- I realized that the way that I'm going to try
to think about it in the future is actually
not so much about ticking boxes of like this kind
of movie or this kind of character,
because the more that I've been able to work
and work with really incredible people,
the people that really leave an impression on me
are the people who seem happy,
people who are working and loving their work and also loving
the life that they live.
And they've found this balance.
I'm Anna Kendrick. And this is the timeline of my career.
Excuse me, is there some place we're supposed to check in?
- Over there, is this is your first summer?
- No, I was here last year.
Remember?
We were at night, mother together.
So camp is the first movie I ever did.
Well, I actually got involved in that project
because the director was cousins
of Randy Graf,
who was in the Broadway show that I did
when I was 12 years old.
So she was like, "If you're looking for a girl
"who could play my character in that film,
"the creepiest, most of obsessive weirdo of all time,
"I've got just the girl for you."
The blessing about that film was that it was
because it was non union, it was everybody's first film.
So it was a lot of anxiety, but we had the blessing
of like no cast member knew anything.
So you were allowed to ask questions and be an idiot
and not feel quite as much shame.
And at the time, I mean, you couldn't tell me
that these people were not my family
and that we were not bonded for life.
Like this was the most significant experience
I had ever had.
And when I left, I was sobbing.
It was like a break-up, I cut my hair,
I did like all the breakup stuff.
I was inconsolable.
Like I'm used to it now, but it is a really bizarre,
like all consuming
experience.
And that's why you get these kind of heightened things.
Then that's why people fall in love with each other.
And that's why Christian Bale yells at his GP.
And it's all just part of like what happens.
You just go slightly crazy.
You're Joe Simmons, my name's Christie.
- She's got a great spike, huh?
- Yes.
I'm Jessica by the way.
Hey you're from Arizona, right?
- Yeah.
- Aren't people from Arizona supposed
to be like really tan?
I auditioned for Twilight because Katherine Harvick
had seen me in a film at Sundance called "Rocket Science"
and asking me to come in and audition.
And I really thought it was such a blow off audition.
I just thought like well I'll you know, do as well
as I can so that the casting director like thinks
of me for other stuff and I actually saw my friend
Mae Whitman at that audition and we were both like,
"What are we doing here?"
Like we're obviously not going
to be this like mean girl character.
Yeah I got that job, which was I mean,
truly like such a shock.
The first movie we filmed in Portland, Oregon,
and I just remember being so cold and miserable.
And I just remember my converse being completely soaked
through and feeling like, you know,
this is a really great group of people and I'm sure
that we would be friends in a different time,
but I want to murder everyone.
Although it was also kind of bonding.
There was like something about it that was like,
you know, like you go through like some trauma event.
Like you imagine like people
who survive like a hostage situation.
And you're kind of bonded for life.
The second movie, for whatever reason,
like the weather wasn't quite as intense.
And that's sort of, I think where we all got
to know each other a little bit better.
I was shooting "Up In the Air" by the time
that we were making that second movie.
So they rearranged a lot of scheduling stuff.
Cause it would have been a real dick move,
but you know, they have legally they had the right
to stop me from doing "Up In the Air"
so shout out
to those guys.
[mumbles] anyway, so we're supposed
to like draw a parallelogram.
Our answers were things like astronaut, president
or in my case, a princess.
When we were 10, they asked again,
we answered rockstar, cowboy
or in my case, a gold medalist.
But now that we've grown up, they want a serious answer.
They all start to blend into one at some point
because my whole job was just to go like this family
of very pale people who we never see eating.
They're really weird, right?
Anyway, what did I do in the third movie?
Oh, I did the graduation speech in the third movie.
That's right and I remember thinking like,
"Oh, why did they make my character the valedictorian?"
Like she's very obviously not a good student.
But you know, they just wanted me to like have something
to do because it was a speech so I just like did
what was scripted and I swear that scene,
people are like,
"You know, that speech that you give in
"that third movie, it's really sweet.
"It's really moving."
And I swear to God, I'm like the thing that is happening
is you are looking at Kristen Stuart's reaction to
that speech and that is the thing that is moving you.
Because I was like, "I did all right,"
but I was just kinda like I dunno, I'm reading the speech
and then it cuts to Kristen, she's so moved
because she's so talented that I was like,
Oh, people are like, "That speech is so amazing."
And I'm like, "No, it's just her and she's great."
So I was in the fourth grade and it was
just like a wedding scene where again, I'm like,
"Hmm, these people are so weird,"
and you're in like just half frozen mud in
what was the final scene of filming for everybody.
