Anna Kendrick Talks PITCH PERFECT Fan Fiction, a Solo Album, Spider-Man, and More
One of the many things I love about Anna Kendrick is that she hasn’t changed with success. Every time I’ve gotten to talk with her over the years, she’s always been extremely cool, consistently funny, and willing to answer whatever questions I throw her way. I wish I could say that about everyone in Hollywood.
With Pitch Perfect 2 opening in theaters this weekend, I recently sat down with Anna Kendrick for an exclusive interview here in Los Angeles. Since I was one of the last interviews of the day and I knew she’d answered every possible Pitch Perfect 2 question before I walked in, I decided to ask fun questions and a few things her fans sent my way on Twitter. The result was an incredibly wide-ranging, candid, and fun back-and-forth that touched on everything from her thoughts on superhero casting to her favorite TV shows.
Since we talked about so many things, I broke the interview up into two parts. In today’s post, which is the first half of the conversation, we discuss her thoughts on Pitch Perfect fan fiction and shipping “BeChloe”, if she’s ever going to record a solo album, her thoughts on the new Spider-Man casting, her dream project, her love for the movie Bad Girls, and more.
pitch-perfect-2-posterQuestion: Are you ready?
ANNA KENDRICK: [Laughs] Born ready.
Who should play Spider-Man?
KENDRICK: Oh, God. Yeah they’re doing that again.
I think right now it’s down to Asa Butterfield and Tom Holland, those are the two names that are being…
KENDRICK: I don’t know who those people are, good for them.
Asa was in Ender’s Game, he’s been in a whole bunch of movies.
KENDRICK: I haven’t seen that.
So you have no preference, then?
KENDRICK: Oh, you mean between the two of them or just my own write-in? Am I allowed to do a write-in?
You can do a write-in. It has to be someone between the ages of 16 and 21.
KENDRICK: How old is Quvenzhané Wallis? [Laughs].
[Laughs] I like that answer. When will you be playing a superhero?KENDRICK: When someone asks me? I’ll do it the second some asks, I promise.
Because I heard DC and Marvel have a few movies that they’re working on.
KENDRICK: Oh, good for them. Are they making movies now? Good for them, good for them.
I heard that Avengers opened with at least a dollar or two.
KENDRICK: Did you see it, is it great?
The Avengers sequel is quite good.
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Image via Universal Pictures
KENDRICK: Quite good?
It’s quite good.
KENDICK: Is it as good as the first one?
It can’t be.
KENDRICK: No, of course.
Because the first one was…
KENDRICK: Was perfect.
Well it’s also…
KENDRICK: As summer blockbusters go, it was perfect.
It was a very fun movie and it had the team coming together. It’s very hard to recreate that in the sequel.
KENDRICK: Yeah.
Because it has that magic that you…it’s the first time seeing it.
KENDRICK: Yeah, yeah. And the people reluctantly getting together can only happen the one time; you can only do that reluctant hero once. Except they make you the reluctant hero over but you’re like, ‘Come on!’
It’s really f-ing good though.
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Image via Universal Pictures
KENDRICK: As an audience member, I mean.
But the sequel’s really good.
KENDRICK: Great.
There’s a huge fanbase surrounding Beca and Chloe from Pitch Perfect as a couple.
KENDRICK: Yes. I love it, I love it!
What are your thoughts on that?
KENDRICK: I love it! I couldn’t be more excited about it. In the first movie when we were doing the scenes I was like, ‘This is entering sketchy town and I love it, that’s where I live, that’s my home, is in sketchy town’ Then we just kind of leaned into it and in the second one—I don’t know, it’s a weird combination in the second one where there’s moments where you’re like, ‘Oh, come on! That’s a perfect opportunity for a BeChloe moment’ and then there’s stuff where like, ‘Oh, that’s gonna blow those chicks’ minds’ Because some chick are really into it and I’m like, ‘Dope! I love it!’ the fanfiction and all of it.
Are you reading the fanfiction?
KENDRICK: I’m not gonna lie to you, I tried to read one fanfiction because I was like, ‘I have to know’ and I was… maybe I chose the wrong fanfiction to read, but it was so slow. I was expecting it to be like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe they’re writing this crazy shit about me and Brittany [Snow]’ but there was a lot of exposition and I was like, ‘This isn’t a [Charles] Dickens novel’ so I gave up on it after that. It’s probably for the best, I probably shouldn’t be reading that.
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Image via Universal Pictures
So basically fans should know that they need to tweet you the ones with the heavy sex, the ones that go really fast, that jump into it.
KENDRICK: Your words, not mine!
