Elizabeth Banks, although perhaps not a name that rings any bells with many, is the perfect example of gorgeous woman who is all the more lovable and popular because she doesn’t take her good looks too seriously. With her blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect features and a body to kill for, the actress knows she’s beautiful but also very open about the pains she goes through to look this good, as How Celebrities Lose Weight can confirm.

For starters, the 35-year-old star has often spoken about how she too, just like almost every other woman on the face of this planet, has moments when she’s not happy about her looks. It’s her chest, tummy or backside that she would like to change, though, she says, but rather her weight and height. Since she can’t do anything about the latter, she makes sure she keeps the former in check by staying very active yet, surprisingly enough, avoiding going to the gym if she can.

“I really believe you have to make time for it, but I also know how hard it can be to find time to get to the gym and keep up with it. The idea of getting in the car and driving to the gym and finding parking – it’s just not happening, because the whole thing could be a two-hour endeavor. I try to make it as easy for myself as possible,” Banks once said. With this in mind, the last time she had her home renovated, she made sure she had a gym built in too, so that the only thing she needs is the will to go inside it and get to work.

Still, she avoids fitness and Pilates because of her past experiences. “I can’t stick with [group fitness] long enough to really learn the moves. I’ll be in the back, with mirrors all around, and when everyone else’s hands are down, mine are up. Theirs go up, and mine go down. I just start laughing at myself and end up in a giggle fit, on the ground, laughing for the whole second part of the class. […] A Pilates machine looks like a torture machine, and it’s really hard. I’ve done it twice, and my stomach hurt for four days afterward,” she says.

Because of this, she sticks to routines that she’s already tried and that have suited her just fine, like an intense workout on the treadmill, exercises devised by her personal trainer using weights and free weights. When she’s not inside her personal gym breaking a sweat, Banks can be found with her husband on the tennis court or hiking near her Los Angeles house.

From Soft Pedia

Actress Elizabeth Banks and her husband Max Handelman didn’t get into producing to create better roles for the “40-Year-Old Virgin” star, but in a strange way, that’s exactly what happened.

According to Handelman, a former investment banker who spent his 20s working for Solomon Smith Barney and News Corp., “It was very important at the outset to establish our credibility as producers who could find material that is commercial and viable.”

Take “Surrogates,” a big-budget sci-fi thriller that stars Bruce Willis and opens Sept. 25 via Disney. Handelman (an admitted “comicbook nerd”) admired the graphic novel, so the couple started by courting its creator, Robert Venditti, who had always imagined Bruce Willis in the lead.

Then they pitched it to Mandeville’s Todd Lieberman, an old college friend from their days at the U. of Pennsylvania 17 years earlier (“Max started dating Elizabeth orientation week of our sophomore year,” Lieberman recalls).

Willis then bowed out of Oliver Stone’s Vietnam project “Pinkville” to “make our movie,” says Banks. “And Oliver subsequently had to make ‘W.’ in which I played Laura Bush, so I inadvertently created one of my favorite roles for myself.”

Since launching their Brownstone Prods. shingle two years ago, the couple have set up at least four more projects, including competitive a cappella comedy “Pitch Perfect” and “Expedition 6,” the true story of three astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station, both at Universal. They are also developing “America’s Most Hated Woman,” about atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair who lobbied against prayer in public schools, for Lifetime.

Only DreamWorks’ “Forever 21,” a “Working Girl”-style comedy with an ageism twist, is intended as a star vehicle for Banks, who sees producing as an extension of her craft: “I’m a trained storyteller. As an actor, we’re the last person to board the train that is a movie, but as a producer, I get to be there with the seed and watch it grow.”

P.O.V.

AGES: Banks: 35; Handelman: 36

HOME BASE: Los Angeles

INSPIRED BY: “We were impacted early on by Kennedy/ Marshall (who made “Seabiscuit” with Banks) as a husband-wife team who seem really grounded and are very respected,” Handelman says.

WEB: chooseyoursurrogate.com

Elizabeth Banks prefers simple, classic pieces, but the pantsuits and pearl necklaces she wears in Oliver Stone’s upcoming film W.? They don’t get her vote. “The wardrobe was very First Lady—clothes I wouldn’t normally be seen in,” she laughs.

