Anna Kendrick Rethought Her Entire Approach to Acting With ‘Alice, Darling’
Anna Kendrick has been a professional actor since she was a child, and she’s appeared in several iconic films during her career. When one of those early movies launched her to a new level of fame, she got some words of wisdom about her future in acting. That advice came in handy recently, as she started a new project and a new approach to her career.
Anna Kendrick’s early start in show business
Kendrick was only 12 years old in 1997 when she was nominated for a Tony for her work in the Broadway musical High Society. According to Biography, she transitioned into movies in 2003 with her role in Camp. In 2008, she became a part of the cultural phenomenon that was the Twilight movie franchise, also appearing in sequels that were released in 2009, 2010, and 2011. After that, she also starred in another iconic movie, Pitch Perfect, in 2012, with sequels in 2015 and 2017.
Toward the beginning of this rise to fame, in 2009, Kendrick co-starred in the movie Up in the Air with George Clooney. The movie earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
The actor got some important advice
Up-and-coming actors are eager to land their “breakthrough” roles, but there can be a negative side to it. As Kendrick shared in an interview with Indie Wire, she got some helpful insight about what would happen next after all the attention she got for Up in the Air.
“Somebody said something to me right after ‘Up in the Air’ came out that was like, ‘Everything you’re about to get offered is going to be the exact performance you just gave,'” Kendrick explained. “Because for an industry that’s supposedly so creative, people have very short memories and they want to take the easy route a lot. So you’ll basically be offered a bunch of things that are exactly the same thing you just did, and then you’ll finally do something different and you’ll just get offered that thing.”
That turned out to be exactly what happened, and she was repeatedly cast as a quirky, happy character for the next decade or so. But knowing what was coming seemed to prepare her for it, and it also helped her get ready for the move she made recently: stepping out of her typical role to work as the executive producer and star of the new movie Alice, Darling.
Anna Kendrick’s new role echoes her real life
In Alice, Darling, Kendrick plays a woman who is in an emotionally abusive relationship. On a weekend away with her friends, she starts to disconnect from her partner and leave the relationship. Her performance has been described as “heart-wrenching.”
Alice, Darling is a move away from the roles she’s played in the past, but the story sadly echoes experiences she’s had in her life, as she explained to People.
“I was coming out of a personal experience with emotional abuse and psychological abuse,” she said. “I think my rep sent it to me, because he knew what I’d been dealing with and sent it along. Because he was like, ‘This sort of speaks to everything that you’ve been talking to me about.’ “
Kendrick said that taking on the role was a “very intentional stepping out of my comfort zone, not only because I related to the material, but because I knew that it would have value for me to tolerate the discomfort of doing something that I don’t already know that I can do.”
Now that she knows for sure that she can do something different, fans will be watching to see where it takes her next.
