Anything for a laugh

“I felt sort of stuck in the comedy world,trying to get out,” she says.
It was The House Bunny that changed her mind. Faris conceived of a character and basic plot about a Playboy Bunny who has been booted out of Hugh Hefner’s mansion. Though the film received decidedly mixed reviews,it profoundly changed the way Faris thought about her career.

“This is great. I just get to laugh all day at my job and play appalling characters,” she explains. When she heard about Observe and Report,in which Rogen plays a hapless mall security guard,Faris began lobbying for a shot at the role of the trampy makeup-counter girl he lusts after. “This movie is just insane,” she says. And like other Rogen movies before it,it pushes the bill on movie-theatre crudeness.

Faris is acutely aware that audiences will loathe her character,and for her that’s part of the appeal. “So often in comedies or dramas,to win the audience over,especially as a woman,you have to get the audience to fall in love with you,” she explains. “But for me it was also a blast to play a character that’s so awful.”
Faris says her goal is to eventually get to the point where she can produce films and help cultivate young comedic talent,especially in women. She is working now on developing a few projects for herself that would offer the sort of oddball,leading-lady roles she wants to play.
Ellen McCarthy,LATWP