Anna Kendrick has talked about what she meant by “forgetting” that she was in the Twilight films.
The Pitch Perfect star, 39, posted on X in 2018, writing: “Holy s***. I just remembered I was in Twilight.” Fans at the time responded with their favourite quotes by her, and Prime Video cheekily responded with an image of her filmography showing her appearance in three out of four films in the popular franchise: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn: Part One.
On an episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Kendrick talked about her iconic role and that she meant that her character never took on the cult status that several others did, so she didn’t feel the same pressure as some of her co-stars.
“A while ago, I had done a silly funny tweet where I just said, ‘Holy s***. I just remembered I was in Twilight.’ And people were like, ‘You didn’t forget that you were in Twilight,’” she told host Alex Cooper.
Holy shit. I just remembered I was in Twilight.
— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) November 26, 2018
“The answer is truly yes and no. Obviously I didn’t forget the experience of making the movies... But those movies, especially at the time, took on such a life of their own, and they were such a kind of, for better or for worse, a kind of touchstone.
“Such a reference that everybody would talk about trying to find the next Twilight or whatever. I would find myself in business conversations talking about, ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that there’s a book series that just got optioned that we maybe wanna try and make it the next Twilight.’ And then I would be like, ‘Oh my god, I’m in that. I’m, oh my god.’”
Kendrick played Jessica Stanley, one of Bella Swan’s classmates and friends at Forks High School.
The Simple Favor star went on to explain that she felt that by playing a human character, she was able to stay on the outside of the furore over Catherine Hardwicke’s book to film adaptation.
“I was really lucky to not be dealing with the eye of the storm. You know? I think that a lot of the folks that were in the movie, even in the later movies, as long as you were a supernatural character, if you had one line, you couldn’t leave your hotel room.
“People were crazy, and people were criticising, ‘Oh, but she has green eyes in the book’, or whatever. And I just didn’t have to deal with any of that.”
The Twilight films went on to gross over $3.3bn worldwide across the entire film franchise, which lasted from 2008 to 2012. The films also transformed romantic leads Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart into household names, with the latter earning nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Speaking of the level of fame and scrutiny that Pattinson and Stewart came under, Kendrick said she felt glad she didn’t have to face it.
“So it almost feels like I didn’t really have the gauntlet that…most of the other people did. I just had to show up and say dumb funny s***... It was awesome.”
Kendrick has spoken about the difference in her filming experience from her co-stars previously as well.
“Almost everyone else in the cast had to treat every moment like life and death, good versus evil, our eternal souls are on the line – and all I had to do was show up and make a snarky comment as I kind of pass through the frame,” she told Business Insider.
“So I really felt like such a bystander to it in a way that I was very grateful to be privy to this kind of cultural phenomenon without it really impacting me in the ways that I think would’ve felt really challenging and overwhelming.
“The fans of those books are so invested that even if you came into the franchise really late and you had one line, but you were playing a vampire or a werewolf, they’re obsessed with you. They’re picking apart every detail of your costume and your gestures and whatever, and I just didn’t have that level of responsibility.”
Referencing her original post about forgetting she was in the film, Cooper and Kendrick posted a clip where the host repeatedly keeps playing Eyes on Fire by Blue Foundation, which plays in an important scene in the first film.
THEY COULD HAVE DONE THE MOST ICONIC THING AND THEY DID pic.twitter.com/phpfACoxzX
— grandma (@Annakendrickok) October 24, 2024
Kendrick also spoke about her directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, which tells the shocking true story of how a serial killer managed to become a contestant on a dating show in the late 1970s.
The film, which Kendrick told The Independent is the “most revealing piece of work I’ve ever done”, focuses on Rodney Alcala, who appeared on The Dating Game, a Blind Date style show, in 1978.
The Independent’s Annabel Nugent gave the film three stars, describing it as “intriguing but cautious”.
“We receive little insight into Alcala’s motivations and mental state, no doubt an ethical choice on behalf of Kendrick and screenwriter Ian McDonald, but their film would’ve benefited from further fleshing him out. Alcala’s victims are rendered similarly compressed; their flashbacks are both too fleeting and too frequent. The film seems to walk on eggshells. Aesthetically, too, it’s polished to an extent that feels inauthentic.”
Woman of the Hour is streaming on Netflix.
