ESCLUSIVA - Intervista in esclusiva di Telefilm Cult a Anna Faris di "Mom", in onda con la 3° stagione inedita su Joi ogni martedì. "Lavorare in tv ti accresce giorno dopo giorno, puntata dopo puntata. Solo lì riesci a ridere del tumore al seno"...

So what can you tell us about the experience of being the leading actress of a sitcom now, being in television?

ANNA FARIS:  I am loving it.  This is, in a lot of ways, the most satisfying job I've ever had.  And I love the family that the ‑‑ the TV family that we have.  I love my cast members.  I love the idea that I get to potentially play a character for an extended period of time.  I love it that I don't ‑‑ my character dates a little bit, but I don't really have a love interest; that my struggle is one of trying to be a better mom, a better person, and – because for so long, I think ‑‑ from, like, until you're ‑‑ from, like, 20 to 40 or maybe longer, most of the roles you have in film, there's ‑‑ revolves around some kind of love interest.  That's either the goal, or that's ‑‑ you know, you want the guy, or you have to keep the guy, or you're rolling your eyes at the guy and you want him to change because he's being such a child or ‑‑ So it's so liberating to not ‑‑ and that's just one of so many things, but I'm really ‑‑ I'm really loving this.  I drive to work every day, and I'm just so thankful and happy.  And so I'm hoping good things.

Does it feel like an upside‑down world where film has become a space where predictability has become a big issue for character and sitcom, which once upon a time we might have actually thought was exactly that, is now a space where there's some quite fun and risky things happening?

ANNA FARIS:  It's definitely ‑‑ it is a changing environment, isn't it?  And I don't know ‑‑ this is my first time in TV, so I'm so unfamiliar with how everything works.  I'm kind of a moron with that stuff.  But I ‑‑ I find this character and the fact that she gets to evolve as we ‑‑ and we get ‑‑ you know, we're all still finding who she is, what her past is.  And I find that experience just so rewarding.  And you don't get that in film.  And I do think finding ‑‑ I think that for a long time ‑‑ maybe it's ‑‑ maybe it's starting to shift, but female characters in film, like the kind of roles that I would be up for ‑‑ I'm getting older now, so I'm not necessarily up for them ‑‑ but were ‑‑ the fear, it always felt like, is the audience going to like this person?  Are the men going to fall in love with her, and are the women going to want her to be their best friend?  It was always the mantra, I felt like, of filmmakers in my world ‑‑ in terms of comedy and romantic comedy I'm talking about ‑‑ that you end up with a very watered‑down, to me, kind of bland character.  So this is ‑‑ this is opposite of that.  Does that kind of sort of ‑‑

Anna, does it become harder or easier to discuss heavy issues, like in this show, through comedy? Like alcoholism and single mother?

ANNA FARIS:  I find ‑‑ I mean, I love it that we deal with these issues.  I love it so much.  It's terrifying.  We just had an episode air about breast cancer.  And it's one of those things, like how ‑‑ how do we deal with breast cancer with ‑‑ but I just ‑‑ I love it that ‑‑ I feel like we're a comedy ‑‑ and I know this is important to Chuck ‑‑ that has a lot of deep emotional moments.  And I'm hoping that our audience in turn will become emotionally invested with us and care about our journey as opposed to dealing with issues of, like, you know, I don't know, the laundromat's closed or whatever.  I mean, not to knock ‑‑ I love ‑‑ I love everything out there, but ‑‑ But it's very satisfying as an actor, for me, and I hope that our audience agrees that ‑‑ 

You probably could have played her without being a mother, but how has the approach to her changed with ‑‑

ANNA FARIS:  I feel slightly more qualified. But I think ‑‑ I'm still learning with my kids on the show because I have a little baby.  So that's ‑‑ it's a different deal.  But even hanging out with Sadie, who plays ‑‑ Sadie Calvano, who plays my teenage daughter, during the first few episodes, I was like, I have not been around a 16‑year‑old in a really long time. And so I think I'm still finding my footing with Christy being a mom.  And I find it ‑‑ it's two very different worlds.  And I think that maybe that's okay because I think Christy, being newly sober, is still finding herself as a mom.  Like we're dealing with sort of the storyline of my daughter's pregnancy.  And I asked the writers, you know, "Why isn't my character more mad?," you know.  Like "You're making the same mistake that I made.  You're making the same mistake that Bonnie made.  Your dreams, whatever you had, everything is going to shift now."  And I think that the explanation of why my character isn't more mad is because she's ‑‑ and who knows?  Maybe in the next episode, I'll get furious.  I don't know. But I think that right now she's struggling with so much guilt.  So I think she has to, like, swallow a lot of her anger and try to mend the ‑‑ repair the damage that she's done as a mom, or at least that she feels that she's done.

What has surprised you the most about doing television?

ANNA FARIS:  Oh, gosh.  I think ‑‑ I think how satisfying it is; how much, as an actor, I feel like I've grown, I think.  I think you tend to look at the television world as, like, maybe not as ‑‑ maybe not as satisfying as the film world, or maybe you're not playing ‑‑ maybe you're playing, I don't know, characters that ‑‑ or maybe the journey isn't ‑‑ the vision isn't as grand or something.  I don't know.  But I think, for me, this is ‑‑ this has just been ‑‑ it's been amazing.  I love that ‑‑ shooting in front of a live audience is amazing because I grew up doing theater, and so it taps into my love for that.  But the best part is they laugh at everything. I mean, they're the most generous ‑‑ I mean, they want to be there, and they're so generous.  And so you can sort of do no wrong.  So it's kind of the best audience you could have. So I'm just loving it.