Anna Kendrick has called out an “icky” Hollywood director who embarrassed her in front of “100 extras.”
The actor, 39, made the candid admission during the latest episode of Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Horowitz asked the Pitch Perfect star what the worst note she’d ever received from a director was. Without naming the filmmaker, Kendrick replied: “I remember a director once in a room full of 100 extras or something… being like, ‘Hey, on this next one just try something. Just make something up. Just improv something.”
After Kendrick ad-libbed something as requested, “The director came over once again, in front of 100 extras and went, ‘Let’s go back to the script,’” she explained. “It really felt like a power move thing, to gain dominance or something. It was very, very icky. And then the thing that I improvved ended up in the trailer. So f*** you!”
Kendrick made her directorial debut, with her new film Woman of the Hour, which was released on Netflix in the US on October 18. While speaking to The Independent about the film, she also opened up about her relationship of six years with a man whom she has described as “for all intents and purposes my husband.” She alleged that during that relationship, which she has kept private, she experienced “emotional abuse and psychological abuse.”
Because of the themes of Woman of the Hour, and those of her most recent movie, Alice, Darling – about a woman in an abusive relationship – Kendrick said she’d been forced to speak about her own experiences.
“For a second, I did think that interviews for this film would just involve me being asked about every member of the cast and the crew, and I’d just gush about them and…” Kendrick explained. “But so far, no one’s asked me about the sound team.”
Woman of the Hour revolves around a series of killings committed by Rodney Alcala, a smooth-talking predator who charmed at least eight young women in the Seventies, took their photograph, then murdered them. The true extent of Alcala’s crimes is unknown – some suggest he may have been responsible for 130 murders.
Kendrick’s film primarily focuses on a surreal episode in Alcala’s spree: his 1978 appearance on the US TV show The Dating Game, where he served as one of three bachelors attempting to woo a young woman named Cheryl (played in the movie by Kendrick). Cheryl is an aspiring actor so used to being the target of dismissive remarks and latent misogyny that she barely flinches when it happens
“It does feel like the most revealing piece of work I’ve ever done,” she added. “It created a window into my mind.”
