Anna Faris wanted to take a swipe at Melania Trump in her new movie, and almost got away with it.
The actress, back as horror parody icon Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie 6, revealed she deliberately played the character as a “classic MAGA” type, and even filmed a joke riffing on the first lady’s much-mocked “Be Best” campaign. The gag didn’t make the final cut, however.
“I was always pushing for Cindy to be classic MAGA rabbit hole,” Faris told gaming and entertainment outlet Dexerto. “The kind of person that you saw outside of the Walmart during quarantine, that was raising some kind of crazy a-- fuss.”
The deleted moment had Cindy, blackout drunk in her truck, catching her own reflection. “I look into the rearview mirror and I say, ‘Be best, Cindy Campbell. Be best,’” Faris said, riffing on the name of Melania’s campaign. “That didn’t make it, but I liked my little winking there.”
Melania launched “Be Best” in 2018 as an anti-cyberbullying initiative—an irony widely noted at the time, given her husband’s well-documented online conduct.
Faris said she was ready to offend with the joke. “You know, what are you gonna do? You gonna be mad at Cindy?” she said. “I’m in a movie that is truly the most offensive movie ever made, and I’m the lead of it. And I participate in offensive ideas. I think I can kind of do anything. It liberated me.”
The first lady has kept the campaign alive in a characteristically unusual fashion. In March, she kicked off the second day of her Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit by walking down a White House hallway alongside a humanoid robot named Figure 3, which greeted attendees in 12 languages and declared it was “an honor” to be there.
Melania told the robot, “It’s fair to state you are my first American-made humanoid guest in the White House.” The other guests applauded awkwardly as the robot left the room.
Melania herself didn’t linger. She exited after seven minutes, skipping the networking portion she had encouraged her attendees—including French first lady Brigitte Macron—to participate in, according to CNN.
Faris, for her part, is back in full force. After originating the role of Cindy Campbell in the Wayans Brothers’ original Scary Movie in 2000 and appearing in the third and fourth installments, she sat out Scary Movie 5 in 2013. She rejoins Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Regina Hall for the sixth entry, now in theaters.
