Anna Kendrick says her new movie Alice, darling made him reflect on his past experience of emotional abuse in a romantic relationship.
the Perfect alum spoke to The Los Angeles Times this week about 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, leading her to question her views on the relationship.
“That was a big part of my problem,” Kendrick explained. “He never hit me and I’m not really afraid of him hitting me. How do you 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 thinking, ‘OK, do I have 30 seconds before I start playing or…?’ »
During the process of making the film, it was important for the In the air star for not showing that Simon is outwardly monstrous on screen, instead allowing Alice’s experience to be “proof” that he was abusive. This included removing a moment when Alice took off her clothes, revealing bruises.
“I was begging Mary, ‘Can Alice be the proof?'” Kendrick said. It was partly like, if you can’t trust Alice, then I can’t trust myself. So it was really, really important that the movie relied so much on staying with Alice.
Kendrick has previously opened up about his past relationship. In a September interview with Peopleshe said her rep passed on Francis’ script because it reflected conversations they were having about Kendrick’s own relationship.
“It was really distinct in that I had, frankly, seen a lot of movies about abusive or toxic relationships, and it didn’t really feel like what was happening to me,” she said. “It kind of helped me normalize and minimize what was happening to me, because I was like, ‘Well, if I was in an abusive relationship, it would look like this.'”
She shared that at the time, she trusted the person she had a relationship with more than herself.
“When that person tells you that you have a distorted sense of reality and that you’re impossible and whatever you think is happening isn’t happening, your life gets really confusing really quickly,” Kendrick explained. “And I was in a situation where, at the end, I had the unique experience of discovering that everything I thought was actually happening. So I had this kind of springboard to feel and recover that a lot many people haven’t. I don’t understand.”
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