Anna Kendrick is currently promoting the Netflix movie Woman of the Hour. It’s a film based on the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala, who appeared on The Dating Game in the 1970s at the height of his killing spree. Anna plays Cheryl, a contestant on The Dating Game, and Anna stepped in as director when the original director left the project. Anna is still feeling really raw – in 2022, she spoke about leaving a long-term relationship which had been emotionally and psychologically abusive. Because of that abuse, Anna basically can’t do comedies or anything lighthearted anymore, and she’s working through that years-long abuse through her art and her interviews. She recently spoke to the Independent about the past relationship and Woman of the Hour – some highlights:
Feeling unsafe is a universal experience for women: “Unfortunately, I do know that moment where you’re in a room with someone and wondering: ‘How is it that 10 seconds ago I thought everything was going fine, and now I’m not safe?’ And I think that’s something a lot of people know really well. Especially women.”
Her past relationship: In 2022, Kendrick began to speak publicly about her relationship with a man whom she has described as “for all intents and purposes my husband”. They were together for just over six years, during which – she has alleged – she experienced “emotional abuse and psychological abuse”…It’s hard to talk about Kendrick’s work without talking about her personal life, too. She agrees, even if a part of her hates it. “For a second, I did think that interviews for this film would just involve me being asked about every member of the cast and the crew, and I’d just gush about them and… But so far, no one’s asked me about the sound team.”
The misogyny within ‘Woman of the Hour’: “It does feel like the most revealing piece of work I’ve ever done. It created a window into my mind. Sometimes the most torturous thing isn’t just the disrespect or mistreatment, but the fact that everyone’s acting like it’s not happening. Which then convinces you that something’s not happening. It makes you question whether you’re making all of it up, or if you’re being paranoid or too sensitive.” She’s talking about gaslighting. “You sound crazy. You’re dismissed. ‘He brushed your hair off your shoulder – that’s nothing.’ And yet when you’re there, you can feel the threat that’s hanging in the room.”
Why she took a break from acting & can’t do comedies anymore: “I think I’d hit a point of critical mass, where it felt like…I think what was happening at that time was I was being forced into a place of performance and dishonesty in my private life. I just couldn’t spend another second breathing dishonest air.” She remembers a period of trauma-dumping on random strangers. “It’s a literal true story that, in the aftermath of this really traumatic relationship, my plumber came over and asked how I’d been, and I just told him everything. I physically couldn’t continue performing.”
Whether her recent roles have felt cathartic: “Ooh, I think catharsis is dangerous. For me, anyway. It brings me very welcome relief, but so far it’s always been a bit temporary. I was about to say that I need to forgive myself for ever feeling doubt or sadness, but that implies that I’m doing something wrong. When those feelings do creep back in, the worst thing I can do is go, ‘Goddammit, Anna! I thought we were over this,’ you know? I need to just experience it more as a neutral thing that’s happening. That it’s something out of my control. I certainly don’t enjoy it, but it’s not a character failing either.”
What she says about the gaslighting being worse is interesting, and obviously, that’s part of what she dealt with in her abusive relationship. That guy was gaslighting her like crazy, she didn’t feel safe in her own home and whenever she tried to address those feelings, he would gaslight her or she would gaslight herself and tell herself that it was nothing, she was making things up. It was absolutely worse in the 1970s, and make no mistake, it’s still really f–king horrific for women today, but I do feel like we, as a society, have gotten better at clocking the bullsh-t and calling it out? Incremental changes and more open conversations about sexism, obviously.
Also: during this promo tour, Anna is talking again about her statement “Motherhood isn’t for me.” She still doesn’t want to have kids and she’s embraced the “childless cat lady” brand.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid, Leah Gallo/Netflix
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- New York, NY – Anna Kendrick was seen enjoying a day out in New York City, looking stylish in a white outfit. Pictured: Anna Kendrick BACKGRID USA 22 OCTOBER 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Anna Kendrick was seen enjoying a day out in New York City, looking stylish in a white outfit. Pictured: Anna Kendrick BACKGRID USA 22 OCTOBER 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s ‘Woman Of The Hour’ At The The Egyptian Theatre Featuring: Anna Kendrick Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 10 Oct 2024 Credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
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- Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s ‘Woman Of The Hour’ At The The Egyptian Theatre Featuring: Anna Kendrick Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 10 Oct 2024 Credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
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- Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s ‘Woman Of The Hour’ At The The Egyptian Theatre Featuring: Anna Kendrick Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 10 Oct 2024 Credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
I watched the movie Woman of the Hour. It was really well directed and I loved the focus was on the women, not on the serial killer. The escalation of an abuser and the victim questioning themselves if that really happened felt very real. No doubt Anne’s experience contributed to the movie. I recommend everyone to watch it.
