Anna Faris has admitted she was worried about bringing back Yogi Bear.

The actress plays Rachel in the new film version, in which Dan Aykroyd voices Yogi and singer Justin Timberlake voices Boo Boo.

At the film’s LA premiere, she said: “I grew up watching Yogi, my parents watched Yogi, but I didn’t know if the younger generation would know who Yogi is.”

She went on: “Apparently even if kids don’t [know him] they’re crazy about him because I have all these little children around me saying how much they love Yogi and Boo Boo, especially Boo Boo who is definitely taking it up a notch, he’s become Mr Popular.”

While the infamous talking bears are computer generated, Anna had to act out her scenes for real playing Ranger Smith’s new love interest.

“It was really technical, we had to be very careful about where they were in the frame and apparently I would step on Boo Boo all the time!” she laughed.

“But it was honestly much easier than some co-stars that I’ve worked with!” the Scary Movie actress joked.

Source

Anna Faris doesn’t want it to be cloudy with a chance of meatballs. Try cloudy with a chance of Dunkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kremes.

“My indulgences are always sweets,” says Faris. “I would ask for it be cloudy with a chance of doughnuts. But I must caution that I’m a bit of a salty/savory gal. I wouldn’t mind if it was raining cookies and then later potato chips, but chips are always trouble.

“You can’t just eat a few,” she says. “I raided the mini-bar last night at the hotel. The empty bag of chips is the proof.”

Faris lends her voice to the character of Sam Sparks in the new animated film, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” The movie is based on the 1982 best-selling book by Judi and Ron Barrett, and also stars the voices of Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris and Andy Samberg in the story of an inventor who builds a contraption that turns water into different foods. Then the thing goes out of control and starts shooting spaghetti tornados and meatballs raining from the sky. (Do we hear a brownie hailstorm in the future? Pretty please?)

1 What was your inspiration during the scene where burgers rain from the sky?

The director got us In and Out burgers. They wanted us to talk with our mouths full. It was a great excuse to eat an In and Out burger without feeling guilty about it because I was required to eat one for work. No one can argue with that fact.

2 How did you get into character for animation?

Basically, I was shown a drawing of the character before I started recording and that’s pretty much all I had. But it was amazing because I worked on this for about a year. The great part of animation is that it isn’t about your hair or clothes or makeup. You get to record and then watch this story come to life. I did just think it would be easy, but it was incredibly challenging.

3 You’re so good at light comedy. Who are your inspirations?

I grew up watching all of the great female comedians and wanted to be like all of them. I would sit for hours watching “I Love Lucy” wishing I could be like her, but then I’d watch really old movies with greats like Judy Holliday and Carole Lombard. I loved watching Betty White and Goldie Hawn. Even though I was this kid, I would sit there and think, “Maybe someday I could be in a movie with some of these women — the ones who were alive.

4 When you were younger, did you think you had a chance in this business?

I started as young as many of the audience members for this movie. I was 9 when I did an Arthur Miller play called “Danger Memory” at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. I even got paid $250, which was all the money in the world to me. I was rolling in the dough and I might still be using that money to pay bills. Actually, I do have to confess that I used that movie to buy a phone that looked like a piano. You had to press the keys to dial. It was the coolest thing in the world.

5 Congratulations on your marriage this summer.

I did get married and I’m super-happy. It’s been a great summer. I’m cooking for my new husband, which has always been my favorite hobby and pastime. Of course, I love to try out new things on him. In fact, if I wasn’t an actress, I would like to be a food critic or a restaurant critic. We’ll just see how it goes in Hollywood with the movie business.

From Chicago Sun Times

Anna Faris made her mark playing sexy blondes who aren’t always the brightest bulb in the bin. And she’s pushed the envelope of raunchy comedy in films like The House Bunny and the outrageous Observe and Report.

Now, she is strictly G-rated in the animated version of the popular children’s book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf found out why Faris has a special connection to the story.

The good and the bad of reliving childhood memories.
“It was a book that I loved as a kid, so I couldn’t wait to be a part of it. I thought it was going to be easy, but it’s so much harder than I thought. You’re on your feet for hours in front of a microphone and you’re giving a full performance. The producers sort of sell you on it going, ‘This is going to be fun. No hair. No makeup. You just pop in. You record your voice. You act out a funny animated character.’ Believe me, it’s still a challenge.”

Getting to reveal her ditzy side.
“I provide the voice of Sam Sparks, who’s smart and feisty. Normally, a girl in a movie goes from being shy and geeky to super cool and hot, but Sam takes the reverse journey and I loved that. I think there are some great messages in the movie about being true to yourself and following your passions and your interests–even though they may not be the coolest thing in the world.”

