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ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Woman of the Hour star and director Anna Kendrick about making her directorial debut. Kendrick discussed what was surprising for her, how her acting background helped, and the film’s use of perspective. Based on an incredible true story, it is now streaming on Netflix.
“The stranger-than-fiction story of an aspiring actress in 1970s Los Angeles and a serial killer in the midst of a yearslong murder spree, whose lives intersect when they’re cast on an episode of The Dating Game,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: You’ve obviously been in on so many sets and you’ve produced, but this is your directorial debut. Were there any major surprises or maybe an aspect that you found out you were really passionate about that you weren’t able to do before?
Anna Kendrick: Oh, gosh. Well, oh God, I should come up with a better answer for this because I do feel like, well, everything. Everything was so scary and so surprising [when making Woman of the Hour]. I guess if anything, I was really nervous about potentially directing actors who had like a very, very different process to me. Because there are times where I’m like, “Well, I have to speak their language, and what if they speak a, a language that I can’t really understand?” But I think that everybody was coming at it from the same place and just wanting to do justice to the material.
I think that I had a bit of an advantage in the idea that everybody kind of knew that I had been in their position so many times. So it was kind of built into anything that I had to say that like, “I know this is weird. I know this feels wrong, and I’m asking a lot of you, but I know that you can do it and I don’t take it lightly. I’ve been in your shoes, and I know that I’m asking a lot of you, and I’m grateful.” Not having to have that conversation all the time just kind of kept things moving, which we needed to do because we had very, very, very limited time and resources for a very ambitious movie.
Speaking of the ambition of this, you show multiple perspectives. I thought that was such a key choice, especially with Nicolette Robinson’s storyline. Because we see that one of the reasons why these serial killers were able to get away with so much is women weren’t being taken seriously when they were reporting these things. So how was it kind of balancing all those different aspects?
Yeah, I think one of my favorite things about all the different characters in the movie is how different they are, um, and how like they keep trying different approaches to stay safe or in Nicolette’s case, to stay safe while raising the alarm about this very dangerous person. The idea that there isn’t a great answer and there isn’t a solution that’s as simple as like, “Well, if you use these words and this tone of voice, this is how you know, you’ll move through the world in a way that’s safe and people will listen to you.” I love Nicolette’s storyline. I love her performance so much, and I was really, again, asking so much of her because she really represents over a decade of people trying to raise the alarm and being ignored.
Obviously, for our film, we made her a bit of a composite character, and we have 90 minutes, so we gotta keep it moving. She really brought like all of that urgency and grief and trauma into a performance that also stayed nuanced and interesting because it could have become really one-note and monotonous really easily. I mostly feel like I just wanna shower credit on the people who were willing to show up and, for some reason, let me be in charge of any of this.
Thanks to Anna Kendrick for taking the time to discuss Woman of the Hour.
The post Anna Kendrick Found Directing Woman of the Hour ‘Scary & Surprising’ appeared first on ComingSoon.net – Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
