on my producer hat, and suddenly sees me naked.  it was a little humiliating.

Q: What did you learn about yourself making this movie?

AF: I thought a lot about how every character I've played really does change me in certain ways. You know, when you're playing somebody that's so happy and such a cheerleader and so optimistic all the time, I felt like a goofier person. I felt like I could laugh at myself a little more easily. I felt a little sexier, a little more comfortable with my body, which was kind of cool because I always played girls that were the sweet, girl-next-door type. Shelley is clearly not the most intelligent girl, but I think there is an idea that intelligence comes in many, many different forms.

Q: What's with you having Shelley lower her voice and sound like Harvey Fierstein [or the possessed girl in "The Exorcist"] every time she meets a new person?

AF: I wish I could take credit for that. It was something the director came up with on the day. We both thought this is just something too weird to make it into the movie. But it was fun to do and did really did kind of scare the girls, which was fun for me [laughs].

Q; And what was the significance of having one of the outre sorority sister being pregnant in the film?

AF: One of the writers, when she was in a sorority, had a pregnant sorority sister. There is still a bit of a stigma of getting pregnant in high school or college. I think we sort of wanted to touch on that a little bit. Katharine McPhee was so excited to be pregnant. She was all for it. So we were like, "Great."

Q: You were fantastic in the Gregg Araki's "Smiley Face" but no one saw it.

AF Well, thank you, so glad you saw "Smiley Face." I had the best time making that movie.

Q: By comparison, this is such a commercial movie. It's no wonder you want to take more control of your career and develop you own properties.

AF: I wanted to be a part of movies that felt a little more commercial as well. I feel really fortunate to be able to do both. Each movie is a learning experience; between Adam Sandler [whose production company, Happy Madison, made this film] and Sony. That is the goal: to make something with a broad, mass appeal, which is exciting for me.

Q: Will there be a sequel?

AF: I don't know. I would love to play Shelley again. Maybe that's when we can do that drug addict [laughs].

Q: How do you imagine Shelley when she's older, into her 80s?

AF: I imagine she is just loving and is motherly and good hearted. Maybe she's still single. Maybe she's still the house mom.

Q: And what's next?

AF: I have a movie with Seth Rogen called "Observe and Report."

Q: Are you naked in it?

AF: Almost. We have a love scene in it, but there's not a lot of love involved—I can tell you that [laughs].

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Team Up to Make a "Baby Mama"

Feature Interview by Brad Balfour

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler—Saturday Night Live veterans and sketch comedy masters—are poised to challenge producer/writer/director Judd Apatow's hegemony on R-rated comedy as stars of "Baby Mama," the opening night Gala Premiere film for the 2008 Annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. Is Poehler and Fey this generation's Laurel and Hardy, or maybe, Abbott and Costello? Well, not quite, but they have worked together long and hard to establish themselves as the two leading ladies of modern comedy.

Through their stints on Saturday Night Live—Fey was even head writer until she went on to create and star in 30 Rock—and in such sketch comedy troupes as Second City and the Upright Citizen's Brigade, these two are reshaping the role women have in the world of comedy. Fey has become a successful award-winning filmmaker as well with her successful film, "Mean Girls" and Poehler has become a much-sought after film actor.

Now Fey and Poehler join up with writer/director Michael McCullers and producers Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn for this shift from television to the big screen— and what a team it is. Fey plays successful and single businesswoman Kate Holbrook who has put her career ahead of a personal life. Now 37, she wants a kid of her own but discovers she can't really get pregnant so she turns to the steely head of a surrogacy center (Sigourney Weaver) to find her Baby Mama. The driven Kate allows South Philly working girl Angie Ostrowiski (Amy Poehler) to become her unlikely substitute.

When it's clear Angie is actually pregnant and not trying to scam Kate with her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend (Dax Shepard), Kate goes into nesting mode reading childcare books, baby-proofing the apartment and researching pre-schools. Much to conniving white trashy Angie's consternation, who shows up at Kate's doorstep with no place to live, Kate tries to structure Angie's life as well.

In a comic battle of wills, they struggle their way through prep to the baby's arrival and in turn make two new families. Though both Kate and Angie aren't exactly transformed into perfect moms, both find love and a new life along the way.

Q: Since you worked with director Michael [McCullers] on "Saturday Night Live" did he approach you to do this as a team; how did he approach you to do this?

TF: It's weird. We were coming out of the building and he was waiting behind a trash can and jumped out. No, he called through Lorne's [Michaels, SNL's executive producer and producer of "Baby Mama"] office. We had a meeting altogether right away. He came to us and to Lorne and said that he wanted to do a movie for the two of us.

AP: It was always kind of pitched as a two-hander for us to do together. So it was never turned down.

TF: It was never turned down by the following people...[pause]

Q: The scenes in the Lamaze classes and the birthing rooms were on the mark; were you lurking in other birthing rooms and such to get it down pat?

TF: Michael did a great job. We had some experts on set, who were these wonderful, very earthy women. This woman came up to me and said, "Are you thinking of having another child?" And I was like, "No." And she was like, "You should consider a water birth." [I thought] 'Did you hear the part where I said no?'

