Anna Kendrick on First Time Getting Drunk & Jimmy’s Mom Being Obsessed with Pitch Perfect

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Our first guest tonight is an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony nominee you know from more things than I have time to mention.
Her latest is called Alice Darling.
It opens in AMC Theatres January 20th.
Please welcome Anna Kendrick.
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I did it specifically for you and only you.
I appreciate that.
Did you ever work in a movie theater because I bet you would be good at the thing.
Oh, the popcorn?
Because you were good at the cup deal with the, you know.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
That's filmmaking.
I never worked in a movie theater.
My brother worked in a movie theater.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So he works at a movie theater.
That actually, I ended up getting drunk for the very first time in a movie theater that he worked at because it was like after hours and you could sneak in alcohol and I think it was like coffee, brandy, and milk, which is kind of a staple in Maine because we're very classy.
Is it really?
As a state.
You drank, your first time getting drunk was coffee, brandy, and milk?
Coffee, brandy, and milk.
No, it's weird to me that y'all think that is weird because in Maine that's like the state drink.
We have an alcohol problem.
It's not a big deal.
It sounds like something.
It's very cute, actually.
Like the Gortons fishermen would have after a long day at sea.
Well, that's like the kind of persona we're all going for in Maine, so yeah.
So I'm sitting there with like coffee, brandy, and milk watching like The Legend of Vagabands or something and being like, this is so moving, I don't know.
Did you revisit the coffee, brandy, and milk later in the evening or how did that first experience go?
No, I think that once I moved to California, I never found it again.
Oh, no, I meant did you vomit, but yeah.
Oh.
I'm trying to say it in a nice way.
No, no, I managed.
You managed, yeah.
Wow, that's very impressive.
Was your older brother?
Yeah, yeah.
So it was very like, oh, you know, like if you're going to try alcohol for the first time, it should be while I'm around.
It should be on my watch.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, here's some milk.
Very responsible, yeah.
Get some brandy and dairy products in you.
It's funny because not only should you not be drinking brandy as a teenager, you shouldn't be drinking coffee probably either, right?
Yeah, or milk.
Or milk.
I was too old to be just drinking milk, and yeah, none of that was right.
Yeah, you go home to your parents, you're like, yeah, but I did have some milk.
Yeah, for my bones.
Was it a big secret?
Like, did you have to keep it quiet at home?
Oh, yeah.
No, I think like I walked in and, you know, your first time being drunk, you're like,
I am pulling this off.
Yeah, yeah.
Love it.
Yeah, you stand up and you realize you are.
Yeah.
Would your brother give you like stuff for free and sneak in?
You said you snuck in, but.
Well, no, I mean, I think he probably did.
I don't, I try to actually, I try to avoid movie snacks because I cannot stop myself from just like shoving the entire snack in my mouth before the movie has begun.
Same here.
I finish it before the previews are done.
Yes, before the previews are even done.
It's just like, I can't stop myself.
It's a conveyor belt of just calories.
I turn into a horse just eating out of a, yeah, like a feed bag, yeah.
I need somebody to invent like a thing for nachos and popcorn that's like one of those pet feeder things when you like leave your cat for a weekend where it's like you have to wait until the next preview starts before you can take another handful of popcorn.
That's a great idea.
Maybe.
That's the only thing that's going to slow me down.
You know, maybe what they could do is cut a little hole in the bottom of the popcorn and then like suspend it above your head and so you could just take one at a time.
Like a gerbil.
Like a gerbil.
Exactly.
Brilliant.
I think you could really market this because I have that same problem.
And I'm going to tell you another thing.
You don't have little kids, right?
I have a couple of kids who want to know what happened to all the popcorn.
Oh.
Because they get involved with their, you know, gummy rings or whatever they have.
And then later it's like, dad, I just want some popcorn.
I know.
And then I act like one of the others.
Like, I don't know.
I think Billy ate it.
I don't know what happened.
Yeah.
I started looking around in my lap for spares.
Yeah.
But if we had little gerbil stations for that.
If we only had gerbil stations.
I'll tell you another thing.
I'm sorry I'm talking too much about this.
I once suggested to my wife that rather than come in the night to give our daughter a bottle, we set up a pet feeder in the crib.
And we put formula in it.
And then whenever she gets thirsty, you know, just kind of nurse like a little goat or something like that.
So this is your solution for everything, I see.
I guess so.
Yeah.
I got it.
Yes.
It's a bad idea, but it's a solid idea.
Oh, my mother is so obsessed with you, you would probably call the police if you ever met her.
No, no.
My mother has watched Pitch Perfect hundreds of times.
No.
Yes.
And I'm sorry you're reacting that way.
But hundreds of times.
That's so sweet.
Yeah.
The first 20 times it's sweet.
The next 80 times it becomes crazy.
For a long time, anyone who walked in the house, I mean, like the FedEx guy would show up, she'd be like, sit down.
And then my daughter's friend took video of her because she said, you have to watch this movie, sit down.
And I want you to watch my mother watching you on.
Oh, my God.
That's so amazing.
I mean, she is the target demographic, first of all.
That was so wonderful.
That makes me so happy.
Oh, good.
Okay.
Good.
Oh, my God.
I'm going to make her less happy.
Why was she here?
That's great.
Oh, my God.
We have a restraining order against you.
