Anna Kendrick has already made quite the mark on this industry with an Oscar nomination for Up in the Air, a hit franchise with the Pitch Perfect films and then some, but she’s in the process of furthering her influence in a big new way — by working behind the lens as well.

Kendrick earns her second feature film executive producer credit with her newest release, Alice, Darling. She also stars in the film as the title character, a woman losing her true self to a psychologically abusive boyfriend (Charlie Carrick). While on a vacation with her two closest friends (Kaniehtiio Horn and Wunmi Mosaku), Alice gets some much-needed perspective and support, but even then, struggles to break free of the web of coercion and control she’s been caught in.
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With Alice, Darling due out in theaters nationwide exclusively at AMC Theaters on January 20th, I got the chance to reconnect with Kendrick after our TIFF 2022 interview to talk more about the making of the film and how this experience might influence her work behind the lens moving forward.

Image via Lionsgate

Alice, Darling features four phenomenal individual performances, but the beating heart of the film is the bond between Kendrick, Horn, and Mosaku’s characters. With that in mind, I asked Kendrick for something unique about Horn and Mosaku’s approach to their work that she admires. She began:

“I was blessed with the most brilliant co-stars in this movie. Wunmi is, as a human being, when people talk about somebody lighting up a room, that’s absolutely her. She was really thoughtful and really wanted to feel every inch of, not only what her character, Sophie, was going through, but what everybody in the room is going through. She’s playing someone who’s really empathetic and sensitive and can see what’s going on more so than any other character in the film. Energetically watching her get to that place was really, really cool.”

As for Horn, she brings a far different energy to set. Here’s how Kendrick described it:

“I’ve said many times, I’m obsessed with her. I followed her around set like a baby bird. She’s so cool, such a badass. In that kind of badass Kaniehtiio way, she would just be very, very pragmatic. They were really on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of the way that they worked. I remember at one point, we were in a van heading to set and I think Wunmi was like, ‘Guys, should we sing songs and the first person to guess which song it is wins? We’ll make a little game.’ And Kaniehtiio was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re such a theater kid.’ She was just so stoic and sarcastic and funny. In the way that they were kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum as people, it was similar in terms of how they approached the work, and I think they actually ended up the closest out of everybody on the film, which I love. They couldn’t be more different and they went away with this incredible friendship.”

Image Via Lionsgate

When it comes to her work behind the lens, there’s been a noticeable uptick in Kendrick’s producing credits. It began with an EP credit on an episode of the Facebook Watch animated series, Human Discoveries, and then on to the Emmy-nominated short-form series, Dummy, and also HBOMax’s Love Life. Next up was executive producing the Netflix feature Stowaway, and now Alice, Darling. Here’s what Kendrick said when asked for the moment of inspiration that signaled to her that she could have a positive influence on set by working in a producing capacity on her projects as well:

“[Laughs] I definitely feel like there have been many projects where I’m convinced that my approach would be better. And, of course, we all come in with our own ideas and we’re all often wrong. But yes, there, of course, have been many times when I’m like, ‘I wish that I had a little bit more authentic power on this set to just maybe implement different approaches,’ or whatever. But I think with this one, I was more involved in the cuts in post-production than any other film before. The movie is very personal to me, so it was important to me to get it right every step of the way and to feel like I had an eye on what Alice was going through, and the way that we presented it and trusting that we could follow Alice’s experience and believe her, I guess, rather than leaning into showing maybe Simon’s behavior as the kind of evidence for what’s really going on in the film. There were a lot of different versions of the cut. And it was also really interesting to me to see the way that these tiny changes in the edit really can change the feeling of the film overall, even though they’re really small changes when you think about it.”

In addition to building a filmography as a producer, Kendrick is also kicking off her work as a director as well. She’s currently in post-production on her feature directorial debut, The Dating Game. During our TIFF 2022 conversation, Kendrick spoke a good deal about falling into a pattern of acting for video village and doing things that would ensure the folks behind the monitor would say, “We got it!” She admitted, “That becomes a little soul-crushing eventually.”

Given her itch to break that habit and the fact that she’s now in charge of directing an ensemble of actors in The Dating Game, I asked if she’s come up with any techniques to offer actors positive reinforcement, but without sparking the desperation to keep chasing it. Here’s what she said:

“I think a lot of the producers were surprised by the amount of stuff that I was doing with the actors in the film, where I think a lot of filmmakers, I don’t know whether it was in a program they went to or whatever, but I think there’s a lot of bad rumors going around about what you can and can’t say to actors. So there was a lot of stuff that I would just talk about with actors that people were like, ‘I didn’t know you were allowed to do that!’ Or, ‘I thought that was something you weren’t supposed to do.’ It’s weird. We’re sort of treated like both insane divas and as these delicate little eggshells. Sometimes you’re like, ‘Just tell me to clench my jaw.’ If it’s like everything’s working, but right at the end, just clench your jaw and then we’re good, great! And equally, there are scenes where it’s like, I’m just gonna give you all the space that you need and we’re gonna go until you’re happy. And I think that both of those things are valid for a whole movie and a whole performance. That was a really fascinating thing to me that so many people were like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were allowed to talk to actors like that,’ because I do think that there’s a rumor going around that we are basically crazy children, which is not not true. We’re barely people. [Laughs] I thought that was interesting.”

Looking for more from Kendrick on her experience bringing Alice, Darling to screen and the evolution of her work behind the camera? Be sure to catch our full conversation in the video interview at the top of this article!