We watched this movie last night. There are several scenes that are so incredibly tense that I realized I was, literally, holding my breath. I highly recommend watching it if you can tolerate the subject matter. Fortunately, it’s not filled with gratuitous violence and I credit AK’s direction for keeping that locked down. She did a great job both directing and acting. Highly recommend this movie.
Side note: it’s worth watching the actual Dating Game footage of this horrific man. He truly radiates evil.
Honesty isn’t easy, she’s a brave childless cat lady. “Sometimes the most torturous thing isn’t just the disrespect or mistreatment, but the fact that everyone’s acting like it’s not happening.” Wow, that is very insightful, and something all of us who have been following Harry and Meghan’s abuse by the BRF can recognize.
I’ve enjoyed her movies. I watched Alice, Darling and it is about being in an abusive relationship. I don’t think it was well-received or widely watched but I thought it was interesting and worth a watch and I wonder if it was made while she was still with her abuser, or maybe shortly thereafter.
I have read that both of these projects came to her around the same time after her relationship ended. That is what made her accept them, because she felt connected to the scripts.
It’s easy to deduce who is she talking about and apparently, they broke up in 2019. Alice, Darling was shot in 2021, so she probably got the script shortly after the break-up. It’s interesting that reliving the trauma in movies is something that helped her. I would probably prefer to to the exact opposite and distance myself by doing more comedies.
They broke up in 2020, during the pandemic.
She said in another interview, that they were literally stuck in the same house together and she would end up locked in the bathroom, crying to her friends at the other end of the telephone line.
One publication has misrepresented the fact that they were last seen together in 2019, as that they broke up in 2019.
Anna also spoke about finding herself unable to put on a performance anymore, and that as her own head was in such a dark place, she was unable to find any connection to light hearted, comedic scripts. So she asked her team to withhold those, and the 2 scripts she received that she connected with (once she signaled she was ready to work again in 2021, as she actually took time off for therapy and recovery) were Alice, Darling and Woman of the Hour (then called Rodney Meets Sheryl).
Good to know. Every outlet I checked gave 2019 as the breakup date but it was hard to spot anyone for paparazzi photos in 2020. To be honest, I’ve always wondered what she was doing with that guy. He looked like unwashed mash-up of Post Malone and Chris Pratt with anger management issues. Something about his eyes seemed mean. Now I know why.
I loved that movie! I remember the press for it and she said she had just left the relationship so I’m sure she was still very raw.
I was with an emotional abuser for a year and a half. I was so messed up after that relationship, which ended when he messed up so huge he knew it was the end. When I got married almost ten years later there were still moments where something would happen and my first thought was how would D react? What did I do? That stuff is hard to get out of your head.
Watched the movie last night and it was very well done. In the middle of it, my husband turned to me and said, “This is every woman’s nightmare, isn’t it?”
And this is what we feel, on a macro level, as a nation. Gaslit and mentally abused. .And trump is polling better than Harris by double digits with men. Some things have definitely changed for the better, especially for women in their individual lives, but it’s created a backlash we’re seeing on a national stage. Much like we saw with increasing rights for lgbtq+ and people of color, particularly afterObama. It’s How we’re a country where 70-80% of people support things like gay marriage and tv shows show interracial relationships or have casts ofpredominantly minorities (religious, racial, gender, etc) and no one bats an eye but we get legislation and laws restricting those various groups and rights.
