Anna Kendrick shares her “cathartic” experience of ‘Alice, Darling’

• Anna Kendrick talks about her new suspense film Alice.
• Alice helped her get through a difficult year.
• She explains her “cathartic” process experience.

Anna Kendrick talks about how working on her new suspense film Alice, Darling helped her get through a difficult year.

The actress spoke with presenter Kelly Clarkson on the “cathartic” process she went through playing her character, which deals with psychological and emotional trauma, on Monday’s broadcast of The Kelly Clarkson Show while sipping French 75 cocktails—preferred Kendrick’s holiday beverage.

Kendrick, 37, recalled her initial concern: “The movie was so personal, there was a time where I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know whether this is too soon to be performing this role.'”

But she added that the content of the project also centers on “the strength of friendship in the manner that you can get through problems if you have the right people in your corner.”

Regarding her own personal experience, Kendrick said, “I know that’s how I got out and how I started my recovery.”

Kendrick added, “So I had some time to kind of wrestle with that. I had about six months between first reading the script and starting filming.”

When Kendrick first started talking about her thoughts, she was on Clarkson’s show two months before the movie was set. She did so with the host during commercial breaks since she was also going through a difficult divorce, according to Kendrick.

“It was so hard for me to not talk about it,” the actress said. “And I spent so long not talking about it, that then the floodgates started opening up, and suddenly I was like, ‘Oh, I’m trauma-dumping on Kelly Clarkson. Oh God.’ ”

Overall, Kendrick says that the filming of the film “was extremely restorative,” and she advises others to “keep showing up” for those who they know aren’t doing well.

Kendrick portrays Alice in the stirring drama, which is directed by Mary Nighy and written by Alanna Francis. She is a lady who is trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship with her wealthy boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick). During a birthday trip, Alice seems distressingly aloof to her friends, Kaniehtiio Horn and Wunmi Mosaku. Alice’s friends attempt to step in and offer assistance as she slowly disintegrates due to Simon’s mind tricks.

The story of Alice “resonated” with the Oscar nominee for a particular reason, she revealed to the media in September, during the world premiere of the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“I was coming out of a personal experience with emotional abuse and psychological abuse,” Kendrick shared, recalling the time she first came across the screenplay. “I think my rep sent it to me because he knew what I’d been dealing with and sent it along. Because he was like, ‘This sort of speaks to everything that you’ve been talking to me about.’ ”

“It felt really distinct in that I had, frankly, seen a lot of movies about abusive or toxic relationships, and it didn’t really look like what was happening to me,” she added. “It kind of helped me normalize and minimize what was happening to me, because I thought, ‘Well if I was in an abusive relationship, it would look like that.’ ”

Kendrick, Alice, Darling is the first endeavor this important to her that she has undertaken.

She told the press, “Usually, I just read a good script and like the characters in it, and I make the movie. And the discovery of this script at that time in my life was truly surprising timing.

The actress continued, “In fact, I recall my first Zoom meeting with Mary Nighy, the director, admitting to her what I was going through. “And I even told her, “This just happened yesterday. In fact, it happened so late that I probably shouldn’t do it if the movie was shooting in a month.”

“But it was many, many months away. So I wasn’t in danger of re-traumatizing myself. But yeah, it’s certainly a unique experience,” Kendrick added.

The theatrical run of Alice, Darling will start on December 30 in Los Angeles and will continue exclusively at AMC Theaters across the country on January 20, 2023.

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