Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Yeah, I have a crush on Anna Faris. So do you, so shut up.

This interview was for CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, and while we do cover the process of working on an animated film the most interesting bit of the conversation to me is her quite frank revelation of how difficult it is to produce a movie within the studio system towards the end of the chat.

Hope you enjoy! Here’s the interview which took place during the craziness of Comic-Con 2009:

Anna Faris: We have had a bit of a day… It’s been really fun I have to say, because I haven’t had to deal with the organizing…

Quint: Yeah, you just get to come and enjoy it.

Anna Faris: Oh my God, yeah.

Quint: I’ve actually met you before.

Anna Faris: I thought you looked familiar.

Quint: You definitely wouldn’t remember, but I was part of a roundtable for THE HOT CHICK.

Anna Faris: Oh my gosh.

Quint: And I did the roundtable thing, because I loved MAY and I wanted to talk about that. We ended up talking about you making out with Angela Bettis.

Anna Faris: I love it! I love it! Yeah HOT CHICK was a little while ago… I was playing high school, which seems like an eternity away.

Quint: And now you are a reporter in this one, right?

Anna Faris: Yeah, I’m a reporter.

Quint: You could have still played high school. You probably could have played a five year old in this one. That’s the beauty of animation.

Anna Faris: Exactly, but it was great as my first animated movie. It was harder work than I thought.

Quint: But did you like it? Voice acting.

Anna Faris: I love it. The challenge is finding… I hope I’m not repeating, but I said this earlier in the panel, but you weren’t there.

Quint: No, I missed it.

Anna Faris: Anyways it’s like finding the comedy in just using inflection in your voice and it seems like it would be a very natural thing, but it takes a minute or two to figure out how to make a line unique and personalize it yourself with just using your voice.

Quint: Do you find it intimidating being in the booth?

Anna Faris: It was nice, because I was in the same room, the recording booth, with the directors, so they were right there and it was nice, but you do have a giant studio filled with 15 people and you have no idea what they are saying about you, but it’s tough because there are no windows, because of the sound muffling. It’s hard to be in there for six or seven hours at a time, because you lose track of sunlight.

Quint: How did the script come to you then?

Anna Faris: It’s funny. I heard there was a project, an animated movie, and that they were interested in me and I was like “Great, I would love to do an animated movie,” so there was a meeting arranged and I went in and I thought that I would really have to sell myself, because I really wanted this project.

Quint: So you went in guns blazing?

Anna Faris: Yeah, and they ended up pitching me and selling me the project. Apparently they had already had the idea of casting me if I wanted to do it. I thought I was up against a lot of competition. (laughs) That was pretty great and I loved working with them. It’s an incredibly long process making these movies. You go in over a period of like a year and a half. I didn’t realize that.

Quint: I talked to Patton Oswalt whenever he did RATATOUILLE and he was talking about that, too, where he ended up doing the movie essentially three times.

Anna Faris: A lot of efforts, like a lot of grunts and squeals and…

Quint: The stuff where you feel really ridiculous doing.

Anna Faris: Totally. It’s almost impossible to make a very believable “Omph” sound, like when you have fallen or…

Quint: That doesn’t sound canned, yeah.

Anna Faris: Yeah, it’s really difficult. That and I think laughing is pretty difficult.

Quint: You can pick that up really fast when someone is not genuine.

Anna Faris: I definitely have a terrible fake laugh.

Quint: I think everybody has a terrible fake laugh. Was it always you by yourself in the booth? You said that you were in there with the directors, but did you ever…

Anna Faris: I was in there with the directors and I don’t know if you have met them, but they are pretty awesome guys.

Quint: But you were never playing against the other actors.

Anna Faris: We did a couple of sessions with Bill Hader, which that was great. Apparently they can’t use a lot of that stuff, because we overlap each other so much, but…

Quint: That’s realistic.

Anna Faris: I know, but it was really fun. He is such a great guy and it was really fun to play off of him and it is a weirdly solitary experience, so it was nice to have a little bit of a change of pace and it rounds out the character a little bit more if you are allowed to interact with another actor.