You know, it's like I get to come in and you know,
work for a week or two.
And everybody else has been like giving
their blood, sweat and tears to the project for months.
I show up at the end and I'm like,
"Guys, we did it's over."
[laughs softly]
[laughs softly] That's so funny.
Never want to get married.
- Nope.
- Never want kids.
- Not a chance.
- Ever?
- Never.
Is that so bizarre?
- Yes.
So "Up In the Air" was, you know,
a script I got, it was like this really high profile thing,
this amazing part opposite George Clooney.
And well I'll go in and I'll do my best and you know,
they'll give it to somebody more famous.
I remember my agents calling me a couple
of days after my audition and being like,
"Okay, we're pretty sure that an offer is coming in."
And I was like, "You weren't in the room."
Cause I was just totally convinced
that I'd left no impression and basically spent
the first weeks of filming thinking like,
I'll just enjoy this and you know, I'll be like the,
is it Eric Stoltz in "Back To the Future"
where it's like a funny story that like initially
they hired somebody else.
Clooney was so classy,
man.
I know that everybody describes him that way,
but it's just you know, on my first day he was like,
"So do you get nervous?
"I get nervous."
In retrospect, bullshit.
No he doesn't.
But it was such a generous thing to say to me
and I believed it at the time and I was like,
"Oh, we're the same."
Which is the whole point, you know, he's so good
at disarming people and trying to get them to forget
that he's international movie star George Clooney.
I just couldn't have asked for a better,
I guess like Sherpa, you know,
in that situation, to just see like
how does somebody handle themselves?
You know, everybody's looking to them for the tone,
and you know, the kind of manner in which we're all going
to treat each other.
I was doing one of my first interviews about the movie
with Jason Bateman and he made you know,
an innocuous comment to me about how I might need
to be picking out a nice dress in the spring.
It just totally threw me
that anybody would genuinely be thinking that.
So it felt like a little funny joke,
I guess, in retrospect to like of course
I wish I could have just accepted that
and seen it for what it was,
which was just a compliment that anybody
would be saying that.
I'm kind of glad that I at least had the presence of mind
at the time to go, "Anna, you might look back on this time
"and get mad at yourself for not enjoying it more.
"So I want you to actually take in like how overwhelming
"this is and how much pressure there is
"and how you have no idea how to navigate it
"and that's okay."
It kind of lets me at least kind of
let my younger self off the hook a little bit.
Yes it is.
- I just don't see the value in it.
- You know what we should really talk about
is you have trash on your floor and there's no reason.
I mean, you know, at least have a bag in the back
to put the trash in.
- Adam, your girlfriend cheated on you.
We don't have to talk about it, you don't have to.
"50/50" was like the first time that I felt
like I kind of pulled a little bait and switch
on someone because on paper she felt
really similar
to my character from "Up In the Air"
and I knew that that was like, why they hired me.
I just wanted to make her like really soft,
you know, Natalie and "Up In the Air" it's like trying
so hard to be a hard ass.
And this wasn't a far cry from that just on the page.
I did worry that I would get there
and that Jonathan Levine, the director would like tell me
to basically play it more like my character
from "Up In the Air"
And he, I feel like is this weird, like Jedi master
where like, it doesn't feel like he's doing a lot.
And then every movie he does is like,
why does this have this much heart?
You know, things like "Warm bodies" or "The long shot"
Those movies have no right to make me cry.
Yeah, he just really like, didn't shy away
from that vulnerability.
I just broke up with somebody recently, myself.
- You did.
- Yeah.
[phone ringing]
- 17 years old, scandal.
- That's not true, who told you?
- Wallace, duh.
So "Scott Pilgrim vs The World" I just did
because I loved Edgar Wright's movies.
I loved "Shaun of the dead" and I loved "Hot Fuzz"
and he knows this that to this day,
"Hot Fuzz" is my second favorite film of all time.
"The Women" is the first ever film
"Hot Fuzz" is the close second.
Often when I read a script like the pace at
which I can get through a script is a test
of like how exciting the movie is to me.
And there are exceptions to that rule
and "Scaffolder" was one of those exceptions.
That movie on paper is so bizarre
and like, there's like nothing to hold onto.
It's so insane and suddenly there's somebody singing
and fighting like video game style.
But up until that point, there's been no indication
that it's like a video game movie.
So why are you fighting?
How, why is he flying?
Why does he have like demon hipster chicks
as his backup fighters/backup singers?
And actually that was one of
the early scenes
that I did and I was like, "You know what,
"I'm just going to be the audience for a second and be like,
"what is happening?
