-Our first guest tonight is
an Academy Award-, Emmy-, and Tony-nominated actress
who you know from "Up in the Air"
and the "Pitch Perfect" movies.
She stars in "Stowaway," which is streaming on Netflix now.
Let's take a look.
-Okay, exactly how much time do we have before it's too late?
-Technically? 20 days.
-Okay, then we should take that time.
-No, we need as much of that margin of error as possible
in case anything else happens. -Margin of error?
What hypothetical situation
could be worse than the one we're in right now?
-Worst-case scenario is, he still dies,
but we die along with him. -How?
-What's left of the algae is hanging on by a thread as it is.
-So you're fine just giving up on a person --
-Realistically, every day he's still here,
it's a dangerous to all of us.
-Please welcome back to the show our friend Anna Kendrick.
How are you? -Hi, Seth Meyers!
How are you? -It's just lovely to see you.
I can tell you that much. I certainly wish
you were here in person so we could just small-talk
in the back before you came out here.
-Oh, no, I'm happy to not do that.
That's fine. We've done that enough.
It's usually the same kind of small talk, right?
I come in, and you say, "What's up?"
and then you go over to Martha Stewart
and you say the same kind of thing to her.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -I can kind of game it out
in my head, like, what we would talk about.
I can sort of feel like, "Okay." -Okay. Gotcha.
So there's not gonna be any mourning period for that at all?
-No, no, I'm very happy to be in my house.
[ Laughter ]
-Hey, it's nice to see your whole face.
But, obviously, we're living through an era
where a lot of people in public
are only showing half their face.
Has this provided you with any degree of anonymity?
-I think the mask thing -- I thought it would.
I mean, I, like, disproving all superhero movies,
like, the idea that from here up, I'm invisible
is pretty silly. But I have that problem already,
where I did jury duty a few years ago.
And for three weeks, I'm on this jury
and I'm, like, chatting with this woman about --
like, I'm asking her about her water bottle and whatever.
And then, when the trial ends,
she turns to me and she goes,
"I can stop pretending I don't know who you are now."
And I'm just gagged.
Just -- How could she -- Like, as though,
how could anybody know who I am if I'm not walking around
with a sign on that says, "Ask me what movies I'm from."
Or, like, holding a cup and singing a song.
Like, "How does she know?
Has she discovered my identity?"
Once I'm wearing the mask, I'm fully invisible.
Like, I could commit murders.
Do you need somebody killed? I'm your man.
I'm like the wind. How could anybody find me?
-[ Laughs ]
I guess I'm trying to think of -- I feel like --
do you feel like you have a more recognizable happier face,
if people were given to see half?
-That's a good question. I don't know. Do you?
-I don't know. I think I would be --
I think that's more recognizable.
I think you'd get me more there. -I think so, too.
I think if I was -- Yeah, like, in the world of superheroes,
I think this is worse for me than this.
-Yeah, when the sort of eye-based pandemic starts
and we have to start doing this. -Yeah, you and I are just --
-Yeah, we're going to be fine.
So, this is a very cool movie about three astronauts
who are on a two-year mission to Mars with limited supplies.
I'm sort of loath to give away
some of the many twists in this film.
But what drew you to the idea of doing a movie like this?
-I mean, Toni Collette, first of all.
-Yeah. -Like, the greatest.
That clip is actually --
like, the first take of that scene,
me and Daniel Dae Kim turned to each other
and we were like, "Were you acting? I wasn't acting."
I was just like, "Oh, my God,
Toni Collette is acting right in my face."
But it is, like, one of these --
you know, it's, like, in space so that makes it complicated.
But it's a really simple premise.
It is just, like, "Look, there's four people in a lifeboat,
and there's enough resources for three."
And how do you decide? And it's not that we meant to,
but in between takes, you can't help
but start asking those questions.
If the four of us, the cast members, were, like --
how would you make that kind of decision?
You know? And then I can't help but going,
"Well, I think box-office performance is probably a factor
we should consider. -Sure, sure. I mean, I --
-Toni is going with, like, critical acclaim and awards.
And Daniel Dae Kim is like, "Well, have any of you
ever carried done a TV show?" -[ Laughs ]
-So that happened. Shamier is the newcomer.
He wants a chance. We've all had careers.
We've been doing this for a while.
He's happy to put us out to sea. -Right, of course.
This is an interesting philosophical question
about actors -- which actor provides
the most value to society. [ Laughs ]
-None of us. None of us.
-We're gonna let you all go.
-Yeah. That would be fair.
Honestly, the pandemic has proven one thing,
and that is that, like, we stay in our houses for a year,
nobody notices. -Everybody was fine.
SpaceX just launched four people up into space.
After filming this, did you have
any more of a desire to go to space or less?
-I started with zero desire and came away with even less.
There isn't enough money in the world.
I couldn't -- Yeah, I would rather be
in a vat full of scorpions, covered in boils.
No, no, the very idea of floating around in space
and being trapped in a metal tube with strangers, no.
-I also feel like most space movies,
that thing happens where things don't go wrong quickly.
Like, you have two weeks of knowing it's going wrong.
The pit of scorpions, I also would choose that,
because I feel like it would be fast terror
and then it would ultimately be over,
as opposed to two weeks of, "No, it's still really bad."
And you're in this tiny, floating...
-It's really bad, but it's two weeks.
So, eventually, we're gonna have to make small talk
and ask, like, "What was your mom like?"
-[ Laughing ] Right.
-You're just with these people, and Elon Musk.
Like, "Okay, let's talk like things are normal,
but one of us is probably gonna die at the end of this."
-Yeah, and I know, obviously, based on your reaction
to not being here in person, I know
missing out on the small talk is pretty much your main game.
-It's my game, yeah.
Which one of us is going to die?
The next time I'm there in person,
that's the question that you and I need to get --
-That's what I'm gonna do. You know what?
I'm not gonna ask you how the weather has been for you
or how your travel was. I'm just gonna walk in and say,
"Real talk -- which one of us do you think is gonna die first?"
-"There's a bullet in this gun. One of us is gonna eat it.
Let's go."
-We mentioned in your intro
your award nominations.
You were 12 years old.
I don't think I realized you were 12 years old
when you were nominated for a Tony.
That must have been quite an experience.
-Yeah, I have now lost all of the EGOTs.
-Oh, congrats. -Thank you very much. Thank you.
-Should that be called a LEGOT? Like a loser for the EGOTs?
-I like that, I like that. "Yeah, she's a LEGOT."
-[ Laughs ] -Yeah.
I lost my Tony, when I was 12 years old,
to Audra McDonald, 'cause she's got like 40.
So... -Yeah.
I had, like, a weird full-circle thing
where the last time I presented at the Tonys,
she was there and she came up to me.
And she was like, "My daughter is a big fan of yours.
She's like 12, and she wants to meet you."
And so I started, like, info-dumping in her face
about how it was this incredible circle-of-life thing.
And she was like, "Cool.
Can you take a picture with my daughter?
I'm Audra McDonald. I have 40 Tonys."
-Yeah, she was like, "Can we do this fast?
'cause they're about to give me a Tony,
and I really need to be out there when they do."
-"There are like 20 more. They made up categories.
I'm that good."
-Thank you so much for being here.
It's always so delightful to see you.
And congrats on the movie. -Thanks, man. Good to see you.
-"Stowaway" is streaming on Netflix now.