I feel really fortunate that I'm one of the few young actresses in Hollywood who is involved in comedy 
American Anna Faris started her acting career in theatre, gaining experience before the camera in TV commercials. Her movie bow came in 1999 with the independent film Lovers Lane. Scary Movie followed in 2000, with a sequel coming a year later. Other film roles for the 27-year-old include The Hot Chick, May, and Lost In Translation.
Is it tricky to pull off the straight-faced comedy you have to do in Scary Movie 3?
Our director David Zucker was always really forcing us to play the movie like a drama, which made my job easier. That was an easier choice to make rather than be funny.
Does that make it difficult when you move onto another, non-comedy project?
My experience with that was on Scary Movie 2. In the middle of that, I filmed an independent movie called May. That was a very dark film where I play a really overly sexual lesbian, and I end up dying. I found it really challenging to go between two different genres back to back like that. I think that, given a short break, it wouldn't be too difficult, though.
Do you regard yourself as funny?
No, I'm always surprised when people do find me funny. I remember auditioning for the first Scary Movie, and at the time I'd done nothing - some commercials - but certainly nothing like that. I remember I was in the middle of what I thought was this serious scene with Cindy acting scared with the killer hiding in the house, and Keenen [Ivory Wayans, director of the first movie] was laughing. I thought I was really messing up. Then when Scary Movie came out, my old college roommate said, "I can't believe you got that, you're not that funny."
The rumours were that Cameron Diaz wasn't laughing when it was suggested she was the inspiration for your character in Lost In Translation. How did you feel about that?
I was shocked. I don't know exactly where it started, but pretty soon everyone was asking me if I was parodying Cameron Diaz. I felt terrible, because first of all Sofia [Coppola, writer-director] never mentioned her. We had talked about a couple of actresses, nothing too specific, and certainly not Cameron. I don't think Sofia would be that vindictive a person. I like Cameron Diaz, I think she's a good comedian and I really enjoy watching her, so I felt really bad about it. I wanted to apologise to her but I guess I never got the chance.
As the link between all three Scary Movies, have you been inundated with scripts as a result of them?
When Scary Movie came out, I was very na茂ve and thought it would make everything easier for me in terms of succeeding in this industry. But it's true, they have given me a career. I had nothing before this, and I feel really fortunate that I'm one of the few young actresses in Hollywood who is involved in comedy. But Lost In Translation has definitely given me more of a legitimacy because it has been so critically acclaimed, which is unfair I think.
What are you doing next?
I'm doing an independent movie called Vinyl, about a bunch of girl groupies who are obsessed with this band. My character gets pregnant by one of the band members. It'll be really nice to do something more dramatic, but there are few things more rewarding than making people laugh.