"Explain yourself."
So that was my motivation for that.
And I was not surprised that it ended up in the movie
because I do think that it just lets the audience go,
"Okay so this is insane.
"We're all on the same page.
"Fantastic."
Oh my God, you guys haven't--
- No, no, no, no.
- What do you teach?
- I teach at board, I teach special ed.
- Oh wow.
- Yeah.
- Yeah that's--
So you really teach?
- And then "Drinking Buddies"
I didn't receive a single piece of paper
the entire time that we were filming.
There's no paper.
I would just show up and Joe Swanberg,
the director would be like, "We'll just see what happens.
"We'll just like, see the scene."
I go for this hike with Ron Livingston
and I kiss him and I'm in a relationship with Jake Johnson.
And just before we started to shoot
that
scene,
Joe came over and you know, Ron and I kind of knew
what the scene was about and Joe came over
and was kind of talking to us about it and was like,
you know, "And then you guys will kiss at some point
"and whatever."
And Ron was like, "Yeah.
"I mean, if we kiss, if that feels right."
And Joe was like, "Sure."
And walked away.
And I was like, wait, I think we have to,
I think we have to kiss for
certain scenes later
to feel right.
But then I knew that my character wouldn't ever kiss Ron.
And so I was like, "Oh, I have to get Ron to kiss me."
Like the actor and the character.
I have to get him to kiss me without betraying my character.
So I did this thing.
We sat in silence for a long time and I did the thing
that's in the movie of going like,
"I'm having a really nervous feeling right now."
And then he kind of asks me what I'm talking about
and then I'm kind of falling all over myself to apologize,
like, "Oh, I've misread this situation."
And then he ends up kissing me.
We called cut and Joe was like, "Great, do you want
"to do it again?"
And I was like, "No."
Because it was really nerve wracking.
Like it felt like the real stakes of when you are misreading
a situation where you want someone to kiss you,
like it felt that real and alive because like
nobody told me how to do it.
And I started crying.
Like I have really cheated and I really like
had to tell my boyfriend now.
So it was so fun and terrifying.
Like you have all those body responses that you
have in real life where like the hair on your arms stands up
and stuff like that. So
it was terrifying and like the best.
- I find that really impressive.
- Well, thank you.
♪ Shorty get down, good lord ♪
♪ Baby got 'em open all over town ♪
♪ Strictly biz she don't play around ♪
♪ Cover much grounds, got game by the pound ♪
- I mean, every cast member we've all talked about how
the thing that got us excited about that movie
is Kate Cannon's writing, you know,
she wrote for "30 rock" and this script was
the kind of thing that you read and you think you know
what it's going to be.
It's like, okay, it's a competition thing.
It's a college thing.
We know the beats of this and then the script was
so funny and dark and weird and really
kind of pushed what was okay
to say, because at the time I hadn't sung in a film.
So I just kinda needed to prove that I could sing.
And I actually brought in a cup and was like,
"I can do this dumb thing, like the cup."
And so they put that
in the movie.
Originally, that was the audition song and the first movie
was I'm a little teapot,
which I still to this day, I keep meaning to ask,
Hey Cannon, like what would that have been?
How would that have worked?
The director, Jason Moore and I were like going around
like collecting cups that we would just see on set
to see like what would make the best sound for that scene.
And we had this little collection of like a dozen cups
to try once we actually got to that location
and I could test them out on that stage.
Well, coming back to "Pitch Perfect 2"
it had been several years.
The funniest part of it to me was going back
to rehearsals and you know,
learning music again,
learning the dances again.
All the producers and stuff had this mantra of like,
"Well, we're well well machine this time
"cause we're older and wiser and we know
"that we're not going to get into the last minute changes
"to all the music and the dancing
"that we had on the first movie."
And it was so much worse.
It was so much more changes.
Like the finale number we learned like the weekend
before we had to shoot it, it was so fun to be back
with the cast and also,
to be like,
"Oh my God, it's exactly the same as the first one.
"It's even crazier."
But I mean, I guess that's the thing.
That's the exciting thing.
That's why you have all the adrenaline,
it's cause it's like it might fall apart up until
the second that you're actually filming it.
♪ Come Santa Clause ♪
♪ Santa Clause come tonight ♪
- Oh my God, Magical ears.
Becca.
- Hello.
- How beautiful.
- Oh, thank you.
Yeah, the third one again, you would think like
this time we are going to lock the music and we're going
to lock the choreography before like with weeks to spare
and no, right up until the last second.
But by that point we were just like,
"Yeah, but we knew, we knew that was going to happen."
