The best Bunny in the house talks about raunchy humor, those gawky teen years and what it’s really like hanging with Hef and the girls

Q1 Playboy: What's funny about being an octogenarian?

Anna Faris: The funniest thing about being 81 has been that I don't realize it. I had an 80th birthday party last year, and that was the only way I knew it was true. I don't feel 81, I don't act 81, and they say I don't look 81. My son Larry likes to go upstairs to my room, where I've got pictures on the wall of me with all the biggies. He'll walk through and do a status report on each one: "Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Critical. Serious. Hanging in there. Okay. And possibly a month, tops."

Q2 Playboy: Since you and Mrs. Rickles have dined with television's greatest late-night talk-show hosts, give us your survey of their private eating habits.

Faris: Letterman is very much a recluse. I always kidded him on the show: "Dave, when are we going to have dinner together?" I'd make a whole big thing. Finally, one night Dave said to meet him over at the famous 21 restaurant. I couldn't believe it. We went there, and the maître d' said, "Mr. Letterman will meet you down in the cellar." The cellar! Suddenly, it's dinner with Howard Hughes. It was a secret room in the wine cellar from the speakeasy days. The second time, I had dinner with him and one of his writers in a different cellar -- I swear to God -- this time down four flights of steps. Maybe he's related to Bela Lugosi. Johnny Carson was the same way. He was very uncomfortable among a lot of people. He was marvelous if we were just four or six but forget about any more at a table. And with Leno you feel as if you're in a diner: "A napkin? Where do you get those?" But remember, he likes to eat under his cars while he's giving them a lube job. Not a big gourmet guy, if you know what I mean.

Q3 Playboy: What career advice can you give Triumph the Insult Comic Dog?

Faris: I've never seen the bit, but I've heard about it. I mean, the dog's a puppet with a guy's hand up its ass. No wonder it has mood swings! There's another guy who does insults, Lewis Black. They say he's a lot like me. I don't know if that's true or not. I can take pride in saying I'm one of a kind. I think that's what made me successful. When I first started doing this, there were a lot of problems. People would say, "Who needs this guy?" To this day, I'm established, but people who don't know me personally think I'm going to walk up to them and say, "You're a hockey puck! You're a moron! You're a jerk!

Get out of my life!" You know I'm not that way.

Q4 Playboy: You brought the language an altogether new meaning for the term hockey puck. Can you figure out why it haunts you to this day?

Faris: I swear to God, if you can tell me, I'd love to know. I never stop hearing it -- in New York, in particular, and also Chicago. I have no idea. I don't use "hockey puck" on the stage. As best as I can figure, it must have started way back when I worked in strip joints and had no ad-lib for guys who heckled me. I'd say, "Don't be a hockey puck!" That's how I think it started. Now I've got hockey pucks up to my kazoo. I had a giant box of pucks in my garage, but we dumped them. By then I could've filled another box with Mr. Potato Heads after I did the Toy Story pictures. At least that was good for the grandchildren.

Q5 Playboy: Is it true you've never told an actual joke?

Faris: I don't tell jokes. I'm not a stand-up. I'm not a guy who comes out and says, "Two Jews got off a bus." I'm not like that. The director John Landis, who's making a documentary about me with my son Larry, said something interesting: "Don, what you do is a theatrical performance." I realized that's as good a description as anything I've heard.

Q6 Playboy: So anyone who calls you a stand-up does so at their peril?

Faris: I resent the label "stand-up," because it's not that way. It's my personality, and it's attitude. A lot of people who've never seen me think I'm going to be a horror show. And I'm not. I always say, "I'm the guy who goes to the office Christmas party and makes fun of the boss and everybody else, wipes everybody out, and Monday morning still has his job." I tell the truth and exaggerate things about people. That's what makes it funny. That's the whole secret.

Q7 Playboy: Your breakthrough came with your first appearance on The Tonight Show, in 1965, when you greeted Johnny Carson with "Hello, dummy."

Faris: He's the one who gave me the nickname Mr. Warmth. Johnny knew how to play me like a master violinist. I can say truthfully that every time I went on The Tonight Show it became an event. He'd say, "How's your mother?" I'd say, "You don't like my mother! Why are you talking about my mother?" We'd go from there and do 20 minutes on my mother and his mother. I'd say, "Your mother is living in Nebraska, begging for money. What the hell is the matter with you? Send her the check!" Every time we'd get screams. I'd get off and they'd say, "Wow! Did you see Rickles the other night?

Q8 Playboy: You've acted in movies with some of the greatest stars of the last century, from Clark Gable to Robert De Niro. Did any of their tricks of the trade stick in your craw?

Faris: My first picture was Run Silent, Run Deep, with Gable and Burt Lancaster. Can you imagine? Lancaster would say, "You know, Don, you've got to understand submarines on this picture. Very important. You have to know why the sub dives, why it comes up, why it stays at the bottom!" My head was spinning. I went over to Gable and said, "Clark, Burt was just telling me everything about the submarine so we can do our scenes. I don't know." Gable snaps, "Just do the dialogue. He's too serious. Just forget about it." In Casino I didn't go, "What's my motivation to be scared?" With De Niro and Martin Scorsese, they'd sit and discuss it. Scorsese would say, "Roll 'em!" and De Niro would walk through the casino with me and go, "Huhmhhghhrrhhuhghhh." I'd say, "Hold it! I can't do this. The man mumbles. I don't need this. The man is a mumbler!" The crew would start laughing, and Scorsese would fall down, which was a problem because he's three feet tall to begin with. With Marty I would always say, "Get him a couple of phone books. I can't see him. I hate to work with a director you can't see."