Quint: This is a very popular book isn’t it? I hadn’t heard of it until the movie, but I guess I’m not a connoisseur of children’s literature.

Anna Faris: Yeah, I read it as a child and loved it.

Quint: Really? I guess I just missed it.

Anna Faris: It was like late seventies I think, maybe early seventies, so it’s been around for a little bit, but great story and the idea that all of this food is so accessible and it’s all junk food pretty much… It’s universally appealing and so then it becomes dangerous, which is a fun idea as well. There is a sense of the town becoming a little spoiled. People turn to the greed, which I think is an underlying element that I don’t think anybody else will go into…

Quint: So what are you doing next? You have the movie coming out and so you are probably going to be doing a lot of press for that.

Anna Faris: I think so.

Quint: It comes out in the fall, right?

Anna Faris: Yeah, September 18th or 19th I believe, whatever the Friday is, and yeah I don’t know, we will see. I think I might do some stuff in New York. I’m just trying to produce more.

Quint: Oh yeah? What are you producing?

Anna Faris: Well, I sold a movie with the writers of THE HOUSE BUNNY again to Paramount, so we are working on that. It’s a female buddy comedy and then I’ve got a movie over at Sony, a romantic comedy I’m trying to get off of the ground, but I tell you what man it is not easy.

Quint: This recession… I know so many people that are having trouble, independent filmmakers and studio filmmakers… They just can’t get anything moving.

Anna Faris: When I started out in the industry auditioning and then getting the role or a lot of times I didn’t get the role, of course, and then a week or two later I’m in Vancouver shooting or whatever and everything felt fast. Now being on the other side of things it feels just tedious sometimes, very different. But I just have to keep at it, I guess.

Quint: You gotta stick with it. Those that fail are the ones that give up.

Anna Faris: There’s definitely a perception out there by the studios that female comedies don’t necessarily do well, that they are a long shot.

Quint: I guess they just need proof. For the longest time they said R rated comedy couldn’t sell and then Apatow hit and…

Anna Faris: Did you see FUNNY PEOPLE by the way?

Quint: I haven’t yet. I’m dying to. I love that trailer so much.

Anna Faris: I loved the movie, I really did. I really loved it. I thought it was an incredibly special movie.

Quint: That’s all they need, then you will see five million of them going into production, you know just like R rated comedy and that paved the way for stuff like THE HANGOVER which does crazy business. I don’t know, the studios like to be safe, so…

Anna Faris: I know, it’s tough and it is the idea that guys won’t necessarily go see a female driven comedy, which is nothing…

Quint: That’s not true. Look at the SCARY MOVIE films. You are the face of the SCARY MOVIE films and those are huge. I have got to tell you, I loved the second SCARY MOVIE.

Anna Faris: Oh my God!

Quint: I know a lot of people like the first one, but the second movie is by far my favorite.

Anna Faris: That is so funny. You know who says that a lot? Europeans.

Quint: Really?

Anna Faris: I get it a lot from Europeans.

Quint: It’s a spoof of multiple films and genres and I love Tim Curry and David Cross… There are just so many elements in that film.

Anna Faris: I like SCARY MOVIE 2. I think it gave me a little more to do creatively, which was really fun for me to attempt to stretch my legs a little bit, but yeah that was fun shooting.

Quint: I’m sure you will be successful in getting your movie out, you just gotta keep at it.

Anna Faris: Oh, thank you. Really quickly if you don’t mind, what have you seen here that you have loved? That you have really…

Quint: The TRON stills that they have shown for the TRON sequel looks great. ALICE IN WONDERLAND looks unbelievable to me. The more I see of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, the crazier I get for it. We have IRON MAN 2 stuff coming up on Saturday.

Anna Faris: Got you.

Quint: Cool, well thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.

Anna Faris: I love your website.

Quint: Oh, thank you!

Another Comic-Con interview bites the dust and we still have a good dozen or more to go covering TRON: LEGACY, ZOMBIELAND, LEGION, THE BOOK OF ELI and more. Keep ‘em peeled!

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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