It's 10 p.m. on a blustery summer evening and Anna Faris is standing outside a bar on Central Park South, getting grilled by a crowd of Manhattanites. One of the women suddenly pokes an umbrella in Anna's face. "You're famous, I just know it," she says. "What have you been in?" Anna, who was just on the way back to her hotel across the street, smiles beatifically and lists a few movies from her oeuvre. "I was in a series of movies called Scary Movie," she offers a bit sheepishly, referring to the so-stupid-it's-smart spoof franchise that she's been starring in since 2000. But that doesn't help. So she mentions Brokeback Mountain, Lost in Translation and Just Friends, last winter's inspired but largely ignored romantic comedy in which she steals scene after scene as a pathologically oversexed, self-absorbed starlet who flings herself shamelessly at a record exec played by Ryan Reynolds. Umbrella Lady still can't place her, though. Finally she retreats and tells a man lurking a few feet away, "You owe me 20 bucks! I told you she's famous."
Call it the curse of the character actor. Anna (pronounced "Ah-na") landed her first big movie role in 1999 after mailing a VHS audition tape to Keenen Ivory Wayans—she'd filmed it in front of the fireplace at home. Wayans cast her as clueless space-case Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie. Since then, she's been the centerpiece of every Scary Movie—there have been four so far, and another one is currently in production; the series has grossed over $600 million worldwide—and has appeared in 10 other films. Yet she's still under the radar. "I think my career, in terms of the amount of work I've done, is a little bit ahead of the press I've received," she explains, and it's true. But with three projects slated for release in the next year, there's a chance that Anna might soon switch from $20-bet puzzler into full-fledged Us Weekly fodder. It all starts this July with the action-filled comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend from director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters). She plays the love interest of Luke Wilson, who has recently broken up with a extra-vengeful superhero played by Uma Thurman.
To help handle the coming year, she's hired a new publicist. Not that Anna really needs help. Now 29 years old, she's navigated the showbiz trenches smoothly since moving to Los Angeles seven years ago. She doesn't display any of the revolting off-screen tics that many of her Hollywood peers have acquired. Onscreen, she's approachable and charming. "Anna seems to me like a young Goldie Hawn," says Ryan Reynolds, who worked with her on Just Friends and last year's Waiting. "She's got sex appeal and the ability to lure you in with unbelievably adept comic timing. She's this beautiful woman who has a sweet, self-deprecating charm, but also an acerbic wit. I think the self-deprecation is the bait, so people think, 'Oh, she's so sweet.' Then she'll say or do something that is so profoundly unique. It's really rare, particularly in someone who is cute. Most people who are attractive have spent a lot of time cultivating other parts of their personalities. But Anna is very unusual, a genuine triple-threat." So no, Anna doesn't need much help. The actress is as delightful today as she was growing up in Edmonds, Washington, a sleepy Seattle suburb. I know this because I attended high school there with her. We used to skip class to go smoke cigarettes and cruise to the beach in my Honda Accord or in her Honda Accord, and we acted together in plays like 12 Angry Men (our version was called 12 Angry Jurors). Even then she had star quality, and everybody knew it -- our drama teacher called her "Sunshine."
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