Just before the release of Woman of the Hour on Netflix, Anna Kendrick talked on TODAY about the nerves, and the joy, of directing her first film.
A director who didn’t feel “in charge”
Kendrick admits it felt strange to pitch herself as director: “I don’t have the feeling of like I should be in charge of stuff.” The schedule was tight: about six weeks after saying yes, she was in Canada preparing the shoot. It was overwhelming, she says, but “the most rewarding experience of my career”.
The day before filming, her confidence was at its lowest. She called her friend Brittany Snow, from the Pitch Perfect films, expecting a sweet pep talk. Instead, Snow simply told her: “You’re going to get on set and you’re going to know what to do.” It was exactly what she needed. The Pitch Perfect cast, she says, are family; one of them, Kelly Jakle, plays one of the killer’s victims in the film.
A story about how women survive
The film is based on a real case from the 1970s: on The Dating Game, one of the three bachelors facing the contestant was a serial killer. For Kendrick, it is above all about the ways women move through the world and what they must do to survive, emotionally, financially and physically. Seeing her film on a billboard, with two close friends in the car, she burst into tears: she had seen her face on adverts before, but this felt very different.