Her film credits include The Hot Chick (2002), Lost in Translation (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Just Friends (2005), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Smiley Face (2007), The House Bunny (2008), What's Your Number?

[3][11][12] 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.

[13] Encouraged by her parents to pursue acting when she was young,[14] Faris gave her first professional performance at age nine in a three-month run of Arthur Miller's play Danger: Memory!

[15] She went on to play Scout in a production of To Kill a Mockingbird at the Village Theatre in Issaquah, Washington, the title character in Heidi, and Rebecca in Our Town.

Critical reception was mixed,[19][20] but for her part, Faris garnered her first acting reviews by writers; efilmcritic.com's Greg Muskewitz found her the film's "one center of interest".

[25] In its review, The Digital Fix found it "one of the finest examples of independent American genre filmmaking" and asserted that Faris played her role "with an infectious level of enthusiasm, frequently skirting the border between a believable performance and one that is completely over the top, but always managing to come down on the right side.

"[26] Later in 2002, she starred alongside Rob Schneider and Rachel McAdams in the comedy The Hot Chick, about a teenage girl whose mind is magically swapped with that of a 30-year-old criminal.

[27] In 2003, Faris was "cast last-minute" opposite Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Sofia Coppola's drama Lost in Translation, where she played a "bubbly, extroverted" actress getting in with an aging actor in Tokyo.

[34] In 2004, Faris debuted on the last season of the sitcom Friends in the recurring role of Erica, the mother whose twin babies are adopted by Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Monica (Courteney Cox);[35] and in the summer that year, she filmed a small part in Ang Lee's drama Brokeback Mountain (2005).

[28] For the film, Faris, along with her co-stars, received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

"[37] In Just Friends, Faris portrayed Samantha James,[38] an emerging, self-obsessed pop singer landing in New Jersey with a formerly overweight nerd (played by co-star Reynolds), now a successful record producer.

[44] In Gregg Araki's independent stoner comedy Smiley Face (2007), Faris starred as Jane F, a young woman who has a series of misadventures after eating a large number of cupcakes laced with cannabis.

[47] Reviews were largely positive; according to the film-critics aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, writers agreed that her "bright performance and Gregg Araki's sharp direction" made the film "more than [the] average stoner comedy.

Although it received average reviews, critics were unanimously favorable towards Faris's part,[52] most of them agreeing, according to website Rotten Tomatoes, that she was "game" in what they called a "middling, formulaic comedy.

"[58] Controversy arose regarding a scene where Rogen has sex with Faris's intoxicated character, with various advocacy groups commenting that it constituted date rape.

[62] Faris voiced a weather intern and the love interest of a wannabe scientist in the animated Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as well as Jeanette Miller (one of the Chipettes) in the live-action hybrid Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, both of which were box office successes.

[67] Faris's subsequent film release was the retro comedy Take Me Home Tonight, about a group of friends partying on one summer night during the 1980s.

It garnered generally mediocre reviews, who concluded that the "comic timing" of Faris was "sharp as always," but felt it was wasted in "this predictable, boilerplate comedy.

Her next film role was that of a human rights activist befriending a childish autocrat in the political satire The Dictator (2012), co-starring Sacha Baron Cohen.

[76] Critics gave it decent reviews, with Faris's role garnering a similar reception; Los Angeles Times called her "the film's standout" and stated that when "she opens her mouth, that rasp that has made her so much fun to watch (the Scary Movie franchise most memorably) takes hold and turns the dialogue inside out.

"[77] The picture was a box office success, grossing US$179 million globally,[78] and earned Faris the Star of the Year Award at the National Association of Theatre Owners.

"[81][82] In the British romantic comedy I Give It a Year (2013), Faris played an old flame of a writer (Rafe Spall) who hastily tied the knot.

[87] Throughout its eight-season run, the sitcom has become the third most-watched comedy on television,[88][89][90] and has received generally favorable reviews;[91][92] Vulture called her "the most talented comic actress of her generation," and Boston Herald critic, Mark A. Perigard wrote in his verdict: "This is dark material, yet Faris balances it with a genuine winsomeness, able to wring laughs out of the most innocuous lines.

[95] Faris reprised her voice-role in the animated science-fiction comedy sequel Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, released in theaters four days after Mom premiered on television.

The memoir became one of the "top 20 blockbuster books of autumn," according to Amazon,[112] and received a positive critical response; The New York Times found the book to be "goofily self-deprecating, casually profane and occasionally raw, earnest and blunt, like Ms. Faris herself,"[113][114] and The Ringer remarked: "Unqualified is observant, sharp, and startlingly revealing, not only about Faris's romantic history, but of the broader discrepancies between modern male and female Hollywood stardom writ large.

"[115] In Overboard (2018), a remake of the 1987 film of the same name starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Faris played a single, working-class mother who convinces a spoiled wealthy playboy (Eugenio Derbez) with amnesia that they are married.

[93][122][123] Cosmopolitan magazine named her "the Cosmo's Fun Fearless Female of the Year" in 2010,[124] and Tad Friend described her in The New Yorker as "Hollywood's most original comedic actress.

Faris started dating actor Ben Indra shortly after they met on the set of the 1999 indie slasher film Lovers Lane.

[142][143] Faris met actor Chris Pratt in early 2007 at the table read in Los Angeles for the film Take Me Home Tonight where their characters were love interests.

[14] They started dating shortly after, became engaged in late 2008,[144] and married on July 9, 2009, in a small ceremony in Bali, Indonesia,[145][146] eloping on a whim after a friend's wedding.