Anna Kendrick’s mom texted her late Tuesday night with an idea for Pitch Perfect 4. “She said, ‘I’m willing to give the idea to Paramount for the right price,’” Kendrick said in a panel at Hearst on Wednesday, noting her mom didn’t even tell her the idea. “I was like, ‘Well, it is a movie that was made by Universal Studios, so I’m not sure how that would work,’ but, that’s just good business. She’s just a competitive woman, and she knows how to start a bidding war.”
While plans for Pitch Perfect 4 aren’t yet confirmed (even though Kendrick would “love” to do it), Kendrick is currently juggling a buffet of projects. She’s set to reunite with Blake Lively in a sequel to A Simple Favor, and her directorial debut Woman of the Hour, which she also produced and starred in, just premiered on Netflix. “It was definitely like, I’m going to push myself off a cliff and just hope I packed my parachute correctly,” Kendrick said. “We’ll find out on the way down.”
Kendrick had been attached to Woman of the Hour—which is based on the true story of a woman encountering a serial killer on the retro TV show, The Dating Game—for two years prior to production. When it became time to put the movie together, a director was no longer attached. Kendrick decided to pitch herself, having a personal passion for the project, and after nailing down the gig, she quickly launched into prep for filming. “If it had been six months away, I might have pitched myself, but I think I definitely would’ve panicked and been like, ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t do it. We should find someone else,’” she said.
Clearly, Kendrick was the right choice, with Woman of the Hour receiving universal acclaim for its portrayal of Rodney Alcala’s murderous rampage, focusing more on the women he affected rather than humanizing him. Kendrick plays bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw, who is based upon a real woman who interacted with Alcala on The Dating Game but did not go on the date with him after filming. The movie follows her and the other women as they encounter Alcala, all under different but grave circumstances. Woman of the Hour currently sits at No. 1 on Netflix’s top 10.
Below, Kendrick discusses the film, the upcoming A Simple Favor sequel, her Kennedy Center Honors performance for Shirley MacLaine, and more.
When you were 12 in High Society on Broadway, did you ever think you would be directing your first feature now?
It is something I wanted to do, but I didn’t really want to admit. It feels too vulnerable to want something. You open yourself up to failure more if you’re admitting to yourself and to other people that you want something. You might not get it, and you might fail. I didn’t even fully admit it to myself until I was suddenly going, “I think I’m going to pitch myself to direct this movie.”
What attracted you to this project as opposed to others?
I think the nice way of putting it would be I was really passionate about the script…maybe a little over involved, a little controlling...because it did really matter to me. It’s a good role, but I really cared more about the movie as a whole. There’s something in the story that, although it’s a true story, it really felt emotionally powerful. The script had this weird seed of beauty in it. That’s a strange thing to say about this kind of story, but it’s almost like that painting of Ophelia [by John Everett Millais], where even in death, there’s all this beauty around her. She’s so much bigger than that. There’s a lot of imagery of nature [in Woman of the Hour], because I wanted all the women to feel like they were connected to something so much bigger than the moment that we’re meeting them. They are certainly so much bigger than this very, very pathetic, violent man that they were unfortunate enough to encounter.
This movie focused on the women and on their stories, and it didn’t make an effort to humanize Alcala that much. Why did you make that choice?
I had an experience a few years before this where there was someone that I loved and trusted, and then there was a real Jekyll and Hyde moment. That question of how much can you know about a person? was really present in my life. Focusing on the other person and trying to figure out what is going on with them and their psychology feels like it’s going to help, and it never does. You can just keep digging and digging and drive yourself crazy. There are more answers focusing on the impact rather than on the perpetrator, even if I found it difficult at times to not go down that rabbit hole and explore his mindset. It doesn’t matter what was going on in his mind, what matters is that I really focus on and feel the grief.
Would you direct again?
I would love to direct more. The challenge right now is finding something that I feel as strongly about as Woman of the Hour, because I really, really feel like I hit the jackpot with, not just the script, but with the cast and the crew. If one person had not been available, I would’ve been so screwed. At least once a day, someone truly saved the day.
Would you ever direct a film musical?
I do have a long-term ambition to, if I got enough experience under my belt. That would be the dream, to direct a movie musical. It’s very much not a, That’s what I want to do next, but a maybe one day. This weekend, I was at an event where Steven Spielberg got up and talked about making West Side Story. He was like, “Oh, it was so much harder than I thought it was going to be.” Steven Spielberg, at that point in his career, was like, “That was so hard.” I was thinking maybe by my fourth movie or my fifth movie, I’d be ready. Now I’m like, maybe my 50th. I’ll have to live to be 300 years old if I want to make a musical, my God!
