“Woman of the Hour” first look: Anna Kendrick on 'absolutely terrifying' but rewarding directorial debut

The actor also recalls a blunt pep talk from her friend Brittany Snow that helped boost her confidence while helming the true-crime period piece.

Anna Kendrick has a history of making good first impressions.

Her first starring role, the 1998 Broadway musical High Society, earned her a Tony nomination at 12. When she made her big-screen debut a few years later in Camp, she was nominated for Best Debut Performance at the Independent Spirit Awards. And after scoring her first box-office hit with Twilight, she was nominated for an Oscar at 24 for Up in the Air.

But now, 15 years and two major franchises later, her upcoming directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, has her feeling like it's her first time giving an interview. When she connects with Entertainment Weekly over Zoom to discuss the true-crime period piece for our Fall Movie Preview, the actor, singer, and author, known for her quick wit and casual confidence, is "out of her body" nervous. That's how much this means to her.

"I'm really having the experience of like, 'Wow, you think I'd been doing this for 15 years or something?" she says, fighting back tears. "I think I am just so — I love the movie so much, and I want to do it justice. Also, I guess just being in a new job title means I feel like I've never done this before." 

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It's a fair point, but when audiences watch the film (out Oct. 18), they'll be hard-pressed to find signs of a first-time director. Kendrick navigates the material with the deft hand of a veteran filmmaker, a feat made all the more challenging by the harrowing true-crime elements of the script. The screenplay, by Ian MacAllister McDonald, was featured on the 2017 Black List, an annual survey of the most-liked unproduced scripts, under the title Rodney & Sheryl. In lesser hands, it's easy to imagine McDonald's story devolving into a film centered around serial murderer and rapist Rodney Alcala (played chillingly by Daniel Zovatto). In a stranger-than-fiction twist, Alcala actually appeared on — and won — The Dating Game in 1978. His prize, a date with the episode's bachelorette, Cheryl Bradshaw (played by Kendrick), never materialized. Bradshaw found him "too creepy." After his appearance on the show, he killed at least three more women before he was finally caught. (In the film, Nicolette Robinson's Laura, a friend of one of his victims, plays an instrumental role in his arrest.)

"I think I was aware of the story in the way that I have found about 50 percent of the population to be aware of the story, which is to say, 'Oh yeah, I heard about that,'" Kendrick says. "And really, what we've heard is once upon a time, there was a very violent, dangerous murderer who went on The Dating Game. But once I signed on to direct and I got to dive into some research and make tweaks, to me, the fact that he went on The Dating Game is the least interesting part of the story."

Instead of focusing the film on Alcala's brazen appearance on the show, she says, "We got to use The Dating Game as this framing thematic device about, how do you know who is a safe person and who is not?" Under Kendrick's direction, Woman of the Hour walks a narrow line, carefully avoiding the salacious pitfalls of other true-crime films while refusing to shy away from the horror of Alcala's acts and the culture that allowed him — despite numerous tips over many years — to murder at will.

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At first glance, the subject matter might seem dark for an actor known for her comedic and musical talents. But Kendrick is a perfect fit for the plucky Bradshaw, a smart, hardworking actor struggling to prove herself and preserve her dignity amid the rampant misogyny of 1970s Hollywood. Part of the joy and, yes, humor, of the movie is watching Bradshaw, who reluctantly appears on the bawdy game show in a last-ditch bid to kickstart her acting career, flip the script on the sexist host (Tony Hale) and reduce the macho bachelors (aside from Alcala, ironically) into stammering man babies.

Even Kendrick's decision to direct the project, which she describes as almost an accident, makes sense for a woman who once cited Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, a book that urges readers to trust their instincts and recognize the predictable patterns of violence, as her favorite self-help book. In a near-literal description of what would become a scene from her new movie, Kendrick told the The New York Times in 2016 that if men were required to read the book, maybe they would understand why women "reject their advances in poorly lit parking lots: it's not because we're bitches, it's because we don't want to get murdered."

