Anna Faris

Faris was born on November 29, 1976, in Baltimore, Maryland, the second child of Jack, a sociology professor, and Karen Faris, a special education teacher. Both her parents, natives of Seattle, Washington, were living in Baltimore as her father had accepted a professorship at Towson University. When Faris was six, the family moved to Edmonds, Washington. Her father worked at the University of Washington as a vice president of internal communications, and later headed the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association, while her mother taught at Seaview Elementary School in Edmonds.

Faris has an older brother, Robert, who is also a sociologist and professor at the University of California, Davis. In interviews, she has described her parents as "ultra liberal" and said that she and her brother were raised in an irreligious but "very conservative", traditional atmosphere. At age six, her parents enrolled her in a community drama class for children, as they usually encouraged her to act. She enjoyed watching plays and eventually produced her own material in her bedroom with neighborhood friends. She has said in interviews she often imagined her orthodontal retainer talking to her, and that she pictured herself "on talk shows to talk about [her] talking retainer".

Faris attended Edmonds Woodway High School (where she graduated in 1994), and while studying, performed onstage with a Seattle repertory company and in nationally broadcast radio plays. She once described herself as "a drama-club dork," and said she used to wear a Christmas-tree skirt in school. She then attended the University of Washington, where she earned a degree in English literature in 1999. Despite her love of acting, she admitted she "never really thought [she] wanted to become a movie star" and continued to act "just to make some extra money," hoping one day to publish a novel. After graduating from college, she was going to travel to London, where she had a receptionist job lined up at an ad agency. However, she ended up living in Los Angeles "at the last minute," once she committed to the idea of pursuing acting. Shortly afterwards, she obtained the starring role in Scary Movie. At 22, she lived in a studio apartment at The Ravenswood in Hancock Park.