Anna Faris doesn’t exactly have the look you think of when you hear “character actress.” She’s almost comically beautiful, with wide, blue eyes and impossibly blonde hair that is, apparently, her natural color. The essential oddness that makes Anna anything but an any-woman shines from the inside out, transforming her from a potential generic ingénue to a sparklingly odd character actress who can stand out in even the darkest hours of comic dreckatude.
Even the harshest critics of any of her movies has to admit that there is something about that blonde. Who else could build a career out of the Scary Movie franchise? Especially considering that Faris is nearly unrecognizable in the series thanks to brunette hair dye. But Faris managed to stay with audiences, even after the fast food comedy of the spoof movie had long since faded. That’s the genius of Anna Faris: she stands out in any crowd, not because she’s a pretty face, but because she’s deeply, proudly weird.
Anna always shines, no matter where she’s standing, but it’s when she lets her weird out that she really lights up a room. She dominates in films that look beyond her beauty and tap her inner weirdo, like Smiley Face and Just Friends and even Brokeback Mountain. But even when she’s playing in a movie that underestimates her, it seems to be impossible for the critics to hate Anna. It doesn’t matter how cruel that hatchet job the critic is dealing her film (and let’s face it, Miss Anna has been in some movies that have been critically sliced and diced), the worst they ever have to say about Anna is that she belongs in better movies.
I think that Anna is so easy to love because the core of her weirdness is that unflinching openness she carries so easily that she can sell any role no matter how broad or improbable the character. She dives into her comedy with a gusto that makes it impossible not to enjoy her work. She’s proving what every quirky girl hopes in her heart of hearts is true – that being weird really will make you irresistible.
Anna’s enthusiastic openness makes her interviews as much fun as her movies. If you ever want to be reassured that interesting adults are not the product of thriving high school social careers, all you need to know is that Anna Faris — yes, “Anna, I’m so hot it’s almost silly how pretty I am, Faris” — was a huge nerd in high school. Of course, it didn’t help that she was playing the chubby girl in commercials that sold fro-yo as, “an ice cream alternative for fat kids.” Anna’s theory, which she shared with David Letterman and audiences all across the country during her press tour for her new film, What’s Your Number?, is that it was her parents’ secret plot to keep their daughter’s V Card intact for “a long, long time.”
Those fro-yo commercials might not have been a hit with her high school peers, but Faris giggling over the story with David Letterman makes it impossible not to wish that you’d been friends with that awkward, brace-faced little high school loser. It’s that kid that makes Anna more than a pretty face. That lingering inner awkwardness that most interesting grownups carry with them from the days when being different wasn’t an asset. And that’s what we can learn from Anna. It’s that inner awkward kid that makes all of us special. It’s only in embracing that piece of ourselves that never fit in, in 8th grade, that we really know why we’re special, or how we can make that special little oddball shine.
