Anna Faris Biography / Pictures

Anna Faris (born November 29, 1976) is an American actress and singer known for her broadly comic roles.

Biography

Anna Faris was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Karen, an elementary school teacher, and Jack Faris, a sociologist. She has a brother, Robert, and grew up in Edmonds, Washington. Her parents encouraged her to pursue acting when she was young, and she gave her first professional acting performance at age 9, at the Seattle Repertory Theater. After attending Edmonds Woodway High School, she studied English literature at the University of Washington.

Anna Faris's first significant film role was in the independent production, Lovers Lane (1999). Her breakout role was the horror film parody Scary Movie (2000). The 5'4" Faris, a natural blonde, dyed her hair black for the filming of Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2, so that her character more closely resembled Neve Campbell, who played the corresponding character in Scream, one of the films that Scary Movie parodied.

Anna gained further popularity after she became recurring character, "Erica," in the final season of the popular American sitcom Friends. She also was in the critically acclaimed film, Lost in Translation—in which she plays an actress promoting the fictional, action movie, Midnight Velocity.

Anna was in the film Waiting..., with Ryan Reynolds and Justin Long. In 2005, she appeared again with Reynolds in, Just Friends, playing a supporting role as a pop-diva singer named, "Samantha James." Faris' role as the motor-mouthed "LaShawn Malone," in Brokeback Mountain (2005), brought her to the attention of a much wider audience. Faris starred with Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson in the feature film My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006). She appeared in the comedy Kids in America, playing Topher Grace's twin sister, in addition to, Mama's Boy, with Jon Heder, Jeff Daniels and Diane Keaton and in Smiley Face, with Adam Brody and John Cho. As of 2007, she was producing and starring in, The House Bunny, a film with Happy Madison Productions about a retired Playboy bunny. In the summer 2007 season of HBO's Entourage, Faris guest-starred as herself. Faris also made an appearance in a video on eatdrinkordie.com as herself with Internet wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk.

More recently, Anna Faris co-starred as Seth Rogen's cosmetic counter girlfriend in Jody Hill's 2009 comedy, Observe and Report.

Anna won the "Stonette of the Year" award at High Times magazine's Stony Awards, in Los Angeles, on October 13, 2007, for her role in Smiley Face.

In 2004, Annamarried actor Ben Indra, whom she met while working on Lovers Lane and whom she had dated since 1999. She filed for divorce on April 3, 2007, citing irreconcilable differences. Faris announced her engagement to actor Chris Pratt, on January 29, 2009.