What would be your dream musical to do that for?
Newsies. I was in my car listening to the soundtrack, as I am one to do, and I was like, “Oh my God, what if I remade the movie Newsies?” And I was like, “No, Anna, no. Everyone knows it’s a masterpiece and it’s perfect and it mustn’t be touched.” But, that movie was a critical and commercial failure of epic proportions for Disney at the time. That’s the reason no one would let me make it, not because it’s a masterpiece, although I think the lovers of the movie would be like, “Yeah, you can’t touch it. It’s a masterpiece.” There’s lots of reasons not to do it, but it is my secret dream.
For your Kennedy Center Honors performance for Shirley MacLaine in 2013, you sang, “It’s Not Where You Start (It’s Where You Finish).” What was that experience like, performing with Sutton Foster, Patina Miller, and of course Karen Olivo?
The Kennedy Center Honors was one of those easy top five most nervous [moments I’ve ever had]. Sutton Foster, Patina Miller, and Karen Olivo are singers. That is the gig. They’re so talented and so professional, and I was very much like there’s a film and TV actor here, and they’re going to have to put up with that.
They do this reception at the White House, and then you get in a car, you drive to the Kennedy Center, and you do the performance. I’m standing around this beautiful reception at the White House nervously holding a glass of champagne. At a certain point, [all of the women in the performance] gathered toward each other, and we were like, ”So are you nervous about later? Because I’m super nervous.” We all decided to get in a car together. We were awkwardly singing along to the radio a little bit because we were trying to secretly get warm. Then, Katy Perry’s “Roar” came on, and someone was like, “Sir, could you turn this up as loud as possible please?” We all are then belting out every part of that song in this hyper Broadway tone. I was like, “I can’t believe this is happening. I’m in a car with all these people, and they’re all singing along to the radio with me.”
You have a platinum single with “Cups.” Do you have the physical platinum record?
Yes. It is one of those things where I’m like, why did that happen? It started climbing the charts, and it was just like this thing that was happening for no reason. I felt like a real dick, because the people who were working really hard to promote their singles must’ve been like, excuse me, what? Who is that? I can’t imagine what that would feel like.
Why not a music career after that? Why not make an album?
My team did come to me, but I don’t write music. Also, it feels weird to say this now, because I am rapidly approaching 40, but I was also 26 when that happened. That doesn’t feel like when you start a pop career. It felt like something really cool is happening for no reason, and if we try to then make a record, the reason why it hadn’t happened in the first place will be revealed very quickly. So, I was like, I don’t think that’s the move.
A Simple Favor is getting a sequel. What it was like to reunite with that team, including Blake Lively, and film the second one?
I was so happy. We filmed it in Italy this spring and summer. It felt like it wasn’t ever actually going to come together. Then it did, and the script was awesome. It’s really dark and fucked up in all the ways that the first one was.
Can you tease anything about it?
I’ll say that I know that the standard selling point for any sequel is like, it’s even crazier than the first one, but this is. I’m not worried about saying that, because you’ll see it and you’ll be like, Jesus Christ. In that first movie that I was like, “Are we going to really alienate the audience with the whole half brother storyline?” People were just like, “Nope, love it. We love it.” I had more of the same where I was like, are people going to get on board with this? I also think that Paul [Feig, the director] is kind of a weird evil genius, because he’s such a sweetheart, but there’s some kind of dark magic going on up there where he can get you to buy in on my character having sex with her half brother.
Which of your characters required the largest shift away from your own natural persona, and why?
It does feel like everything is just a magnified piece of yourself. All of those pieces are in there, and some characters are just more assertive. I think that actually Stephanie in A Simple Favor is a hard one. I’m like, would you grow a fucking spine? It is difficult and Paul would tell you that there are times where I’m just like, “Why am I not standing up for myself? Why am I not? I’m letting myself get walked all over.” That does make me crazy. I think you also do this silly thing where you feel protective of your characters. You can’t treat Stephanie like that. You end up resisting parts of the character.
What is your dream currently? Where do you see your career going from here?
By the end of the year, I have a silly personal goal to learn to cook five things. It’s not like I’m going to jump onto a new project before the end of the year. So I was like, I need to be an adult woman who can at least cook five things. That’s my silly personal goal.
I don’t know that I have a solid goal for next career steps, other than to maybe direct again, because I haven’t really been in a position for 15 years where I’ve been pretty terrified about next steps. There have been times where I was like, Anna, you were fine. You were living a very comfortable life in a really, I don’t know, comfortable portion of your career. You could have just kept acting in the stuff that people wanted you to act in. It’s unnerving to feel like I’m starting from the beginning again. Mostly it makes me want to throw up, but no, it’s also exciting.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