Real food among the animation.
“Bill Hader’s character and I voice this big scene where cheeseburgers are raining down and we’re chomping them. So they brought in real cheeseburgers to the studio and we’d eat them while we recorded the lines. OK, the truth is they had a spit bucket so we’d eat part of one and then just dump the rest in the bucket. But, we still went through a lot of cheeseburgers.”

Burger nostalgia.
“I did a training video for a burger chain, which I won’t mention, in which I played the perfect hostess. And one of my lines was, ‘Here, we always give good phone.’ The whole crew was like, ‘I don’t understand what giving good phone means. Is it like a double entendre?’ The hardest part was saying it without breaking up.”

(more…)

“My relationship with food is very neutral. We’re just friends,” says SNL comedian Bill Hader, while doing press for 3-D animated feature Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Hader voices Flint Lockwood, a crackpot inventor who makes it rain cheeseburgers and pea soup for the local citizens of Chewandswallow, who suffered for years with only anchovies to eat.

Though the film, based on a children’s storybook of the same name, focuses on the town’s growing dilemma of this unstoppable raining food, Hader and co-star Anna Faris say that what they loved most about the film was it’s celebration of geek-dom.

“It’s kind of a cool moment when you realize that that can be attractive to somebody, that being yourself is kinda good,” says Hader.

“I remember the first time I met my wife, I went to her apartment and she had Star Wars curtains. I said, ‘I am going to marry you.’”

“Bill and I are both geeks,” Faris says, before Hader swiftly reminds her to speak for herself. But Faris persists, “I used to wear a Christmas tree skirt as a cape and now I feel cool enough to talk about it.”

Doing the animated film was a challenge for both comedic actors, who thought they were in for an easy ride.

“It’s the hardest job that I’ve ever had,” says Hader. “It’s such a unique challenge to try to channel everything into your voice. You say the same line three times in a row, talk about it and do it again.”

But Faris, who has starred in such comedies as The House Bunny and the Scary Movie franchise, sees a bright side to all that hard work.

“It’s finally a movie I’ve done that people under 10 can see.”

From Metro News

She’s one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, and they’re two of the biggest sex symbols in the world. This week, all three are at Comic-Con. So who would Anna Faris prefer to get geeky with: Robert Pattinson or Johnny Depp?

“I haven’t met him yet,” Faris, in town to unveil footage from her upcoming animated flick “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” said of Rob. “But I want him to give me that eye smolder.”

Anna might have been able to live out that dream — well, kinda — since several RPattz doppelgångers could be seen smoldering around the convention floor.

“Apparently, there’s just a ton of characters. Which is awesome,” Faris said of her first Comic-Con. “And I am a ['Twilight'] fan, yeah.”

But ask Anna who she truly wants as her leading man, and Faris cites the name of the superstar who wowed audiences Thursday with a surprise appearance: Johnny Depp.

“That’s the one,” she gushed, leaving RPattz in the dust. “I heard he was here. Oh my God. I would really like to meet him.

“But he probably has no idea who I am,” Faris added of Depp. “He probably has not seen ‘The House Bunny.’ ”

And although chances are that Johnny does not have the “House Bunny” DVD on his private island, Faris told us that she’s still eager to make a sequel.

“I would love to, but we haven’t really talked about it yet in any serious way,” Faris said of a “House Bunny 2″ movie. “What do you think about this: I want her to be a country singer.”

Whether Faris intends to ask RPattz or Depp to be in the film remains unclear, but this much we know: She’d love to croon a good old-fashion country love song to either.

From MTV

Anna Faris starred as a Playboy Playmate in The House Bunny and donned a bikini for the cover of Self, but these days, the actress, who plans to wed actor Chris Pratt, 29, this summer, is less concerned with her figure than ever.

“I am the laziest person you can imagine,” Faris, 32, told PEOPLE at the LG Rumorous Night bash in L.A. on Tuesday. “I do hike and like to be outdoors, but I hate any competitor sports because I am so bad at them.”

And, unlike brides-to-be who work hard to slim down before their weddings, Faris is enjoying putting some weight on – and keeping weight where she’s already got it.

“I am fattening it up!” she confessed when asked if she’ll be changing her workout routine for the big day. “Now that I have a man, I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to try anymore! Now I can eat. We love to splurge at home. We love to cook. My fiancé is an incredible eater, and so he’s really fun to feed, and it’s great to share some wine and watch a movie. He’s always like, ‘Baby, don’t lose that butt!’”

The couple costar in next year’s dramedy Young Americans.

From People.com