'What's Your Number?' premiere: Anna Faris 'terrified' by comedy

Anna Faris is continually singled out as one of Hollywood's go-to young actresses for broad comedies. While many might find that an enviable role, the 34-year-old says it's actually "terrifying."

"There's a lot of pressure to that, because I never really thought of myself as a funny person," Faris told us Monday evening on the red carpet at the premiere of her film "What's Your Number?"

Photos: 'What's Your Number?' premiere

"I always did drama growing up. I was always a serious kid and sort of fell into comedy. It wasn't intentional. So it's never really felt like completely at home."

In her new movie, out Sept. 30, Faris stars as a young woman perpetually unlucky in love and beginning to fret that she's sleeping around too much for a woman her age. Accordingly, she enlists the help of her neighbor, played by Chris Evans, to help her track down her ex-boyfriends in the hope that years later they may have become husband material.

Faris, known to many for her role as a ditzy sorority house leader in "The House Bunny," served as an executive producer on the new film.

"It's tricky, because there just aren't that many scripts out there for women in comedy. If there are, they're sort of the bounce card character — they're the character that's the straight women to the funny guy," she explained. "So I think that it sort of forced me to be a little proactive and try to find those scripts and develop them."

Evans said he signed on to the project largely because of Faris' hand in its development.

"She's not afraid to make a fool of herself — on camera and in life," he said at the Westwood event. "She's so modest. She has no ego. The first joke she'll make will be about herself. And it's pretty endearing in life, and it comes across on screen."

RELATED:

'Abduction': Taylor Lautner gets a leading-man premiere [Video]

Kate Winslet, Lea Michele have us seeing red on the Emmy carpet

Anna Faris cuts her hair, joins elite pixie squadron of fearless femmes

— Amy Kaufman
twitter.com/AmyKinLA

Photo: Anna Faris and Chris Evans at the premiere of "What's Your Number?" in Westwood on Sept. 19. Credit: Mike Nelson / European Pressphoto Agency.

Anna Faris cuts her hair, joins elite pixie squadron of fearless femmes

Yet another starlet, Anna Faris, has hacked off her hair and ventured out, naked-necked, into Hollywood. Let's not underplay the magnitude of the situation. Around here, an actress undergoing a pixie cut is the high-fash equivalent of Harry Houdini's Chinese Water Torture Cell Escape. Will she pull it off? Will she? Will she?

At any given time on planet Earth, exactly four women can pull off a pixie cut. Audrey Hepburn, after all, was built like a elf from "Dragon Age 2." And Mia Farrow got away with it because she has cheekbones on her cheekbones. There are two reasons why people still refer to that cut as the "Rosemary's Baby": One, Farrow wore the cut in a film by that name. Two, just thinking about getting a pixie cut is terrifying.

So why are so many actresses doing it? Faris isn't alone. Michelle Williams, Emma Watson, Mia Wasikowska, Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Elisha Cuthbert, Ginnifer Goodwin -- not to mention, in her own heyday, Halle Berry -- have gone nearly naked from the neck up in recent years. (Yes, we did say that only four women on the planet can pull off this cut at any given time. We'll let you figure out which actresses don't make the, um, cut.)

If you suspect that such a choice doesn't come easily and that there may in fact be a small conspiracy of people involved, you are correct.

Turns out, the gravity of the pixie cut has never been lost on Hollywood's most powerful suits. When a rising actress suddenly shaves her locks, the choice, likely, wasn't so sudden.

"Often it's a discussion between the talent, her agent, her publicist and manager," explains Prive salon's Carla Gentile, who maintains pop star Robyn's short locks. "They all agree that it's time to make a change.

"They might call you on the phone first to discuss it or even come in for the haircut and go over what we are trying to achieve first."

And that change isn't always for the benefit of the next director. Yes, Faris did it because she had to, for the upcoming film "The Dictator," costarring Sacha Baron Cohen. But that's not always the case. Sometimes there isn't even a gig at stake but rather a different kind of prize.

"The fashion press is always looking for the next new young look, someone who is not afraid to take that chance," Gentile points out. "It can be such an amazing transformation. It can show off an actress's whole form: face shape, eyes, cheekbones."

Ergo, when Watson finally went pixie after wrapping the final "Harry Potter" film, those scissor snips were heard 'round the world.

Maybe that's why Gentile oftentimes has company when she is giving a pixie cut?

"It can be a really intense experience for everyone," Gentile notes, "because maybe you even have the agent or publicist in there when the cut is happening. They may stop in and leave, or come back.

"But it just shows it's really a huge transformation. We rely on the hair to give us our sex appeal, and when you remove it all, that really leaves just the person you are. You're exposed."

Or, really, maybe the word is "covered." After all, didn't we just give more press to every single one of these actresses?

RELATED:

Emma Watson cuts her hair -- finally [poll]

Lady Gaga is losing her hair -- but what does it mean?

Jennifer Aniston debuts her new, shorter hairstyle in Madrid [Poll]

— Leslie Gornstein

Photos: Will Anna Faris, shown at left in the movie "Ally," have what it takes to pull off the pixie haircut? Fellow pixie-power starlet Emma Watson might know. Credits: Claire Folger / 20th Century Fox, left; Valerie Macon / Agence France-Press / Getty Images, right.

'Yogi Bear' premiere: Justin Timberlake bares all about being Boo-Boo

Justin Timberlake's role in the upcoming "Yogi Bear" feature film isn't exactly as weighty as his portrayal of Napster founder Sean Parker in "The Social Network," for which he's been receiving industry praise. But although his cartoon effort might not earn him an Oscar nomination, the 29-year-old said the role of Boo-Boo required a fair amount of preparation.

"It was one of those things where his voice actually -- if you really wanna know -- his voice is in a certain register, so it took me about 20 to 30 minutes to get my voice warmed up into that register," Timberlake said at the "Yogi Bear" premiere Saturday in Westwood.

The actor was joined on a brown carpet by costars Anna Faris, Tom Cavanagh and Dan Aykroyd, who tackles the voice of Yogi in the movie. Aykroyd, who said he had been busy working on a script for "Ghostbusters III," followed "Yogi Bear" from its early stages of development because the program was one of his childhood favorites.

"I grew up with it as sort a subliminal part of my character, watching it every afternoon between the key ages of 8 and 12 in Canada, where the sun left the sky at 3:45 in the afternoon in February," Aykroyd said. "I'd walk across the frozen creek, up the frozen stump trail, past the den of wolves. I lived on the edge of a national park, and I'd strip off the frozen snowsuit, turn on the little black-and0white TV, and there were Yogi and Boo-Boo to warm me up after my hard day at school and my rough commute."

Cavanagh, who has a live-action role in the movie as a park ranger, said he was proud of the film -- though he joked that he was bothered by one of his costars: Timberlake.

"Here's what I think about Timberlake: He dominates the musical field, now he's gonna dominate the acting field," Cavanagh said. "Good looking, great athlete. I mean, it's extremely annoying."

Had he ever voiced these concerns to J.T. himself? "Not to his face," the actor said. "He's a very powerful man. I want to keep working."

For interviews with Cavanagh and Faris, keep reading, and click the photo of Timberlake and pals, above, to see more pictures from the premiere.