Anna Faris has opened up about the anxiety that plagued her during the making of the original Scary Movie films, admitting she spent much of the time hiding and hoping nobody would notice her, convinced she was about to lose the job.
“I remember being just so scared that I was gonna get fired because I had no body of work behind me. I didn’t even have an agent,” the actress and comedian, 49, tells PEOPLE.
Scary Movie, released in 2000, was her first major film role, and she says she was “so quiet and so intimidated in those first two movies”, spending her time on set hanging back rather than engaging with her castmates.
Things started to shift by the third instalment in 2003.
“For me, it felt like I got to pay more attention. I did get to involve myself more. I did feel comfortable making small talk and having banter and doing what normal people do as opposed to just hiding in the corner, hoping that no one will notice me,” she says.
More than two decades later, Faris is back as Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie 6, and the experience of returning could not feel more different.
When she got the call, she was “shocked and immediately thrilled.”
“I couldn’t believe that there was a world where I would be feeling so good about doing Scary Movie, not just good, but great,” she says.
The reunion has also given her the chance to do something she had never properly done before, thank the Wayans brothers for taking a chance on her all those years ago.
Marlon, Shawn and Keenen Ivory Wayans wrote, created and produced the original films.
“It’s a little healing in the sense that we got to be back together again. That is, for me, a personal celebration because I got to thank them. I’d never thanked them properly,” she says.
“It felt like the Wayans brothers were casting me. This time, I got to thank them and feel like I wasn’t gonna get fired.”