The actress, who also stars in Eddie Murphy’s new movie, Meet Dave, says her fave red carpet dress is the Christian Dior sheath, seen here, which she wore to the Spiderman 3 premiere. “It was pretty and fresh, which is exactly how I wanted to feel that day,” explains Elizabeth, who also wore Dior jade and diamond earrings.

The vibrant ensemble looked stunning against her fair skin. “I’m really lucky. I don’t have circles under my eyes. I don’t have tired-looking skin,” says the star, who preserves her natural beauty by drinking lots of water. A Banks beauty tip: “I like cold compresses,” she adds. “If I’m in a rush, I’ll grab a soda can and stick it under my eyes.”

From My Style

Just trying to get everyone caught on some new movie roles for Elizabeth. Read below:

New Movie: “What Was I Thinking?”

Actresses Leslie Mann and Elizabeth Banks will explore the comic side of bad relationships in “What Was I Thinking?,” a movie based on the nonfiction book of the same name.

The film will revolve around a woman who gets dumped during her engagement party. Her friends spring into action and whisk her away on a ski trip for healing and hedonism. Threading through their adventures on the trip are four flashbacks dealing in “worst ex-boyfriend” tales.

Mann (who happens to be married to Apatow) would play a woman who dates a lot but never seems to have serious relationships, while Banks is a woman on the rebound. Two other lead female parts have yet to be cast. (Source)

New Movie: “Forever 21″

Elizabeth Banks will star in and produce the workplace comedy “Forever 21.”

Mike Culbert and Mike Pellettieri wrote the screenplay for the DreamWorks Studios project, which is now looking for a director.

Banks’ most recent big-screen role was in the horror film “The Uninvited.” In 2008 she appeared in “W.,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and “Role Models.” She has just signed on to star with Leslie Mann in the comedy “What Was I Thinking?” (Source)

Elizabeth Banks talks to Premiere about why ‘Zack and Miri’ could be a blueprint for how to get out of today’s economic crisis — or at least take your mind off of it for a while.

Elizabeth Banks is probably best known for her role as the showerhead-loving bookstore clerk Beth in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and her turn as Zach Braff’s girlfriend in Scrubs. In each of those roles, the 34-year-old Banks exhibited an open-hearted charm and a sly intelligence that belied the goofy-blonde stereotype of her characters, stealing every scene she was in. But rather than a one-trick comedic actress, Banks has proved real diversity in her roles; once you knew who she was, it turned out that she was everywhere — from the Spider-Man films to Seabiscuit to Slither. This month alone has given us two very different Bankses: first up, she channeled Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s W., and this week, she returns to comedy (and sex) with her starring role in Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, in which Banks and Seth Rogen play roommates who decide to cast, direct, and act in a porn to raise money. The film has already earned buzz for its raciness, Smith’s fights with the MPAA for an R rating, censoring of the posters in the U.S., and more (like an ongoing joke about a fecal mishap and a view of Jason Mewes’ goodies and well-groomed pubic hair ) — but it’s also a sweet rom-com about two roommates falling in love. On the eve of its release, Banks talked to Premiere about her affinity for Seth Rogen, playing Laura Bush, and her descent, in her next role, into evil.

Zack and Miri is about two roommates who make a porno in an attempt to escape their debt. Is this the ultimate recession film?
It’s a blueprint for how to get out of the economic crisis.

So it’s a service film.
It really is. We’re doing a solid for the American people. More than anything, I think, though, we’re supplying an outlet for escape from the current craziness that’s happening right now. If you want to go to the movies and laugh, this is your movie.

It does seem your economic plan involves sharing a camera with Seth Rogen — I heard he suggested you for the part of Miri.
He did, yeah, thank you.

This is the second time you two have played a couple onscreen — your characters ended up together at the end of 40-Year-Old Virgin — or the third if you count “I’m Fucking Seth Rogen,” the viral video you two made in response to Sarah Silverman’s “I’m Fucking Matt Damon.”
Oh that’s right, the video! I really consider Seth my acting soul mate, we have incredible chemistry. I would love to work together again and again and again. It probably won’t happen, but a girl can dream.

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