“It’s not just a message for girls, but everyone learning to accept themselves and love themselves for who they are,” says ‘The House Bunny’ star Anna Faris. “When we first meet Shelley she may think she’s the hottest girl, but she learns to realize that how you look is not important. It’s about how you look at yourself.”
“It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had of filming in the Playboy Mansion,” says Faris. “It was amazing, I went in with a bunch of preconceived notions about life in the Playboy Mansion…hot girls, expensive cars, monkeys and peacocks…and it was all true!”
Screenwriters Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz, who’d written the hit film ‘Legally Blonde’, were interested in working with Faris. “We’d just seen ‘Just Friends’,” says McCullah Lutz. “And, we both really enjoyed her performance in that movie. So we called and set up a meeting to have coffee.”
“We kind of stalked her, basically,” laughs Smith. “And she didn’t know it.”
At the meeting, the writers and Faris developed the idea of a Playboy bunny forced out of the Playboy Mansion into the real world and into a misfit sorority that desperately needs her help. The trio landed in the office of producer Heather Parry at Happy Madison Productions. Parry took the idea to Adam Sandler and producing partner Jack Giarraputo, who brought it to their home studio at Columbia Pictures. Sandler and Giarraputo had already worked with Faris on the comedy ‘The Hot Chick’.
“Every girl goes through a time in her life in which she tries on new looks and new attitudes,” says producer Heather Parry. “And, ‘The House Bunny’ looks at that time in a really funny and charming way. It’s funny and it has heart.”
She teaches the girls how to be cool and cute and popular. That’s definitely true. But for Shelley, it’s all about self-confidence,” says Lutz.
Faris had a recurring role on the final season of ‘Friends’ as the surrogate mother of Monica and Chandler’s adopted baby. Faris had the lead role in all four of the ‘Scary Movie’ films. She earned raves for her roles in the Oscar-nominated ‘Lost in Translation’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’, and for her memorable role in ‘Just Friends’.
Faris stars next opposite Seth Rogen in ‘Observe and Report’, with Topher Grace in ‘Kids in America’, and in the ensemble British comedy ‘Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel’. She’s currently voicing an animated character in Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs opposite Bill Hader.
Release Date: August 22nd, 2008
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sex-related humor, partial nudity and brief strong language.
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Running Time: 1 hr. 38 min.
U.S. Box Office: $22,151,000
– Speaking of ‘The House Bunny’, it comes in at #4 at the box office, making $8.3 million this weekend!
Tags: anna faris, The House Bunny
