In cinemas this week: Modest Anna Faris doesn’t go Overboard about career

WHICHEVER version of Overboard is your favourite, you have to admit that neither is too kind about rich folk.

The new remake is built around the tale of a struggling single mother who convinces a playboy yacht owner with amnesia that he is her husband.

The 1987 original, starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, was built around a rich lady with amnesia, and the husband who realised just how spoiled she’d become and denied being her spouse.

All of which made the original, and the remake, very topical and funny, and the romantic comedy will strike a chord with all sorts of people.

Already out in America, it has been doing brisk business at the box office, with stars Eva Longoria, Eugenio Derbez, Anna Faris and John Hannah playing it for laughs.

They call these kinds of remakes “reimaginings”, and we reckon this version easily equals the first one.

The 56-year-old Derbez, born in Milpa Alta, Mexico, is a huge star among the Spanish-speaking USA population, probably the biggest Hispanic male star on Earth.

Texas-born Longoria, born to Mexican-Texan parents, made her name as Gabrielle Solis in Desperate Housewives, and she describes herself as a Texican.

Together, they cook up some very funny moments, but it’s Anna Faris who grabs some of the best lines.

She plays Kate Sullivan, the struggling mum who finds an imaginative way to get some much-needed support from the amnesiac millionaire.

She isn’t assuming this will be a hit, even after appearances in the likes of Brokeback Mountain, Lost In Translation, and as Cindy Campbell in the Scary Movie films.

“I try to keep my head on straight and take nothing for granted,” she says. “I never really thought I wanted to be a movie star. I never imagined being able to make money from acting, but now I can.”

Surprisingly, for such a funny lady, she reckons she never realised she had a knack for humour and didn’t see herself that way.

“I was never the class clown or anything like that,” says the 41-year-old. “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.”

Not that it gets her down – it could be a positive boon.

“One of the things that comedy has given me over the years is a really good ability to laugh at myself, and to not take things that don’t matter too much too seriously,” she points out.

“I feel that very little offends me anymore, and I’m really grateful for that because I was a pretty uptight little kid.

“I love being a part of a romantic comedy. I’ve done a lot of comedies, but haven’t always had a ton of romance in them.”

Eva, too, loved working on the movie. And, comedy or not, she won’t have anyone saying that actors and actresses can’t have brains, too.

“I find it irresponsible to go, ‘She’s an actress, so what can she know?’” she says.

“That means if you’re a dentist, what do you know? If you’re a lawyer, what do you know? It’s our profession, it’s what we do. It’s not what we are.”

Overboard is in cinemas from Friday June 22.