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Recalling how she ended up in the director's chair, Kendrick explains that she was attached to star and produce Woman of the Hour for two years, but "as often happens with movies, it was just taking forever, and the pieces weren't coming together. And then, way too quickly, out of nowhere, you have a start date. And in our case, we had a start date and no director. We spent maybe 48 hours trying to find somebody to jump on board quickly. And we were certainly not looking at first-time directors. The idea would be to find someone experienced enough to get $2 and a roll of duct tape and make a movie."

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The notion that she might be the woman for the job hit her like a bout of indigestion: "I just found myself having this absolutely terrifying thought — it was physically bubbling up, and I kept trying to shove it back down — which was like, 'Well, what if I pitched myself to direct the movie?'" When her co-producers asked if she was serious, she remembers, "I was very much like, 'Oh, no.' I can't think of any movie of mine that, if the beginning was around the corner and we didn't have a director, I would've raised my hand."

In a move that would make De Becker proud, Kendrick trusted her gut. "I think there was something about the movie overall that I found compelling," she says. "I was aware that while I liked the character, I was way more interested in the movie as a whole. And of course, the whole two years, I'm sitting there going, 'Well, if it were my movie, this is how I'd do it. But it's not, so it's not my call.' I just got so excited about the idea of taking this script that I loved so much and shaping it in the way that I saw it." So she put together a "very haphazard" pitch and presented herself as a solution. "And then suddenly," she adds, "I was interviewing casting directors and production designers and feeling as terrified as I've ever been about, frankly, anything."

Kendrick recalls how a blunt conversation with a famous friend snapped her into action. "I spoke to Brittany Snow on the phone, and she, in a very role-reversal way of our relationship, gave me the most casual pep talk, which was literally in a very flat voice: 'You'll get on set, and you'll know what to do,'" Kendrick recalls of her Pitch Perfect costar. "And it was just like, 'Yeah, okay.' That's usually how I find myself talking to her, and I think I was expecting this flowery, long pep talk, and she so cut to the chase that I was like, 'Okay, damn girl. I'll just figure it out, I guess.'"

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While her confidence on set "would come in and out," sometimes leaving her operating on "instinct and adrenaline," she was able to fall back on the experiences she'd been collecting since she was a teenager. Sometimes, those ideas washed over her like rogue waves. While researching the story, she discovered a news report that listed the address of one of Alcala's victims. "And I thought, I know exactly where that is," Kendrick continues. "I had this awful feeling. 'Oh my God, he broke in through her window, and she was on the ocean. She would've been hearing the ocean.' And something about that just ruined me."

While Bradshaw spends most of her time indoors in The Dating Game studio, Kendrick uses natural beauty throughout the movie as a backdrop to Alcala's violence. She explains, "Something like the desert, an isolated hilltop, or the ocean feels like, in one moment, the safest, most revitalizing, most healing place, but in an instant, it can become the ultimate danger." That theme of danger lurking in the safest seeming places — made all the more poignant of late by the horrifying ongoing rape trial in France — permeates the film.

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Asked what message she wants people to take from Woman of the Hour, Kendrick says, "I was thinking about how even very subtle victim blaming is baked into our culture. Even the most well-meaning people will say things like, 'Yeah, you really just got to pay attention to those early red flags,' which is not a nightmare of a thing to say, but man, woof.'"

If the movie highlights one idea, she hopes it illustrates why "more often than not, there is nothing you can do, no matter how smart you are, no matter how careful you are, to protect yourself from someone who wishes to harm you."

As for whether she'll continue directing, Kendrick says she "would love to." Though, she admits, "The fact that the movie is a movie at all and not just some unmitigated disaster is such a relief that there's part of me having an upwelling of even more intense imposter syndrome." If she never directs again, she says, "people might not know it was a fluke." While she's "torturing" herself about what she "should or shouldn't do next," she calls directing Woman of the Hour "easily the most rewarding creative experience of my life," adding, "I would be lucky to have anything that comes close again. So maybe I'll just be chasing that high."

Hopefully, she'll keep trusting her instincts. 

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.