Anna Kendrick is a brave and beautiful soul! I love her so much for this. I’m in year 15 in a torturous relationship with a narcissist just like this. It’s worth reading anything you can get your hands on if you have experienced Narcissist abuse. We probably all have at one point in our lives. My lighthouse to you, is what attracted the abusive narcissist? What in you didn’t see it or were conned by their games? It’s not our fault these things have happened to us. It does help however to look at the abuse clearly in the light of day. They only put you down really badly when you are alone. That’s proof they can control and they know it wouldn’t be accepted around your friends and family. When you’re not there they will happily gossip about your flaws. Painting you in a laughable, pitiful light to your loved ones, planting the seeds of them doubting you. The goal is to use you and your energy like an appliance. You don’t feel bad for putting your dirty clothes in the washing machine to clean them right? In the same way they view you as a source, a supply an appliance that performs a needed service. They can’t stomach their own emptiness and lack so they find someone they see as weak, vulnerable, easy prey, malleable, controllable, injured, like a predator singling out a hurt gazelle from the herd. They know how to cast their eye over a group of people and find the injured, the ones doubting themselves. Then they slide up like the wolf in the fairy tales; well hello there, are you lost? Her description of locking herself in the bathroom crying is a daily occurrence for me, or at least was. I still hide in my room and cry when my Narcissist hurts me. They know your buttons to push, your trauma, your insecurities and they will completely, angrily, repeatedly mash down all of those buttons at once. It’s almost like they are slowly poisoning you. As you get more and more ill, more hurt, confused, damaged, alone, desperate that’s when they feel good about themselves. They have the power to take a kind person and utterly drain and dominate them. They feel it defines them as powerful. Just like a big game hunter in Africa posing with the dead lion they killed. Look at how powerful and strong I AM!!!! Go Anna Kendrick! Please write a book about this Dear. Big Hugs to you!
Why are you still with this person? Get out.
If your first instinct is to tell something “get out” of an abusive situation & not “I’m sorry this is horrible for you”, then you shouldn’t be commenting at all.
Like, she never thought “I should leave” before.
Like, leaving is just so easy it’s “get out” and poof! It’s done.
Like, the abusers are to blame, not the victims. “Get out”. Like that’s just so simple.
It’s not. Leaving abuse is so terrifying & terribly difficult because you know, you don’t actually know you’re being abused. Oh sure, you can write it all out & people can tell you but you don’t just know it. It’s years of manipulation & gaslighting & terror & financial considerations & housing & kids & lack of societal support & the abuser tells you they’ll change & you believe it.
To OP: wishing you strength as you navigate your life. It’s not your fault.
Not to mention that narcissists can be friends, family members, co-workers etc–it’s not always a partner/spouse. It’s not exactly easy to “just leave” your mother, for instance.
That being said, if you are financially able to leave, if it feels SAFE to leave, if you have a place to go, if you have resources and a support system, and if you feel that you can bring your kids with you, then yes it’s best to leave.
But PLEASE let’s not make it seem like it’s easy or simple for everyone.
Anna Nonymous-
I’m so sorry that you are experiencing this. I was you. I still am.
I’m in the process of divorcing my abuser. But it went on for decades and the process of leaving was painfully slow and I was terrified every step of the way. Therapy helped. I don’t know if that is something available to you, but it can be helpful if so.
I hope you have friends, and I hope you will tell them what you are going through if you haven’t already.
I see you posted anonymously and I’ve done that too. Afraid he’d see something I posted. Or just embarrassed.
I stayed for 2 decades. It is not your fault. And you shouldn’t be embarrassed. THEY should carry the shame.
Leaving is SO hard for so many different reasons. But there are ways out. And I hope you find one. Don’t give up. I almost did. And I am so glad I didn’t.
I googled who she’s been with because I was nervous this was about Bill Hader who I know she’s no longer with which is too bad because they were very cute together (I guess I totally missed the fact he’s now dating Ali Wong). It looks like she’s referring to the guy who she was with before Bill. I hope she someday wants to do comedies again because she’s so good at them! But I can understand wanting to step away and processing the damage from the long term relationship that mentally broke her. I hope she’s doing better now.
Just saw that she was also gaslighted by her couples therapist, who kept siding with the guy in their sessions. Apparently the therapist has since apologized to Anna several times. Yikes.