- Have a seat, make yourself a home.
[soft music]
♪ Come little birds ♪
♪ Down from the eaves and the leaves ♪
♪ Of our fields out of castles ♪
I think "Into The Woods" might be the only movie
I've ever gotten where I actually cried, like cried
when I found out that I got the job,
it's such an iconic show and it just means so much to me.
And it never even occurred to me
that I could play Cinderella.
When I found out that they were making
"Into The Woods" and they asked me to audition,
I was like, "Oh, for a little red,"
because when you do a stage version of it,
usually like an adult woman plays little red riding hood.
They were like, "No, we're going to use an actual child
"for that."
The idea of playing soft,
open, vulnerable,
full of heart and full of hope Cinderella,
you know, just kind of blew me away
that Rob Marshall saw that in me
because Rob is so different from me.
Like there are people that you meet and you're like,
[fingers snapping] one brain man.
And Rob Marshall and I are not that.
And like he's so generous.
He is so optimistic.
He so sees the good in everyone and I'm so [laughs softly]
the opposite.
so there was a day where James Corden and I,
were watching Meryl Streep do "Last Midnight"
and we were like just overwhelmed
with like
this sense of people would pay so much money
to have
the view that we have right now.
To see Meryl Streep this far away performing "Last midnight"
and like we're the idiots who get to just like be here.
You know, this is the kind of thing
like you should charge crazy prices for.
And we just like get to be here.
Yeah, that was an exciting day.
♪ Castles and horns ♪
Hi slut.
- Oh, hey.
Thanks for the Parkisons's.
- What are you doing here?
He doesn't even like you, I mean, he's in mourning for me.
The thing that really stands out to me about "Cake"
is basically how it's just one
of the all time great performances
from Jennifer Aniston.
And I even remember when we were doing press for it,
feeling like she was so humble and she really downplayed
everything that she put into that performance,
like to the point that I was like at press conferences
with her like trying to grab all the microphones
and be like, "Do you guys even know what she did?
"It was incredible."
The research and the commitment, which isn't my place
or my business.
So Jennifer Aniston plays a woman who has lost her son
and she's in chronic pain in her body all the time
because of an accident that she was in
and she's self-medicating and eventually she
has these hallucinations about this woman
who died.
Who was like the perfect wife and mother
and kind of everything
that Jennifer Aniston imagines that she's not.
And I played that character.
And at first, the director and I were kind of debating,
is she like a supernatural
like a real kind of apparition?
Is she a she a ghost basically?
Or is she just a hallucination?
Is she just a reflection of Jennifer Aniston's
like self hatred.
The more that I really watched her prepare,
I was like, "Yeah, this is just about
"her inner voice
"that tells her the worst things."
You know?
And it was really interesting to realize like,
oh, I'm not my own character actually.
I'm not like playing a character, I'm just tethered
to Jennifer Aniston's performance and her performance
was so good that I just let that like lead me.
And I was just like a mirror of like her self hatred.
And I wanted to like shout from the rooftops,
like how much work she had put into it and how it was
just such a gift to watch her work
and to basically play a reflection of her performance.
You just use people.
♪ Her eyes are beautiful ♪
♪ Like a rainbow ♪
I went into Dreamworks and they pitched me on the idea
of a "Trolls" movie and the character of Poppy optimistic
to the point of being a little crazy.
I'm a little unhinged.
And I was like, "I'm just waiting for you guys
"to take a breath so I can say yes, please."
I was just so excited.
I've always wanted to do an animated film like that
and I just felt like that was such an amazing opportunity
to just fall in my lap.
So after several months of recording my
part,
they were like, "What do you think about Justin Timberlake
"coming on to play branch opposite you,
"and also like maybe being an executive music producer?"
I was like, again this is one of those crazy situations
where like, why are you asking my permission
as though I was going to be like, "Ooh, I don't know."
I just felt like very lucky to have JT
like come in
and well, I frankly like to be a vocal
producer on it,
you know, like at that point I have recorded
for "Pitch Perfect" and you know,
it's usually like
a music person and a sound person going like,
"Yeah, it sounds good."
And to have like, you know,
international recording superstar, Justin Timberlake
going like, "Why don't you try this riff?"
and like singing it, you know, into the cans.
I know the lingo.
And then like having me just repeat it was so cool.
♪ Like a rainbow ♪
♪ Ooh, like a rainbow ♪
[soft flute music]
- Herb's announcement makes sense.
She wants to reunite the strings
so the troll world can be one big party again.