AP: The same woman was telling pregnant people in their ninth month...

TF: A lot of the other women in the class were very, very pregnant.

AP: ...were really, really pregnant. And she was explaining nice ways to make love. And women were like, "No." And the guys were taking notes.

TF: But by the end of it I did want to have a water birth.

AP: Yes, yes, you don't need to have a baby to have a water birth.

Q: Tina, Well you saw from the other side; you understood the perspective of someone from the outside of having a baby like the husbands...

TF: Michael wrote the movie and he's a father of three. And his wife actually had a baby, God bless her, had to pick up, move her, two kids, and her pregnant belly to New York. She gave birth in New York.

AP: While I spoke to her with a big pregnant belly that I took off at lunch. "I'm really tired, this belly is so heavy!"

TF: So he had a lot of perspective on all of that stuff.

Q: Tina you character seemed a lot like Liz Lemon the character you play on "30 Rock." When you saw this script what did you think about to differentiate her from Liz.

TF: Well, she is higher functioning than Liz Lemon. She is a successful business person. She is a more pulled-together and confident person. Renee Kalfus and I talked about, in the costume design, that this is a woman who, it's very subtle, but her clothes are different. She's sort of main line, Philadelphia, pulled together, old family jewelry.

I said, "I think that this character is waspy-er than I am in real life." I'm not waspy at all. I said, "We have to pretend like she really has straight hair." That's why I have my hair is like a giant bush. I think her speech is a little different. It would have been a disservice to the movie to go koo-koo far to make that distinction, because they are east coast white women in their late 30s. They are different.

Q: Tina, this film did a great job of capture the absurdity of the urban parenting culture. Can reflect on being a city parent?

TF: It is a different thing to be a city parent. There is a lot of pressure, like "What classes are your children taking?" My daughter starts pre-school next year so I just went through the process of taking her to her pre-school interviews. And you're just hoping like, "Please don't poop yourself during this time."

AP: Did she wear a little power suit and a teeny-tiny briefcase?

TF: She had a little teeny tiny resume. Made of candy. That you don't find in the suburbs, I don't think. She ate it.

AP: I like that moment where they say, "Wingspan and Banjo, do you want to play with Rumi and Cheyenne?"

Q: "Baby Mama" says some things about class in America as well. There was a groan in the theater when you call Amy "White Trash."

AP: That's a very interesting moment in the film, and actually we were kind of pleased that it got the reaction that it did, because there's a moment where they're being their worst to each other, and they know ways they can hurt each other, and that's the moment where Kate really decides to hurt Angie in that way. And she's very very hurt herself; she's been deceived, she's been tricked, so it's a way for her to strike out.

There's a lot of that in the film, which is the idea of, what makes a person successful? What are you good at, what skills do you have? What does it mean to be smart? All those kind of things are things that separate them, and they find obviously that they're more alike. I think the reaction is very interesting, because it means, to me, that people have bought into the hope that they're going to be friends.

TF: It's actually one of my favorite moments in the movie, even though I come off really villainous, but its interesting to me that people have such a strong response to it. The moment before my character has been incredibly hurt and betrayed, but the audience still...which is partly a testament to how much they like Amy's character and also just for some reason the class thing, but they still go "Oh!"

AP: Angie's really fooled her, and still they're rooting for her a little bit there.

TF: We are really happy that it stayed in because I think it is the nadir...

AP: Yeah, nice word.

TF: ...of their relationship.

Q: It was great that you picked the name "Stefani" for the baby; it was a hysterical moment.

AP: First it was Christina with an X.

Q: Actor parents have had a trend of choosing some strange names for their children yet you picked a very tradition name for your daughter.

TF: I like interesting names. My daughter's middle name is sort of unusual, but they're all family names. I do think when you have a kid, you've got to try and think, okay, when this kid is an adult, how is this name going to fit the person? I like the name Apple.

AP: I'm just gonna name my kids numbers. New dude, little dude, old dude, and eight.

TF: And George Foreman.

Q: There's a line when you're being wheeled into the hospital you say something about shitting a knife. Was that improvised; did you improvise on set and did you crack each other up?

AP: That was a fun day, when we shot that scene. We liked the idea of, there's always a lot of birthing movies that never really talk about how foul people's mouths get during it, so that was a fun thing, because we shot that and it was all one long shot, so as Tina was pushing me down the hall we got to do a lot of stuff and grab a lot of stuff, and there were real extras who were genuinely startled by me yelling stuff. So that was fun.

TF: I think the take that's in the movie was the last take of the night. We had done several and Amy asked Michael 'Is this the last take?' and he said, 'Uh-huh.' So she pulled the Christmas tree down, ripped an IV out of someone's arm; she wanted to make sure she was enough of an obedient good girl that she didn't want to wreck the props until the last take, and then she tore the place up.

Q: With "Knocked Up" and "Juno" pregnancy movies seem to be in vogue—what's up?

TF: I think it is a universal experience. There may be a generation of comedy writers that are hitting that age where they all have kids. It's guys who would have written dating fantasy comedies 15 years ago, are writing what they know. It might be a generational thing.

