More than 20 years after making her screen debut in Camp, a beloved romp about the universal experience of being a theater kid, Anna Kendrick is unpacking the sexism of Hollywood through the true-crime genre with her directorial debut.
While discussing her new movie Woman of the Hour, premiering Wednesday on Netflix, the Oscar nominee tells Deadline that although she was “actively shoving down” the urge to direct writer Ian McDonald‘s Black List script, Kendrick was so drawn to the “heartbreak” in his depiction of “Dating Game Killer” Rodney Alcala‘s victims, she got “really sick at the idea” of anyone else helming the film.
In addition to directing, Kendrick plays Cheryl Bradshaw, an aspiring actress in 1970s Los Angeles who finds herself courted by a serial killer (Daniel Zovatto) in the midst of a years-long killing spree, when they cross paths as contestants on popular game show The Dating Game.
Alcala was a California native responsible for at least eight murders across the U.S., among other crimes. Although he was sentenced to death, Alcala died at 77 of natural causes in 2021.
Kendrick praised McDonald as “so prolific and such a good collaborator,” while the writer said she “improved immeasurably” upon his script.
Tony Hale and Anna Kendrick in Woman of the Hour (Netflix)
“When she threw herself into it, she threw herself fully into it, and it was just kind of amazing to watch. It was just an amazing collaboration,” said McDonald. “Her notes were really astute both on a macro level and also on a micro level.
Woman of the Hour screenwriter Ian McDonald (Julia Max)
“It was funny, there was one scene where it’s like Rodney and the hitchhiker are in the car together, and Rodney’s being kind of creepy and weird and she kind of puts him in his place,” he recalled. “And Anna’s like: ‘This feels weird to say. I like that you’re giving your female characters this much agency, but you need to give them less. Because right now, the truth is, being a woman in this position, we have to play these kind of weird little games where we have to smile and we have to laugh and we have to make men feel validated. And you’re not contradicting them.’ And so the whole thing was just sort of scaled down and made to be more subtle. And there were a handful of scenes like that, that she improved immeasurably through these very detailed notes. From a screenwriter’s perspective, I think that’s a big part of your job is just listening to people and being able to both hear and implement smart observations when you get them.”
While Zovatto provides a chilling performance as Alcala, McDonald also depicted “gradations of toxic male behavior” in Hollywood through the characters of Cheryl’s friend Terry (Pete Holmes) and Dating Game host Ed Burke (Tony Hale), a fictional surrogate for Jim Lange.
“There’s a lot of shitty guys in the world who are not serial killers,” explained McDonald. “And the idea was to explore not [just] him per se but the spectrum.”
And while Kendrick acknowledged that both actors have “over-the-top nice-guy reputations,” she admitted “there was something really satisfying about casting them as pigs.”
Although Woman of the Hour takes some creative license where necessary, Kendrick and McDonald agreed that it was important “whenever we would fictionalize something, it would be in service to the emotional truth of the story,” he explained.
Anna Kendrick and Daniel Zovatto in Woman of the Hour (Netflix)
“Rodney basically created this story. He made it with himself as the central figure, none of these other people chose to be in this. And so we tried to create narrative distance between the actual people to sort of acknowledge and respect that,” said McDonald. “It’s a balancing act and we, you know, we did the best we could, and we thought very hard about what to include and not include.”
Read on to see how Kendrick tackled her directorial debut, which early career experience she drew from and the director who gave her a much-needed pep talk.
DEADLINE: Tell me about working with Ian and how you decided this script was the one that you wanted to be your directorial debut.
ANNA KENDRICK: So I got this script and I basically knew what I think most people know about the story, which is one time a murderer went on The Dating Game, and that’s kind of the beginning and end of what I knew about the true story. And so I really didn’t know what to expect from the script. But I was really blown away by how emotional it was and how much beauty it had, which even saying it now feels strange, but Ian really managed to speak to the the beauty of these women and the vastness of their lives. To put so much heartbreak on the page was a surprise to me in a movie that I think people would put in the genre of thriller. So I just loved the script and of course, wanted to be in the movie. And I found that even though I did love the character, I was really invested in the script as a whole and was maybe kind of imposing my thoughts on scenes that I wasn’t even in, in a way that one could argue wasn’t necessarily my place. But, I was technically a producer as well, so you know, everybody indulged me for that time, and over that time I read so many drafts. Ian is so prolific and such a good collaborator that he is so not precious about his material, sometimes to the point that I would be like, “no, no, no, put that thing back.” But basically, it meant that by the time that I started to have this bubbling thought about pitching myself to direct the movie, I’d read all these drafts and I was like, “Oh my God, I could go and cherry pick all of my favorite moments. And kind of —” Oh God, I feel like I’m describing Frankenstein’s monster, like I’m the mad scientist. But I got to kind of create my perfect version and then even add some things that had never been introduced before.
I think basically, I started to feel really sick at the idea of anybody else doing it because I felt so connected to the material, especially because it came together so last minute, the idea of just some person coming in and telling me what the movie was, was unfathomable to me because I felt so strongly that I knew what the movie was. And to kind of be able to raise my hand and take this beautiful thing that Ian had made and just mold it a little bit into how I saw it felt really exciting and obviously really terrifying.
DEADLINE: Well, you’ve obviously been in the industry for a while now. Had you been thinking about starting directing or was this just kind of an opportunity that came along?
