The new mind mystery “Alice, Darling,” released exclusively at AMC theaters on Jan. 20, directed by first-time filmmaker Mary Nighy.
The film stars Anna Kendrick (“Pitch Perfect,” “Up in the Air”) as Anna, who is on a psychologically abusive date with her boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick).
But after taking a vacation with her friends Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Sophie (Wunmi Mosaku), she reevaluates her dates and tries to break away from her codependency despite Simon’s vindictive attitude.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of sitting down in-person with Anna Kendrick to talk about her work on ‘Alice, Darling,’ her first reaction to the screenplay, the aspects of the character she was excited to explore, Alice’s abusive relationship with Simon and how that affects her both mentally and physically.
Anna Kendrick in “Alice, Darling. “
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview with Anna Kendrick about “Alice, Darling. “
Moviefone: To start, can you tell us what your first reaction was when reading the script and what were some of the facets of the character that you were eager to explore on screen?
Anna Kendrick: I think my immediate sense reading the screenplay was, I was really excited about this thing that Alana (Francis), the screenwriter had managed to pull off. Which is really rare when you’re reading a screenplay where she was very specifically not spelling things out. It wasn’t really prescriptive, and she was just doing so much with so little both in the dialogue and in the action lines. She was just really creating a world, a tone and an atmosphere, and it was almost kind of visual poetry. It really invited you into the character, her anxiety and that kind of restraint, that I think is really difficult for screenwriters to trust, I guess.
I totally understand why, if you just put it on paper and send it out, saying, “That’s what I mean by that. “She created a piece of poetry, and so everyone came to the film with the same sense of tone. if that makes sense. I’ve been on sets before where you’d say, “Oh, I think a lot of us are in another movie right now. We say the lines and everything, but you’re in another movie. “movie than me. Everybody knew what this movie was, and that meant we had to show up and do our job, and that was exciting. I think in Alice’s adventure there are a lot of high-impact moments, however, what I discovered were exciting places, especially at the beginning of the film, where Alice is shown to be quite unfriendly.
She’s in a bad spot, and sometimes when you are not well and things are not good in your life, you’re not perfectly vulnerable and you’re not this kind of doe-eyed innocent lamb. Sometimes you might be cold to your friends, you might push people away, you might withdraw, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of inner life going on. There’s not much to draw you in, which is kind of vulnerable for me as a performer because very explicitly, I try to draw people in. It was weird to trust that the audience would be willing to stick with Alice long enough to see what was really going on with her.
(From left to right) Anna Kendrick as Alice and Charlie Carrick as Simon in “Alice, Darling”Photo credit: Samantha Falco.
MF: Finally, Alice’s relationship with Simon is literally physically making her sick. Can you talk about that abusive relationship between the two of them and how it brings out these obsessive compulsive aspects of her personality?
AK: First of all, Charlie, who plays Simon, has been an incredible level of spouse and best friend to me on set. We both had the same ideas: to make dating the kind of thing where you can perceive why Simon would be the aggressor. We talked about it a lot and I felt very fortunate to have him as a spouse on this project.
I think that I’ve talked to a lot of women, and I know for me personally, there is something about this kind of invisible internal, just soul crushing experience where there are manifestations physically. Whether it’s a rash or you have stomach problems, I feel like that’s something that comes up, these kind of physical, symptomatic things. I thought it was really smart of Alana, the screenwriter, to have that manifest in this kind of obsessive hair twirling and tugging. There’s just such an evocative image to sort of punish the self, and to punish a part of you that is supposed to be, especially as a women, beautiful, shiny and pleasing.
Being forced to damage that component of yourself, that external component of yourself, because what’s happening internally simply has to be expressed in some way. It was such beautiful writing and it was fun to capture that better in front of you. the camera. That was one of the first things we did on the day of the camera review with Mary and our brilliant cinematographer, Mike McLaughlin, was to get down to business with those macro lenses and try to figure out the best way to show the tension of the strand of hair around a finger, Because strands of hair are very difficult to film, but it was fun to do it.
Anna Kendrick stars in “Alice, Darling. “
Alice Darling”Sometimes the hardest thing to see is the truth”58R1h 30 minJanuary 20, 2023Schedules and ticketsWatch Alice Darling online