Anna Kendrick Interview

Is it true that director Jason Reitman had you in mind for this part all along?
But I didn’t know that! I auditioned for the part like any other. I read the script and it was so beautiful, and the role was so rare – a 23-year-old girl who isn’t sexualised or given a romantic storyline and who is so complicated and messed up, so I was really excited about the part. So I went in and read and I didn’t think it went all that well and I was really, really disappointed. Then, a few days later, I got a call saying that I’d got the job and Jason told me that he’d written the part with me in mind after seeing me in Rocket Science, but he didn’t want to show too much enthusiasm in case he psyched me out.

Did these directorial mind-games freak you out?
Well, he thought he was taking the pressure off by not letting me in on the fact that he had me in mind all along, but I just thought, ‘This guy does not want me! He’s just going to go and hire Scarlett Johansson, what am I even doing here?’

In Up in the Air you star opposite George Clooney and Jason Bateman, and the upcoming The Marc Pease Experience you face off against Ben Stiller and Jason Schwartzman. That’s some pretty fast company…
They’ve all made me feel incredibly comfortable. For me there’s no amount of meeting celebrities and finding out that they’re normal human beings. Then you turn up and within five minutes George Clooney’s making fun of your hair, but he’s being so charming about it that you know he’s doing it to make you feel immediately comfortable.

So it’s not daunting at all?
There were a couple of months between casting and filming Up in the Air and I constantly thought I was going to be replaced! ‘What am I doing in this movie? – I’m from Maine! I can’t be in a movie with George Clooney, it’s just impossible.’ You feel uncomfortable when you first meet them because you know them from TV. On this movie in particular I was really trying to prove myself. It was the first movie I’ve done in which I was the baby on set and I was trying to keep up with Vera Farmiga and George Clooney and Jason Bateman and feeling every day that I was sitting at the grown-ups. And not get caught for being… you know – a little hoodlum.

Clooney – listen to me! – George Clooney…
Just ‘The Cloon’!

George Clooney always seems like a very giving, generous actor…
‘A generous actor’ always seems like such a bullshit line.

…
… but that’s exactly how I would describe him. He was so present and was always on set - never disappeared to his trailer. He would always give his performance on the other side of the camera in order to help your performance. He gives you as much as you need to get you to where you need to be in a scene. As much as he horses around on set, he is incredibly supportive.

Your character in the film is something of a little spitfire, but there’s a great deal of vulnerability to her.
Absolutely. Especially in the scene with Vera Farmiga and George where Vera and I are talking about what we expect from life and what we want in a man. That scene was interesting because we shot that right toward the end and I was more intimidated by Vera than I was by George, because Vera plays this really icy, intelligent woman – she’s really warm in real life but I didn’t know her at that stage as we hadn’t shot anything together and I’d been working with George for two months – and we shot the scene where I break down and I really did feel humiliated – not humiliated, that’s too strong a word, but very, very embarrassed to be breaking down in front of this actress who I admire and I felt very exposed and very vulnerable. As warm as she is, I did feel like I was trying – but maybe not succeeding – to keep my guard up.

You’ve appeared in an ensemble cast in Twilight but in Up in the Air the focus is much more on your role – which set up do you prefer? And don’t say both…
Or what – you’ll punch me?!? There’s almost something easier about doing a lead role because you have time to settle in, but when it’s only a small role in a larger cast there’s a lot of pressure to do something spectacular. On this movie I had a couple of months to work out who my character was as opposed to an ensemble film where you’ve got three days to come up with something great.

You’re on the cusp of real A-list fame. Are you prepared at all for that?
Being hotels and talking to press and being on red carpets and photographers yelling at you all seems strange and alien, but the really great thing is that – so far! – I’m really painfully ordinary. I go home and nobody bothers me – I still go to the same video stores, the same, y’know, I guess, restaurants… though I go to the video store way more often than I go to restaurants. All my friends still treat me the same way - they still treat me like an asshole. Which is great. I come to London and New York and I’m given a very specific level of attention and then I go home and everyone leaves me alone – it’s like stretching after a marathon.