I was just so excited when they said
that they wanted to do a second movie
because not only do I love doing the musical element of it,
where I'm just playing like a little pink character,
there's something so cathartic about like going into a room
and playing this kind of unhinged happy character.
It feels like a weird therapeutic exercise.
Like how some people like picture a happy place,
I'm like, I get whatever that thing is.
I get that from like playing Poppy
because she's this kind of unfiltered ball
of like happiness, energy, joy.
And also like I'm not going to take it from anybody.
You know, it's like she's like my own inner child
or something and I get to go and like play with her.
- That's all you heard, one big party?
- Stephanie, put down the gun.
You don't want to do this.
- I really do though.
I think Blake and I had a really similar experience
reading
the script for "A Simple Favor"
because we could not put this script down
and it just like raced through it because it was,
there were so many twists and turns
and so much like
humor and darkness.
And there was a lot of like, kind of going back
and being like, is this a drama or comedy?
Like, what is it?
And that was also the experience on set like Blake
and I got to set and basically every day asked each other,
like, "What movie are you in?
"Cause I want to make sure that we're in the same movie."
Because I actually said to Paul Feig early on in shooting,
like most movies you know basically the tone
and you know the genre and you're on
kind of a sliding scale of like how big and small are
the choices we're going to be making.
And with "A Simple Favor" it felt like,
Oh, I can just take the knob off and just do
whatever I want with it
because there's just no rules in this movie.
It wasn't really until we saw the finished movie
that Blake and I were like, "Got it, love it.
"So great."
I really do though
- Hey,
sup.
- Um,
Miko?
- Who's Kimiko?
- Holly shit.
So "Dummy" the real challenge ended up being the part
that we thought was going to be the easiest part,
which is that I'm acting against an inanimate object.
Like that seems like, yeah, like we can have
the shortest shooting schedule.
I show up, I talked to a potato.
It's great.
Except that a real sex doll is not like just a,
like a potato or a dish or whatever.
This diva would not sit still, would not hold a position.
Ooh, everybody on set was like, "I'm going to kill her.
"I'm going to kill her."
So Meredith Hagner, who plays the character of the sex doll
is so brilliant and she had got to act
opposite each other,
like actually look into each other's eyes.
I think once and the rest of the time I'm acting
against this doll that has like dots on its face,
because they're going to replace it
with Meredith's performance later,
we had to hire a second prop person just to help
deal with
this
doll.
Because like, it seems like, yeah you throw her in a closet.
And then we do a whole scene where I find her in a closet
and she talks to me and she just doesn't want to do that.
And it took like two and a half hours to get her set up
to the place where she would just freeze like a mannequin,
which you think would be the whole thing that she does.
I really tip my hat to people who commit
to having a sex doll in their lives,
because it's a handful.
They're so much heavier than you think they would be
and unruly, really good for you for being that committed.
I like jokingly named you Kimiko.
So, what about you?
- Uh, my parents are the complete opposite,
high school sweethearts that are somehow still in love.
- That's nice.
- They're satanists, so this is not all good, right?
- So "Love Life" I was just really blown away
by this thing in the script where
you get
that uncanny feeling of,
I know that guy,
I've been in that situation.
Oh, that's exactly how that feels.
I hate when that happens.
I love when that happens.
Like that came up a lot in the pilot episode.
And then, you know, it was my first experience
with episodic TV so I didn't realize how much
the show really transforms as you go.
So in the end, like so many talented people came on
to work on the show and gave their personal experiences
as well and it all got remixed to the point
that I have plausible deniability.
So no, it wasn't about you.
I mean, it was, but I can say that it wasn't,
and that's the really beautiful thing about the show is
that because people were so willing to give like
the specifics of really vulnerable
or funny
or romantic things that had happened to them,
it feels universal the more specific it is
and it feels intensely relatable.
So there's so many of those like uncanny moments on
the show and that's, you know, one of the things I love most
about it.
The more that I've been able to work and work
with really incredible people, the people
that really leave an impression on me are the people
who seem happy.
I've worked with people who I really admire
and they turn out to be kind of miserable.
And you know, somebody like John Lithgow though,
like I work with him and I'm just blown away by
how generous he is.
So encouraging and supportive and really generous,
like with himself he's so open and so vulnerable.
And I feel like I sometimes get the self preservation
instinct and I kind of get guarded.
And the kind of career I want to have is the kind
where I can be as full of love
for my life
and for my work as somebody like John Lithgow.
So that's the kind of thing that I want to model.
Thanks so much Vanity Fair from watching the timeline
of my career.
I hope I was less pretentious than you were expecting.
[soft violin music]