Nellie Andreeva

Anna Faris has been tapped as the lead in Mom, CBS‘ comedy pilot from Chuck Lorre, the man behind the network’s comedy series Two And A Half Men, The Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly. Mom, which Lorre co-wrote on spec with two members of his Two And A Half Men team — executive producer Eddie Gorodetsky and story editor Gemma Baker — centers on a newly sober single mom (Faris) who tries to pull her life together in Napa Valley. The project, produced by Warner Bros TV and studio-based Chuck Lorre Prods, was taken to CBS last month, landing a pilot order.

This marks a rare foray into TV for feature actress Faris, The House Bunny star who has been on the wish list of comedy pilot casting directors for several years. Her only previous series credits include a high-profile guest arc on the final season of NBC’s Friends as the birth mother of the twin babies adopted by Monica and Chandler, and another one on HBO’s Entourage where she played herself. Faris, repped by WME, Anonymous Content and attorney Robert Offer, also played the lead in Jhoni Marchinko’s 2005 NBC comedy pilot Blue Skies and has twice hosted NBC’s Saturday Night Live. On the feature side, her credits include the Scary Movie franchise, Lost In Translation and most recently, The Dictator and What’s Your Number?

Heading into the pilot pickup and production portion of the current development season, CBS already has locked in the leads of two of its highest-profile projects, Mom and the Beverly Hills Cop reboot, which has not been formally greenlighted yet but has Brandon T. Jackson attached to star.

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