Actress Anna Faris revealed she stopped drinking after realizing alcohol was driving a cycle of depression and self-sabotage, and opened up about her 14-year-old son Jack's surprising embrace of Christian faith.
Faris made the disclosures during an appearance on Chelsea Handler's "Dear Chelsea" podcast, Fox News Digital reported. The actress, best known for the "Scary Movie" franchise, told Handler that sobriety forced her to confront patterns she had ignored for years, and that stepping away from alcohol changed how she saw her own career and her relationship with her son.
Handler raised the subject directly, asking Faris whether quitting drinking had shifted her outlook. Faris did not hedge.
"Turns out there's a correlation between drinking and depression for me for sure. I had to take a step back to not self-sabotage."
She did not say exactly when she stopped or how long she had been sober. But she called the decision "one of the many gifts" that reshaped her perspective. She also credited hormone patches as a separate breakthrough for her mental health, calling them a "game changer," though she offered no details on the type or the condition they addressed.
Faris told Handler that in the past year she had begun to feel "ungracious" about her comedy career and her body of work. That changed, she said, when she started paying closer attention to the way people reacted to her in public. She described a shift in how she experienced recognition from strangers.
"I really started to notice and appreciate if and when people recognize me, they would usually smile... thinking about something f---ing stupid I did onscreen."
The observation was small, but Faris framed it as part of a larger recalibration, one she tied directly to sobriety clearing out the fog of self-doubt. For someone who spent years in broad comedy, the realization that audiences remembered her fondly, not critically, seemed to land hard.
Substance abuse and mental health struggles have become a recurring theme in Hollywood conversations. The willingness of public figures to speak plainly about addiction, without the usual publicist-approved framing, stands out, particularly when it comes paired with the kind of personal accountability Faris described. She did not blame anyone else. She identified the problem, named the behavior, and said she walked away from it.
That kind of straightforward ownership is rarer than it should be, in entertainment or anywhere else. When public figures face substance-related crises, the response is often deflection or excuse-making. Faris chose a different path.
The most striking portion of the conversation had nothing to do with Hollywood. Faris revealed that her son Jack, her child with ex-husband Chris Pratt, has embraced religion and asked her to accept Jesus Christ as her savior.
Faris, who said she did not grow up with religion, told Handler she took the request seriously even though faith does not come naturally to her.
"He is religious. I didn't grow up with religion. He's asked me to accept Jesus Christ [as my savior]. And I told him I would do anything for him, including this, but it's going to take a whole lot of long conversations."
What followed was a window into a mother testing her teenager's convictions, and the teenager holding his ground. Faris described pressing Jack on whether his pro-life stance was "kind of a luxury" and questioning him about megapastors she characterized as grifters.
"He's impressive, actually. Because I try to challenge him. I'm like, 'Do you think it's a luxury that you get to be pro-life? Do you think that's kind of a luxury?' And he's like, 'Maybe.' Or I'll say, 'What do you think of this megapastor that's kind of a grifter?' And he's like, 'Oh, megapastors are the worst.' So it's like, 'OK, he's getting there.'"
Faris's "he's getting there" carried a clear implication, she views Jack's faith as something he will refine or possibly outgrow. But the exchange also revealed a 14-year-old who can absorb pointed questions from a skeptical parent without folding. He conceded nuance on megapastors. He did not abandon the core belief.
Jack Pratt was born in August 2012, nine weeks premature. Faris and Chris Pratt married in 2009 and split in 2018. The boy's father has been open about his own Christian faith in interviews over the years, and Jack's religious convictions appear to run in that direction.
For conservative readers, the exchange between Faris and her son may be the most telling part of the interview. A teenager raised in Hollywood, surrounded by an industry that treats religious belief as quaint at best and dangerous at worst, chose faith anyway. His mother, to her credit, did not shut him down. She pushed back, listened, and left the door open.
That is more than many parents in that world would do. And it says something about the boy that he asked his mother to join him rather than keeping his beliefs quiet. In an environment where personal accountability often takes a back seat to public image, a 14-year-old standing on conviction is worth noticing.
Faris did not say whether she ultimately agreed to Jack's request. She left it at "long conversations." Whether those conversations lead anywhere remains an open question, but the fact that they are happening at all says more about the kid than about the culture he is growing up in.
Sometimes the clearest thinking in a family comes from the person who has been alive the shortest amount of time.
