Anna Faris knows Hollywood has a problem: too many gifted actresses and not enough comedic female roles to go around. So what did she do about it?
She created a comedic female role of her own.
“I came up with the character of this girl who is sort of lost in life,” Faris said in a conference call with The Diamondback. “You never really have that many funny roles out there for women in Hollywood and especially for someone like me, so I felt like I needed to create my own. I just think there is a void of roles out there for these really talented women to be able to perform in, and I would like to change that a little bit.”
The product of Faris creative musings is Shelley Darlingson, a Playboy Bunny with a lavish lifestyle, in the film The House Bunny. Deemed too old and kicked to the curb as a result, Shelley finds refuge in the socially inept sorority of Zeta Alpha Zeta.
Needing new members to avoid losing their house, the girls realize Shelley’s years of flirting experience might be just what the doctor ordered if they are to make a name for themselves around the campus and sway a pledge class to sign.
Faris, who received her first producing credit for The House Bunny, drew on her own college experience (or lack thereof) at the University of Washington when finding inspiration for the character.
“I changed my major five times, and I was in the dorms a lot,” Faris bemoaned. “I’m glad that I went, but it’s not like it defined my life too much, and I was kind of a dorm rat. I felt like I had a hard time finding my own social circle, and that’s partly why I loved making this movie.”
While Faris is a comedic staple from films like the Scary Movie films and My Super Ex-Girlfriend, co-star Emma Stone just broke onto the silver screen as the apple of Jonah Hill’s eye in last summer’s Superbad. When it came down to why The House Bunny intrigued her, however, she and Faris had strikingly similar reasons.
“It drew me to Superbad and The House Bunny – they are nontraditional female roles, and it’s a hard thing to find,” explained Stone, who plays Zeta president Natalie. “I really like the place a lot of these characters are coming from. They’re trying to improve themselves not just for boys or for popularity, but because they truly want to feel happy with what is happening with their lives.”
Another quirk Stone and Faris have in common is the personal parallels to their characters in The House Bunny. Stone and her character Natalie are both where they want to be in life – in Hollywood and on the campus respectively – but are not quite entrenched in their places just yet. And both as Shelley and off-camera, Faris became the one looking after Stone and her youthful peers.
“I was a camp counselor when I was in high school, and I felt a little bit like that at times,” Faris said, laughing. “But they were all great. For a lot of them it was their first film, so they were really excited to be a part of it.”
Stone, who originally auditioned to play the rival sorority’s scheming president, Ashley, thinks her emergence as a rising comedic star comes from the path her parents paved for her as a child.
“It sounds terrible, but they showed me Animal House and Planes, Trains & Automobiles, and I pretty much knew those movies by heart by the time I was eight,” Stone said. “I think laughing and making people laugh is one of the greatest gifts there is. If I can do that at all, that’s something I definitely want to be involved with.”
The House Bunny, which also features Colin Hanks (Untraceable), Kat Dennings (Charlie Bartlett) and Katharine McPhee (Crazy), may include an ensemble of talented young actors, but Stone thinks it is the veteran Faris (whom she calls “the new Goldie Hawn”) and her star power that ultimately make the film.
“It’s funny, it’s a good story, it’s got heart, and just go and see Anna if for nothing else,” Stone said. “That would be my number one reason – to see Anna and laugh.”
The House Bunny opens Friday nationwide. Stone can also be seen alongside Rainn Wilson (The Office) in The Rocker, which opened Wednesday.
tfloyd1@umd.edu
