“It’s funny, I wrote a whole book of stories from my life. The objective was to make it as entertaining as possible. And this movie, Woman of the Hour, which has nothing to do with my own life, feels more revealing— because it’s about shame and terror. I wish there was a clear end point for pain, but I do think there is a bit of life imitating art, where I felt compelled to make this film because it came from my own experience.”
-Anna Kendrick, episode 391 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect, Up in the Air) has been a fixture in Hollywood for the past fifteen years. She joins us this week to discuss Woman of the Hour, her directorial debut and most revealing project to date.
At the top, we dive into the film’s true crime story (7:00), its examination of gender politics in the 1970s (19:29), and the personal Hollywood experiences Anna folded into this story (22:00). Then, Kendrick reflects on her early years as a child actor: commuting from Portland, Maine into New York City for work (25:40), receiving a Tony nomination at twelve (29:50), and moving to Los Angeles at seventeen (35:10).
On the back-half, Anna unpacks the “dissociative” process of directing a film (38:25), the mentorship she received from actor and collaborator Jake Johnson (45:00), and the dangers of workaholism (47:19). To close, she shares a passage from her memoir Scrappy Little Nobody (57:20) and describes the work she hopes to make in years to come (1:00:00).
Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at sf@talkeasypod.com.
Show-notes:
- Watch Woman of the Hour on Netflix.
- See more of Anna’s films: Self Reliance, Alice, Darling, Trolls, Into the Woods, Pitch Perfect, 50/50, Up in the Air, and Twilight.
- Read her book Scrappy Little Nobody.
- Follow Anna on Instagram and Twitter.
- For more episodes, hear our talks with Dan Levy, Ethan Hawke, and Dev Patel.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Illustrations by Krishna Shenoi.
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