by Anna Kendrick says her new movie Alice, darling it made her reflect on her past experience of emotional abuse in a romantic relationship.
The Pitch perfect alum spoke with The Los Angeles Times this week on her next film, in which she plays Alice, a woman in a destructive relationship with the psychologically abusive Simon (Charlie Carrick). The film, directed by Mary Nighy from a screenplay by Alanna Francis, made Kendrick reflect on his own experiences with an unnamed ex. Kendrick said her partner didn’t physically harm her, which made her question her perspective on her relationship.
“That was a big part of my problem,” Kendrick explained. “She has never hit me and I’m not really afraid of her hitting me. How do I distinguish between normal conflict and abuse? Why is my body so scared all the time? Why do I wake up feeling like he’s in bed next to me and I’m like, ‘OK, do I have 30 seconds before I start performing or…?’”
During the film making process, it was important to the Up in the air star of not showing Simon outwardly monstrous on screen, instead allowing Alice’s experience to be “proof” that he was violent. This included removing a moment where Alice stripped off her clothes, revealing bruises.
“I was begging Mary, ‘Can Alice be proof?'” Kendrick said. Part of it was like, if you can’t trust Alice, then I can’t trust myself. So it was really, really important that the movie was so much about just being with Alice.
Kendrick has already opened up about her past relationship. In a September interview with Peopleshe said her rep passed on Francis’ script because it reflected the conversations they were having about Kendrick’s relationship.
“It felt really distinct in that, frankly, I’d seen a lot of movies about abusive or toxic relationships, and it just didn’t feel like what was happening to me,” she said. “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 this.'”
She shared that at the time, she trusted the person she was in a relationship with more than she trusted herself.
“When that person tells you that you have a distorted sense of reality and that you’re impossible and all the things that you think are happening aren’t happening, your life gets very confusing very quickly,” Kendrick explained. I was in a situation where, finally, I had the unique experience of finding that everything I thought was happening was actually happening, so I had this kind of stepping stone to feeling and recovery that a lot of people don’t have. gain.”
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