Anna Faris has opened up about the anxiety that plagued her during the making of the original Scary movie film and admitted that she spent much of the time hiding and hoping no one would notice her, convinced she was about to lose her job.
“I remember I was just so scared I was going to get fired because I didn’t have any work behind me. I didn’t even have an agent,” the actress and comedian, 49, says PEOPLE.
Scary moviereleased in 2000, was her first major film role and she says she was “so quiet and so intimidated in the first two films”, spending her time on set hanging back rather than engaging with her co-stars.
Things started to change with the third installment in 2003.
“For me, it felt like I got to be more aware. I got to involve myself more. I felt comfortable making small talk and making jokes and doing what normal people do as opposed to just hiding in the corner and hoping no one will notice,” she says.
More than two decades later, Faris is back as Cindy Campbell in scary movie 6, and the experience of returning couldn’t feel more different.
When she got the call, she was “shocked and immediately excited.”
“I couldn’t believe there was a world where I would feel so good Scary movienot just good, but great,” she says.
The reunion has also given her the chance to do something she had never properly done before, thanks to 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 kind of healing in the sense that we got to be together again. It’s a personal celebration for me because I got to thank them. I had never thanked them properly,” she says.
“It felt like the Wayans brothers cast me. This time I got to thank them and feel like I wasn’t going to get fired.”