AP: And I think "Juno" is very different from "Knocked Up," and I think our film is very different from that too. Although they deal with the same topic, that's really where the comparison ends in some ways. I think our film is in the vein of "Knocked Up"—it's more of a straight-up comedy, with jokes.

Q: "30 Rock" and "SNL" are the favorite shows for lots of people, what are yours?

AP: I'm just a drama fan really, because when you get home from the office all you want to do is cry. So I was a big "Wire" fan—that to me was the best show I'd seen in the past 10 years. I watch "FrontLine," "Wire," "Oprah"—things to really bring me down. Oprah brings me up sometimes too.

TF: I really like "Arrested Development." I like "The Office," both British and American versions. I think the American version did a great job of finding its own voice because it's different. Then I also like, you know—I'm a 37-year old white lady. I like "Project Runway." I like "The Barefoot Contessa." I'm my own worst enemy; I watch a lot of "Food Network."

Q: What would a sketch about your life be titled?

TF: "Tired Times Talk Show?"

AP: Mine would be "What Are You Looking At?"

Q: What was it like working with Sigourney Weaver? And Amy, Do you plan on becoming a mother?

AP: To Sigourney Weaver—yes. I would love to cradle Sigourney Weaver at night and tuck her in, and whisper to her quietly and sing to her. I would love to sing to Sigourney Weaver every night. And give her a bath.

TF: She was incredibly delightful. We were so shocked and pleased that she agreed to be in the movie. She is really funny and very warm. I think on screen she plays a lot of strong cold characters, but she is very warm. She got to improvise a lot in the movie and really enjoyed it.

AP: "Working Girl," actually, was a film we talked about a lot, because it was another example of kind of class division and the idea of a strong working woman. I know Michael and I talked about that a lot, so it was really great to have her there after studying her stuff in that film.

Q: How did you two first meet and what did you think of each other; obviously you have great chemistry together—did that evolve over time?

AP: I was like, I finally found the woman I want to marry.

TF: And then I had to break it to her that that's not legal.

AP: We met in 1993 in Chicago. I had heard about Tina; I heard about Tina on the streets before I met her. We were both new improvisers who had moved from where we were going to college to study improv, and we performed together on an improv team named after a bad porn movie called "Inside Vladimir."

TF: A gay porn movie.

AP: Gay porn movie. Not necessarily bad.

TF: No, excellent.

AP: So we were the two women on that improv team and that's where we met. So we knew each other when we were just big-eyebrowed, poor, badly dressed {dumplings}.

TF: I also had heard of Amy before; we were in separate classes, and I'd heard, "Oh, she's really good, she's so great." And then we were on the same team together. We really hit it off, it was a really nice group of people on that team. We all hit it off. I think we've have always had a mutual respect for each other. We both took improv super-seriously at the time.

AP: Yeah, we did.

TF: And we still kind of do.

AP: And we still kind of do. And that time in Chicago, for us at least, was a time when there was a lot of really fertile talent coming out of Chicago. I know that [Stephen] Colbert, [Steve] Carrell, Amy Sedaris, all these people were performing...

TF: They were on the main stage when we were students.

AP: Yeah, and Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz, and all these people, and Adam McKay, were all coming up at the same time. So it was an interesting time to be there.

Q: Writer Christopher Hitchens recent wrote a Vanity Fair column on why women can't do comedy—did you want to hit him with the business end of a funny bone?

TF: I've never read the article. First of all, I don't have that kind of time, I can't read a Vanity Fair article. It's like 15 pages. Also, I'm sure I disagree. So, I sort of did a President Bush on it: "I'm not gonna read that. I'm not gonna like it."

AP: You Bushed it? Nice. It's like, "Oh, white men can play basketball." It's a boring story. I think it's an old story. It's the same as when people ask us if SNL's a boy's club. It's like, it's not. It hasn't been for a long time.

TF: I usually find if someone is drifting towards writing about that topic, it always says, "Oops, somebody didn't have an idea this week. They went to the old file-o-facts."

Q: There was a story in the New York Times about "30 Rock" pushing the Family Hour boundaries. Do you want to say fuck on the show or what?

TF: No, I take great pride in operating within the boundaries of the standards rules. I think it's harder to make comedy when you can't curse. I don't think I realized how shocked people might be by the term 'MILF Island'. The New York Post would not print the word "MILF".

AP: They'll print "Bloviator" though.

TF: They will print a five-page spread of the glamorous side of a prostitute. I was surprised. But no, it is not our intention to ruin family time. Often times in our writer's room I'll say, "Oh, this is going to be on at 8:41 p.m.—lets back off of it a little bit."

AP: I love ruining family time.

Q: What kind of play would you write if you worked together to do it?

AP: We're gonna do a dramatic musical. We're gonna play two of the three Pointer Sisters.

TF: There are a couple other Pointer Sisters musicals in development, so we can't go into details.

Q: Have you thought about writing theater?

TF: We have written sketches together.

AP: I think Tina and I are lucky in that every couple months or years we keep being able to come back and work on stuff together, which is really a pleasure. And I know her phone number and I know where she lives. She can't hide from me.