Anna Faris reveals her little secrets

MANILA, Philippines - Hollywood actress Anna Faris is always one great interview. When she says she is happy, you know it’s true. When she laughs, it’s so easy to laugh with her. And she is willing to answer whatever you ask her; she readily opens up about her personal life and makes you feel so comfortable that you would forget you are talking to a Hollywood celebrity.

This writer met with the star again last week during the junket for Sony Pictures Animations’ latest movie, the mouth-watering sequel Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 held inside the Sony grounds in Culver City. Anna is back to voice Sam Sparks, the weather girl who, in the first movie, fell in love with Flint Lockwood, the inventor of the machine that turns ordinary water into food.

In the sequel, Flint is now happily living in a new town after leaving Shallow Falls and destroying his invention that almost destroyed the world when it malfunctioned and unleashed a torrent of deadly food weather like cheeseburger rains and spaghetti tornadoes. He is living a seemingly blissful life with his now girlfriend, Sam, when he is informed that the machine he thought he had destroyed apparently survived and created an island full of mutated food animals called “foodimals.” He is immediately dispatched to the island to locate the machine and finally destroy it. But before he can do that he has to battle hungry “tacodiles,” “shrimpanzees,” “hippotatomuses,” “cheespiders” and a horde of other foodimals to save the world yet again.

The movie is a fun adventure that kids will surely love. They will see fruits and vegetables transformed into cute and cuddly little animals like the sweet barry (strawberry) and the daring cantalope (cantaloupe turned into an antelope). If the first movie made you hungry, this sequel will make you hungrier.

“I was so proud of the way the first film turned out,” Anna said in a previous interview. She recalled how much fun she had working on the first movie that coming back and reprising her character was not a big decision for her to make.

“It’s a whole set of challenges that I didn’t expect and it is creating a character using only one tool,” she tells this writer and three other journalists during our mini-roundtable. “One of the many difficult things about it is you don’t have any context, I mean you have the script and the directors are explaining to you, ‘Okay, you are walking through a pancake bog, make that noise,’ I am, like ‘What!?’ But I do love that part. I love doing the effort noises, like falling or getting hit and all the physical stuff but it’s hard to not work with other actors — that is the challenge.”

Anna is famously known for playing quirky comedic parts in the Scary Movie series and in the film about the hilarious “sad” life of a Playboy bunny past her prime in the hit The House Bunny. She most recently starred opposite Chris Evans in the romantic-comedy What’s Your Number and she currently stars in the TV sitcom Mom, which launched to high ratings third week of September in the US.

But among the movies she’s made, she considers her work on the Cloudy movies her favorite because, believe it or not, she doesn’t like to see herself onscreen.

“I can relax when I am watching one of these movies,” she says before sharing with us one of her little secrets. “You know, you are always questioning what you are doing with your face and the choices you make and I am, when I watch something of mine, I have to, between you and I, I have to have a little wine.”

“You are not in character right now, right,” I jokingly ask alluding to her alcoholic character in the TV sitcom Mom. I got a big laugh out of her. It’s an inside joke among us that I wish I could share.

“But it’s really amazing to get the opportunity to do a sequel and it’s fun to revisit a character again. I was a little bit worried when this sequel sort of came up because I thought it’s gonna be really tough to get, sort of, bigger than the first movie — but they did it! I am really proud!

“This is one of the few movies that as an actor you can say you like because I feel like I am such a small part of it. The artistry behind it is just incredible,” she says humbly.

Animated movies always take three or four years to make and the actors typically record their parts halfway through the production. Anna did hers nearly two years ago when she was pregnant with her first child with actor Chris Pratt (the lead star of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy) and it didn’t help much when she had to see a lot of food onscreen while battling pregnancy cravings.

“Oh my gosh, the cake!” she exclaims.

“I love to indulge,” she reveals after being asked if she is like a healthy sort of girl. “I love food. I love to hike and be outside. I wouldn’t go around bragging that I was a healthy person because I don’t know if, compared to other people, if I am.”

And no one is looking after her diet either. “It’s me, I am in charge of that,” she says.

Now that she has a little baby, she is happily in charge of baby Jack’s diet, too, including eating the leftover baby food!

“Are you guys parents?” she asks. “It feels like there’s no time to eat right now. That’s the best post-pregnancy diet.”

Her husband Chris is in London at the present to work on the Marvel movie. Chris recently tweeted a picture of his ripped body and we asked Anna what she likes better, the lean and sexy Chris or the ordinary Chris.

She admits to liking the sexy Chris sometimes but adds how difficult it was to maintain that kind of body. “We enjoy the lifestyle so much. When I was making The House Bunny, I remember how hungry I was! It was always a hungry day for me. It makes you a little moody.”

“My husband likes to eat and I love to cook for him and so when he comes back, we’ll have more time… One of the great things about getting older is that I feel happier and not as stressed about that stuff, and that’s a relief, I think.” she says.

At 36, Anna is relatively young but having been in the business for many years, it’s quite understandable when she considers herself a bit older. But happier, she insists.

“In my 20s, I was in like a panic. I was competitive, insecure and I took rejection harder and, maybe it’s having a baby that makes you shift your priorities a little bit… and settling in to my own skin more… I am definitely feeling fortunate and very happy.”

Anna is one happy person just don’t let her read any bad review about her for it will spoil her day. “I am pretty sensitive about it. I think all actors, whether they admit it or not, of course they want to be liked.”

True. So here I go. I like Anna Faris! And that’s not a joke.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 opens tomorrow, Oct. 9 in  theaters.