KENDRICK: I think it was a thought that I was actively shoving down, and I guess it would no longer be silent. Looking back, it’s very obviously a protective measure on my part to ignore that desire, because it’s vulnerable to want something and know that you might not get it or that you might get it and fail. I think there was a part of me that was looking at my career and going: “Guys, we’ve got a good thing going. Why would we do this? Why would we rock the boat?” So I think that I’ve built up a platform of confidence in my work and to kind of throw myself back to ground zero where this would be a first time experience felt very scary. So I was definitely fighting the impulse to stay comfortable. But I’m very glad I fought through that, I guess.
Foreground, from left: Karen Holness, Anna Kendrick, Denalda Williams and director of photography Zach Kuperstein on the Woman of the Hour set (Netflix)
DEADLINE: I really appreciated how you used the sexist power dynamics of Hollywood to build the tension in the movie, especially with Pete Holmes and Tony Hale’s characters. Was that intentional, and did you draw from your own experiences in Hollywood?
KENDRICK: I love Pete’s performance and Tony’s performance, and I really love that they both have these kind of over-the-top nice-guy reputations. So there was something really satisfying about casting them as pigs. And I think they had fun doing it. I hope they had fun doing it. But I mean, in some ways there’s a blanket statement of, of course I’m drawing from my own experience in every frame of the movie in some ways. And in another literal sense, that first scene with Cheryl and the casting directors, I added that line about nudity, when he looks at my chest and says, “I’m sure they’re fine.” That happened to me when I was 19. So I put it in the movie and I did think, “Oh, I can just cut this if it doesn’t play.” And then in the one test screening that we did, it was the first laugh. So I was like, “OK, great.” Because I think after the opening scene, the audience is not sure if they have permission to laugh. So I wasn’t sure if the scene really needed that extra line, but then I realized, oh, I think the audience is kind of holding their breath and not sure if they’re supposed to find this situation absurd. So I’m glad that I filmed it so that I could very loudly signal, “Yes, this section of the movie is full of absurdity.”
DEADLINE: Switching up a little bit, how did you approach the violent scenes as director?
KENDRICK: I knew that I wanted to kind of use the model of No Country for Old Men … where it’s a descending scale of violence. So you kind of get something that makes you squirm out of the way in the first scene so that you can kind of rely on the audience using their imagination for everything else and you can become less and less explicit as the movie goes on. And even in the opening scene, I had shot two other setups that just kind of gave you more of a sense of the geography and the reality of what was happening. And I asked my editor to go back through some the stuff we just rolled on before the actors came to set that morning. And we found that panning role focus shot. And I was like, ‘What if we just hear it?’ Because I think your imagination is always gonna be worse in some ways. But also I don’t like showing this, and I did have this impulse to kind of contrast the beauty of the setting almost as a representation of the beauty of this woman’s whole life that she had before this moment and that she deserves to live after this moment as just kind of a backdrop for what we understand is happening.
DEADLINE: I also loved the shot of Kathryn Gallagher through the skylight. I thought that was very beautifully shot, given the situation.
KENDRICK: And I knew that I wanted to jump wide for the start of any assault. And I knew that I wanted to be in reflection or through glass in a lot of moments in the movie for various reasons. So I knew I wanted to be through the skylight and then my DP [Zach Kuperstein] suggested that when we jump wide in the opening scene, what if we were shooting through the car window? So yeah, I like that kind of repeat imagery as well.
Daniel Zovatto, Kathryn Gallagher and director Anna Kendrick on the Woman of the Hour set (Netflix)
DEADLINE: What was it like as both director and actor releasing the movie during the strikes?
KENDRICK: It was heartbreaking. I don’t know if there’s a certain answer that I’m supposed to say. But I found out that we got into TIFF when Nicolette Robinson was doing ADR, and I was just so emotional. That festival has been a big part of my career and means a lot to me and has hosted some smaller films of mine that were really important to me. So it meant the absolute world to me to premiere at TIFF. And so it was especially heartbreaking, but mostly because I really wanted the cast to have that experience that I got to have 14 years prior with Up in the Air. So they’re gonna do extraordinary things, and they’ll have plenty more opportunities to get moments like that. But selfishly, I really wanted to take them.
DEADLINE: Who have been some of your favorite directors to learn from?
KENDRICK: Well, I think the funny thing is that the first director I called was Paul Feig, which given that he’s known for movies like Bridesmaids, maybe doesn’t make immediate sense, but I just admire how he works with everyone on set as a collaborator. And so he was the first call that I made and it turned out to be a good instinct because it was very cool to see Paul, who has really widely the nicest reputation in Hollywood, like… there’s not a person on Earth who has anything negative to say about him, and he is just like the consummate sweetheart. And suddenly he was talking to me like the football coach at half time in every football movie, you know, like real tough love, ‘You gotta figure it out, kid.’ It was very bracing in the best way.
DEADLINE: On that note, can you tell me anything about A Simple Favor 2?
KENDRICK: Obviously, I’m sure there’s not a lot I can say. But, I think that of course, when we heard that Paul was maybe thinking about doing it, it was like so many questions, but the biggest one is, first of all, like, how do we get the story going again? And secondly, how do we top the first one? And my God, did he deliver on the crazy. It’s really wild because the word decorum comes to mind when I think of Paul, and yet his mind clearly has just a stockpile of crazy back there for him to be able to make the first one and especially the second one, I’ll say that.