Right, just…
KENDRICK: What are you doing to me, what are you doing? Well, it’s weird because in this one there’s also the weird thing where I can’t stop complimenting the commissar, but then the way they edited some of the stuff with Hailee [Steinfeld] I was like, ‘Dude, why does it look like I wanna bone this chick?’ We filmed a perfectly normal scene—unlike the Beca and Chloe scenes in the first movie which were always borderline—Hailee and I filmed this perfectly normal scene and they cut it together with these lingering looks and I was like, ‘Why does it look like I wanna bone this chick?’ First of all, we already got my potential lesbian storyline with Chloe so I feel disloyal, and secondly, Hailee is 17! So I’m a creep.
Your words, not mine.
KENDRICK: Oh boy…
Exactly. A lot of people want to know about a solo album.
KENDRICK: Yeah, people do want to know about a solo album. It confuses me to no end.
I’m gonna tell you a secret, you’ve done some musicals recently.
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Image via Universal Pictures
KENDRICK: Yeah, I mean but…here’s the thing, the highest compliment that I’ll pay myself is that for an actor I sing well, and there are so many superior singers in the world and I don’t write music. If I wrote music it’d be a different story but I don’t write music. So the idea of somebody writing songs for me to sing is like, ‘well, have a better singer sing them, that would be more fun to listen to’.
I think there’s at least one or two music producers who might be able to or want to work with you.
KENDRICK: Want to, yes. I’ve been asked, but I…
So there’s no…?
KENDRICK: No interest, no.
Really?
KENDRICK: Well, come on, what’s the message there? Who…?
Anna Kendrick does Christmas.
KENDRICK: If I could play the ukulele like Zooey Deschanel, I would find my own personal M. Ward and we would do a side album, but I don’t, you know?
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Image via Universal Pictures
Okay so no holiday album.
KENDRICK: Yeah. They specifically would want that but I am reluctant, even though a Christmas movie is on my bucket list. And a Christmas album used to be on my bucket list but now I am a grown-ass woman and know that would be kind of fucking insane.
One of the other questions is, what is the dream project?
KENDRICK: Oh, yeah that’s a good idea actually because I get that question all the time. You know well enough to know that there’s no such thing as a dream project because I don’t know it until I’ve read it.
100%, but it’s good to put it out there.
KENDRICK: For example, my favorite film is The Women but for me to even say like, ‘Oh, a remake of The Women’ they remade The Women, and it was a shit show. So you won’t know it until you find it, and in many ways The Last Five Years was a dream project, so check. But that’s actually good, a Christmas movie. Because it’s true, it’s a bucket list thing, and that’s actually something easy to say. People ask all the time and I’m like, ‘I don’t know’.
Yeah, but you know Christmas movies, they’re gonna keep on making them. So you just find the right script.
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Image via Universal Pictures
KENDRICK: I know, just find the one.
Have you stolen a prop or piece of piece of setting from a film?
KENDRICK: I stole a little snow globe from the set of the first Pitch Perfect that I don’t think ever made it on-screen, so it’s not like fans would be tickled by that information, but I still have it. And… what else? What else? Nothing from Into the Woods and… [Pause].
That’s good.
KENDRICK: I do have sticky fingers, I feel. So I feel there would be more but…
What exactly?
KENDRICK: Nothing anecdotal.
Okay. Favorite bad movie, or movie that you love but everyone seems to hate?
KENDRICK: Well… I just saw Bad Girls again. Have you ever seen Bad Girls?
Hmm.
Oh Steve…
Wait.
KENDRICK: With Drew Barrymore and Madeleine Stowe?
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Image via Universal Pictures
Oh, you know something? I don’t know if I have seen this one.
KENDRICK: Run, don’t walk. Okay here’s the thing. There’s like, a stretch in the second act that is quite boring, but oh the first act. It’s delicious.
Was this recommended to you or were you just flipping the channels and it came on?
KENDRICK: No, this is from childhood, like a western with four girls. I forget why this strikes a chord with young women—Bad Girls is terrible, but I loved it, I watched it over and over again. And by the way it’s super inappropriate and has rape in it. But it’s women and they’re riding horses and they’re shooting guns and saving each other from stuff; it’s amazing. I’d just never seen that represented before, certainly not in a western. Watching it again recently made me realize it didn’t matter to me that this was terrible and weird and had some material that I was too young for, it was just what I wanted to see. I’m glad that girls are watching Pitch Perfect and not a western with rape scenes in it.
I also agree with this.
KENDRICK: Even though I will say it made me who I am, so… [Laughs].
So basically you’re saying people should watch Pitch Perfect and Bad Girls.
KENDRICK: I turned out okay, mostly.