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A long, long time ago, before her much idolised union with Jurassic World‘s Chris Pratt went sour, Mom actress Anna Farris—she turns 42 on Nov. 29—had a four-year marriage to another actor, Ben Indra, now 39. Like with Pratt, Faris and Indra met onset. Unlike with the father of her 6-year-old son Jack, Faris and Indra’s marriage existed in a pre-social media world, so little was known about that relationship. But with her new book, the memoir Unqualified, Faris has revealed intriguing details of the rise and fall of her first marriage, and how Pratt—and Topher Grace—contributed to its demise. Here, we answer burning questions about the elusive Ben Indra.
1. Who is Ben Indra?
Anna Faris’s first husband was born on Feb. 23, 1979 in California. His full name is Benjamin Jeffery Indra. As an actor he starred in Lovers Lane, Tempest Eye and TV series Raising Dad with Bob Saget and Brie Larson. His last acting credit was a guest role in 2005 series Love, Inc.
2. Where did Ben and Anna meet?
Faris, who majored in English literature at University of Washington and always hoped to write, acted in her spare time to make extra cash. It was while she was rehearsing independent film Lovers Lane in Seattle in 1999 that she met Indra, then 22. “She was really cool, and I just didn’t want to miss the chance to get to know her as much as possible,” he told WHO in 2001. “I was just completely hypnotised.”
3. How did Ben propose to Anna?
In her 2017 book, Unqualified, Faris details how Indra proposed twice, and after asking her dad for permission. The first time, the budding actor couple were on their way to lunch when he took her to an antique jewellery store and asked her which ring she liked, then bought it and proposed on the spot. “I think my exact words were, ‘No, no, no, no, no. This is not how this is happening.’ … we were on our way to eat burritos.”
The second time was at the Mondrian Hotel a couple of months later. “When we got upstairs he got down on one knee and said all the nice things you might imagine for a marriage proposal. That’s when I said yes,” Faris says, then concedes that the fact she didn’t want to tell her parents should have given her pause for thought.
“I’ve often tried to understand my rationale for getting married the first time, because it does seem baffling to commit to a lifelong relationship when there are so many glaring problems,” she writes. “I still wonder why I did that, and I don’t fully have the answers and I don’t know if I ever will.”
4. What were the details of their wedding?
Very little is known about Faris and Indra’s nuptials. According to court papers filed as part of their Feb. 2008 divorce, the couple married in June 2004 and separated in March 2007.
5. Did Ben and Anna have children together?
No. Jack, her son with Chris Pratt, who was born prematurely in August 2012, is Faris’s only child.
6. What went wrong with Anna and Ben’s marriage?
Faris met Parks and Recreation actor Chris Pratt when they worked together on the 2007 set of Take Me Home Tonight. In Unqualified, she relates how she started off as Pratt’s wingman, helping him secure dates with other actresses on the set before she realised she was falling for him herself. Being around happy-go-lucky Pratt made her realise her relationship with Indra wasn’t right, especially after a visit from him onset led Take Me Home Tonight star Topher Grace to take her in hand, saying, “Anna, what the f–k are you doing with that guy?”
“When I looked back at my marriage, and many of my relationships before it, I realized I had always equated cynicism, discontent, and anger with intelligence, and getting together with Chris made me reexamine that. It made me realize that being with someone who was well-liked and popular actually made me happy,” she writes.
Pratt, who hesitated to show his feelings to the married Faris, told EW of her and Indra, ”it turns out they had been falling apart for a long time.”
7. What were the details of Faris and Indra’s separation?
Faris filed for divorce from Indra on April 3, 2007, citing irreconcilable differences. The split was finalised on Feb. 19, 2008, with her agreeing to pay $US900,000 and split properties and acting royalties.
8. How quickly did Anna remarry?
Faris and Pratt became engaged on her November birthday in 2008, nine moths after the divorce was official. In August that year, she told WHO that Pratt was “awesome. He’s a great, great guy. I feel really lucky.” As for Pratt, in April 2009 he said to WHO, “I knew I wanted to marry her pretty soon [after I met her.] It took a while for me to admit it, because it would be crazy to be like, ‘I want to marry you’ the first day I met her. But I could have!” The pair married in a small ceremony in Bali in July 2009. (Pratt and Faris announced their separation in August 2017.)
9. What more is known about Ben Indra?
Nothing we can track down. The elusive actor has no more IMDB credits after 2005 and seems to have no public social media presence either. Nor does he seem to have commented to the press to give his side of the story after Unqualified was released last year. In the book Faris writes, “Sure, I get to proclaim I didn’t f–k Chris before I left Ben, but what is there to celebrate in that? It didn’t make me a hero. After all, I wanted to, desperately … So while I didn’t cheat, I’m not completely innocent, either.”
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