Blu-ray Evolution in SA

The hilarious and sexy comedy The House Bunny, a Sony Pictures Home Entertainment title has recently been released on Blu-ray Disk (BD). Rising star Anna Faris (Scary Movie, Lost in Translation) gives a breakthrough comic performance as Shelley, a clueless Playboy bunny who, after being unceremoniously kicked out of the Playboy mansion, takes a job as housemother to a group of socially awkward sorority girls on the verge of losing their house.

The hilarious cast of The House Bunny also includes Colin Hanks (Orange County), Emma Stone (Superbad), Kat Dennings (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist), Katharine McPhee (TV’s “American Idol”) and Rumer Willis (Now and Then).

When the mansion’s favourite bunny, Shelley (Faris), is kicked out of the hottest house in town, she gets lost in the wilderness of Beverly Hills. But when she stumbles into the sorriest sorority, Zeta Alpha Zeta, she finds a home where she can finally put her talents to good use. Then when Shelley meets a beau she’d like to tie on for good, she really has something to flirt for and thinks she might have a chance at life on the outside. Now the race is on to make over the girls and make Zeta the hottest house before the University shuts them down. Move in with The House Bunny and laugh your tail off!

The House Bunny was produced by Happy Madison’s Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, Allen Covert and Heather Parry and released by Columbia Pictures. It has a run time of 94 minutes and has been rated 13PGL for sex-related humour, partial nudity and brief strong language.

The BD version features bonus material including:

Deleted Scenes

The Girls Upstairs - Behind the Scenes with the Real ‘Girls Next Door’

Look Who Dropped By: Checkout the stars who showed up on-set!

“I Know What Boys Like” Music Video by Katharine McPhee

Zetas Transformed

Colin Hanks: Mr. Nice Guy Getting Ready for a Party

Anna Faris: House Mom - a look at Anna Faris, and her character “Shelley,” her infection smile, fun personality and interactions with others

House Bunny Style: Make-up/hair/wardrobe documentary on making over the Zeta girls into “Bunnies”

The Girls of Zeta: A look into the actresses who make up the sorority girls of Zeta and how they bonded on-set

Calendar Girls: A fun look into the photo shoot for the calendar House Bunny Memories From Tour Bus to Trailer: Tyson Ritter -A look at the on-set experiences of first-time actor Tyson Ritter

From Song to Set: Katharine McPhee - A look at the on-set experiences of first-time actress Katharine McPhee

Trailers

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment secured an interview with leading lady, Anna Faris at a Soho Hotel.

Where did the idea for the way your character remembers people’s names come from?

It was a last minute decision. The director just said for me to try something so we came up with that - and totally freaked the other girls out! At first we thought we’d gone too far and that it wouldn’t make it into the film but I’m so glad it stayed. It’s a weird joke and I love that its there. I like that weirder stuff.

Your character in The House Bunny is pretty outlandish, isn’t she?

Yeah, I guess that’s the Happy Madison sensibility, but we tried to have a bit of a heart to the movie and a little bit of a message. My goal as well was to not get too wrapped up in it being a romantic comedy. I’m glad that the romance is in there, and I love Colin [Hanks], but it definitely wasn’t my goal to make another romantic comedy. In most female comedies the romance is a huge part of it but not so much in the guy movies, so I wanted to bring some of that to this film.

Do you think the essence of your character stayed the same?

As we started to develop the project we realised that we had to be careful in how we handled the idea of a Playboy Bunny. We realised that if we wanted the movie to be a PG-13 and to appeal to a wide audience we were gonna have to paint a very hazy version of that world. As that became clear we had to make clear that Shelley is an innocent.

So how did you find life at the Playboy Mansion?

It was really fun. I had to keep pinching myself, it was a complete dream. Hef’s bedroom is huge but so messy, and there’s a weird control panel from like the seventies. And there’s a huge chandelier like dripping with thongs, there’s stuffed animals everywhere and old magazines. Part of it is, like, ‘Okay, he’s a sex god.’ And the other part of it is, ‘He’s a hoarder like my grandparents keeping newspapers from 1983.’ There’s just crap everywhere.

I probably wouldn’t say this back in the States! But Hef was very charming.

Would you consider doing a centrefold?

I have. I used to think ‘no way’ but I did the cover of Playboy, without being naked, and I found myself at the shoot being like, ‘I should’ve taken it all off!’ I wanted to say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it. It’ll be artful!’ But my publicist didn’t think so, and my friends were like, ‘No, don’t.’ I was in New York recently and I had these two guys yelling at me; they wanted their money back because they thought I was going to be naked. Which is kind of flattering, actually.

Do you find that being blonde in Hollywood does mean you’re sometimes pigeonholed?

Maybe initially when people weren’t too familiar with my work. I had really dark hair for the first two Scary Movies, which were kind of the first things I had done, and I found that I got fewer auditions as a brunette, but they tended to be better roles. But I think once people get to know your personality, or think they do, then you can get past that. In real life my hair is like the colour of ash., the colour of a mouse. Like a non-colour, there’s no pigment in it.

Are you frustrated by the lack of big comedy roles out there for women? Is that why you initiated this project?

Yeah. I definitely felt like ‘What am I waiting around for?’ It’s frustrating getting scripts where you’re the ’straight man’ to a really funny guy. For a while there were a lot of scripts where the girl was a super control freak who had her whole life together and something goes wrong, and then ‘Oh my God, meltdown. I just didn’t want to see that any more so I wanted to try and take control a little bit. I would love to do it again. Happy Madison and Sony really made the process easy for me and I don’t think it will be that easy again. Or maybe it will be, I don’t know? But it felt really good just to be more proactive. For a while there was nothing out there. It was tough. I was surprised they kept me around for all the Scary Movies even. You would’ve thought that would go to a guy.

Are men intimidated that you might be funnier than them?

I don’t know. I think I surround myself with confident guys, I guess. I couldn’t be with somebody that couldn’t make me laugh or I couldn’t make them laugh. It’s risk-taking to make a joke and it requires a lot of fearlessness.

How do you find British humour?

Everybody love the British actors but the humour is different. I’m lucky, my parents were huge fans of Fawlty Towers so we watched a lot of that and Monty Python, the good stuff.

What was it like on set?

You’d perhaps expect, with a collection of young female actors, for there to be a lot of competition. Was it like that? I made a really conscious effort to have all the girls become friends and to create a supportive environment. A few of them had never been in a movie before so I wanted everyone to feel comfortable and to have a really good time. I always think that if you’re having a good time then the audience will have a good time watching you. There may have been a couple of moments but they were great and they’re all still friends. It was fantastic, really.

And how was it having Rumer Willis in the movie? Did you have expectations of her?

I didn’t know any famous people’s children so I didn’t know what to expect but she is so sweet and so humble, just a lovely, lovely girl, very modest. She was 18 when we first started the movie and now every time I see her she’s more confident and becoming this great woman. Her parents did come to the set a couple of times, though and that did freak me out!