2. First roles
Anna’s first screen credit came in the amazing-sounding television movie, Deception: A Mother’s Secret in 1991.

She also had a small part in soppy drama Eden in 1996, before her first really substantial role as teen lesbian murder-fodder in daft slasher Lovers Lane in 1999.

ANNA FACT: She’s never seen herself as a comedy actress “I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle I was always doing very dramatic work. Now I can't get a dramatic role to save my life!”

3. Big break
Anna’s big break came in the Wayan brothers’ scattershot slasher parody Scary Movie in 2000, where she played the permanently shrieking lead Cindy Campbell.

Although mostly taking aim at Scream, Scary Movie also took broad swings at I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Blair Witch Project, The Usual Suspects and The Matrix. It divided critics (it sucked), but it ended up a bigger hit than Scream itself.

ANNA FACT: She’s a natural blond but died her hair dark for Scary Movie, to look more like Neve Campbell in Scream.