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"Elizabeth Banks: Her Allure Photo Shoot\\nActress Elizabeth Banks talks about infertility, being a bread-winner, and her raunchy-comedy sex scenes. For our complete interview with Banks, pick up the June issue of Allure, on newsstands May 22.\\nOver a year ago, Banks and her husband, producer Max Handelman, had their son, Felix, via a gestational surrogate. \\\"It's essentially a test-tube baby\u2014it's just that the test tube is another woman,\\\" she says. \\\"That you can grow a baby outside of yourself! It's just amazing!\\\" The actress often seems to wind up playing pregnant women onscreen, wearing a fake belly in recurring roles on *Scrubs* and *30 Rock, *and most recently in the film *What to Expect When You're Expecting*. \\\"I had already mourned the loss of my fertility for myself, so I was past it,\\\" says Banks about the roles. \\\"The only time it really affected me was when Alec Baldwin looked me straight in the eye and asked me, 'Are you pregnant right now?' And I blanched totally. Because of course, technically, no. I wasn't.\\\" Here, the actress poses in M.C.L. by Matthew Campbell Laurenza topaz-and-silver earrings and a Burberry Prorsum dress.\\nGrowing up, Banks thought she had physical impediments to an acting future. \\\"I thought I had chicken legs, and I thought, Oh, my boobies are too small,\\\" she says. \\\"It was the era of Cindy Crawford and The Body\u2014and I didn't have that.\\\"\\n\\nBanks showed off her assets in another era at her *Allure* shoot; as a 1930s vamp, for a scene inspired by Bernardo Bertolucci's film *The Conformist*. She posed alongside professional dancers as tango music, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday played. Here, Banks wears a sequined gown by Donna Karan New York, an Ostrich-feather cape by Gucci, and Miriam Haskell earrings.\\nFor her first *Allure* cover, hairstylist Oribe brushed out the waves Banks wore for the other photographs in the issue. He applied [Oribe Hair Care Royal Blowout Heat Styling Spray,](http://www.allure.com/beauty-products/hair/2010/oribe-royal-blowout-styling-spray) then smoothed the hair with a blow-dryer and a round brush. Once the primping was finished, the former catalog model didn't even glance in the mirror before her cover shot, saying, \\\"If you like it, I like it.\\\" Here, Banks wears a sequined gown by Donna Karan New York.\\nBanks talks candidly about outearning her husband. \\\"Well, we're the first generation to do it,\\\" she says. \\\"And it's very ingrained even in our DNA that men are hunter-gatherers who are meant to go off and provide. And that we are really meant to stay at home and have kids.... Let's be honest. Men love a second income. It gets them their boat and their vacations. They want their wives to work.\\\" Here, Banks wears a Gucci dress.\\nBanks's cover shoot makeup was inspired by the early-1970s looks of Patti Hansen and Lauren Hutton, says makeup artist Romy Soleimani: \\\"Beautiful skin and a nice dose of mascara.\\\" As a first step, the makeup artist created cat-eyes, from Banks's lash lines to the creases, with a silver eye shadow. \\\"It's still very subtle,\\\" she says. Soleimani then patted a sheer tinted moisturizer and a sandy cream blush onto the actress's cheeks. The makeup artist used her fingers to smooth on a peachy pink lipstick so that the overall effect \\\"wouldn't look too perfect.\\\"\\nIn *The 40-Year-Old Virgin,* Banks's character memorably masturbates with a shower nozzle. \\\"I think comedy requires that kind of humor,\\\" she explains. \\\"If you're not really going for it, an audience can tell.\\\"\\n\\\"When you're young in this business, you don't realize it, but there are no superhero movies starring women!\\\" says Banks. \\\"I was very idealistic. And so it was an adjustment knowing I was going into a movie and would be working just as hard as the male actors, and in some cases feeling I was more talented than they were\u2014and knowing I was making a fraction of their salary. And knowing also that this is my reality going forward.\\\"\\nBanks says, \\\"It's not good to put in a magazine what I weigh because it's too little. People freak out when they hear what I weigh. They think, Oh, you're too skinny. But I ate a cupcake last night\u2014and I eat broccoli. I work out with a trainer; she kicks my ass and my husband's ass two or three days a week.\\\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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