This is unfortunately really common with narcissists. They are so smooth that the counselor can also be fooled. I once read that if you are in a relationship with a narcissist, you should go to therapy for yourself before you even consider couples’ therapy, if you do it at all, because in the couples’ therapy session if you look unsure or tentative that could also make the narcissist look more “right.” It completely sucks.
I watched WotH this week. It was very good but also incredibly intense and infuriating (in a good way). I couldn’t watch it in one sitting, had to stop it and start it again another day. The scenes of him with his victims, once he’d gotten them alone and showed his true intentions were really difficult.
And even the moments where nothing *criminally* bad happened, it just was looming as potential violence were so scary, because they are so relatable. I think just about every woman has had that experience of “oh shit oh shit oh shit” how do I get out of here, how do I get away from this guy, do I scream or run or will that cause him to strike?” And that just by chance, something happens to give an opening to get away safely but it still shakes you to your core and may not ever leave you.
As a director and an actor, AK captured those moments really well, along with the white hot fury and frustration when faced with a wall of shrugs from people in a position to DO SOMETHING that could help.
A couple of years ago there were accusations about how rude she was to fans and even retail workers. I would say that when you’re being abused that you’re on edge and this woman was just trying to survive. I’m glad that she is out of that relationship, and I hope that she is healing.
In the early 70’s I had a relationship that sounds like a carbon copy of Anna’s. I was madly, obsessively in love with the guy, he was my first real boyfriend, the first guy I slept with, and I thought everything was perfect. Then, slowly but surely, the emotional and psychological abuse started. Nothing I did was right, he didn’t like my hair, my makeup, my cooking, I was boring in bed, it was one thing after another. It took me 2-1/2 years to extricate myself from that relationship and I was a mess afterwards. I felt like an empty shell, a loser, I loathed myself, and it took several years and some therapy to work all that negative self-hatred out of me. I’d like to watch the movie but I fear it would be too triggering. I really feel for Anna and am glad she’s opened up about her experiences. Sharing what happened is a kind of therapy in and of itself, especially if you find some women friends who have experienced similar abuse. That’s how I found my BFF of 45 years who sadly passed away in 2021. I think of her every day and the solace we brought ourselves by talking through our horrible experiences. We used to say that we’d saved each other’s lives.
Eat, Pray, Love the book by Elizabeth Gilbert starts with the description of the author literally sitting in her bathroom in the middle of the night, sobbing and shaking.
Because she realizes the only true thought in her life is
“I don’t want this, I don’t want to be married. I don’t want a conventional life. I do not want this man or this life. At all.”
Reading this hit me at a time that was ME. Completely me.
I felt trapped. Married to a man who I realized did not care for me.
He kept telling me how lucky I was, married, he had a good job, he was nice looking, he came home on time every night, he did not beat me.
Which was true, right up until he DID beat me. Every chance he got, making certain that the bruises were not on my face, etc.
4-6 years of this, plus 1 child even tho I was on bc, and thru it all my own brothers telling me I was lucky, what a catch he was.
I divorced him with $112.00 in cash to my name.
Took my child, the local womans center saved us.
27 years later his actions and that marriage still takes it toll on me, sometimes.
That man was my biggest mistake and changed the entire course of my life.
Stop telling females to have children! Stop.
Every person who can survive and get out, may you find safety and peace.
I hope you’ve found safety and peace. Trusting in people who turn out to be bad isn’t our mistake, it’s the other person’s mistake because they turned out to be such appalling people.
I told MYSELF I was lucky. I was terrified in my own home 85% of the time. But it was a nice home. Not fancy at all, modest, but still, I kept thinking I had it better than plenty of women. He wasn’t always awful either, when he wanted to be he was incredibly charming and fun.
But when he wasn’t trying to be charming, and let down that mask, he was relentlessly awful.
I’m glad you got out. That was a huge leap you took. I hope when you look back, you realize you were a badass and did the hardest thing and should be SO proud of yourself.
Very kind, thank you so much.
I did get away with my child, we are safe.
I do still morn for my younger self, if only I had never married him my entire life would have been so much happier.
One more thing, to the folks who tell you to get married or you get married because you are worn down by lonliness…. I was so lonely while I was married.
No kindness, no How was your day? Sick with flu? No tenderness or how are you?
I’m still lonely a lot but I’m not in danger in my own house these days.