Just a preemptive measure.
Did you make a New Year's resolution?
Is that the sort of thing you do?
Well, I make the same New Year's resolution every year.
It's like a vague sense of like, this year will be the year that I don't let the kind of order and cleanliness of my house fall apart.
Are you messy?
I'm either hyper organized or hyper messy.
So if I let one crack in the system show, it just all falls apart.
And I'm always like, if I just perfect, this year I'm going to come up with the perfect organizational system.
And I'm just like, last year's system was flawed.
And it's like, no, the guy that runs the system is flawed.
Like, the problem is me.
Yeah.
But...
Do you have too much stuff?
I have so much stuff.
Well, I actually am like, I've moved.
So right now, I'm not even in the organization phase.
I'm like in very small home repair phase, which gives me irrational anxiety.
Really?
I'll have somebody over to just like fix a light switch or something.
And the second that there's like a, huh, this, this wire, I just am like, I will do, I go into overdrive.
I will do anything to just be like, what?
Is it just...
It's fine.
It's fine.
Whatever it is, it's fine.
Don't tell me.
You can just leave it.
Like, if there's rats in the wall or like lizard people living in like an attic upstairs or something, like, just don't tell me.
It's fine.
It's, you know what?
Let's burn this place to the ground.
I don't, you know what?
I don't even live here.
We're trespassing.
Let's get out of here.
Like, I just like, for some reason, it's like triggers this insane anxiety where I'm like,
I will just do anything to have this conversation stopped.
So...
Well, we're going to take a break.
When we come back, we'll see a clip from the movie Alice Darling.
Anna Kendrick is here.
We'll be right back.
No, I lied to him.
He doesn't even know that I'm here.
What?
I mean, he does now.
He called.
Why did you lie to him?
Because I'm mad.
What?
He wouldn't love me if he knew how bad I am.
Geez, is that something that he tells you?
That's Anna Kendrick in Alice Darling.
That is not pitch perfect.
You're acting is really bad.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm not.
Your acting is really great in the movie.
Thank you.
It's very intense.
I don't want to try to describe it, but it's largely about a young woman in a very unhappy, unhealthy relationship.
Yeah.
It's about a woman in a psychologically abusive relationship, but it's, I don't know, it's not what you think it would be.
I always feel like the filmmakers just did such an amazing job.
It feels like when the first time you read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, where you're like, am I going crazy?
Just the experience of consuming that piece of media makes you like, am I crazy?
What's going on?
Did you feel that way while you were shooting the movie?
Yeah.
Well, we shot it in Canada, and at that time, the quarantine rules were really, really strict, so I was-
Oh, right.
They were very strict.
It was very strict.
If you went into the country, you had to quarantine for two weeks, and not like, hey, stay away from people.
It was like, you stay in this room, and the government comes and checks up on you to make sure that you haven't left the room.
Like Justin Trudeau stops by and goes, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what happened.
Yeah.
Wasn't there a huge fine or something like that?
Oh, yeah.
No, they would have sent me away and shut down the movie and everything, so I had to stay in this room for two weeks, which did make me feel like I was going crazy.
That's crazy.
I drank so much wine, and I was just on this lake, which was very picturesque, until it's like day 11 and you've had a lot of wine, and then you're like, I'm going crazy, but
I'm just method acting.
So you were quarantined on the lake, because the movie revolves around a lake, on that same lake where you shot the movie.
Yeah, yeah.
So we were shooting around this lake, and my, well, I was actually staying at this tiny little place that was on the lake as well, which there's a, I mean, in that clip, I'm coming out of the water, so there are scenes that are kind of underwater, and it's a little indie movie, so we had like six hours where we could afford to rent underwater cameras and have a safety guy and scuba gear around, and the director was like, yeah, there's just like this one shot, we really need you to be under the water for a little bit longer, but they've sent away the, we can't afford to get an underwater camera back, so I think it's like the last shot of the movie, even, is the cinematographer just went to Walmart and bought a fish tank, and put our one good camera in the fish tank, and was like, I really hope this is a good fish tank, and so in the place that I was staying, after work, in secret, we were not permitted to do this, I like, and in that scene, I'm in my bra, and the director, Mary, is on the dock saying action, but it's just this one guy with a camera and a fish tank, and me in my bra, and there's preteen boys several houses down going like, is that lady from that one movie in a bra, like, doing a weird sex thing with a camera and a fish tank, and yeah, I was like, I'm really, I hope that these kids are jaded enough that they're just like, whatever, and not putting this on TikTok right now.
Oh yeah, no, yeah, they're, no, kids are never that jaded, they never get that jaded, it just doesn't happen, wow, that's pretty crazy, see, you violated international law there in Canada, you were so careful about the COVID, and then, but then I was like, indecent exposure, yeah, you fish tank indecent exposure, very cool, I'm a professional woman, what do you want from me, and I know you, speaking of being a professional woman, you just directed a movie, yeah, yeah, I just directed my first feature, which I wasn't expecting to do, and it came together really fast, and it was like, the most fun I've had, this is a crazy story, oh yeah, the true story, yeah, so it's based on a thing that really happened in the 1970s, this woman went on the dating game, and the man that she chose was a serial killer, yeah, and, wrong choice, yeah, bad choice, yeah, like, crazy, crazy, true story, sort of from her perspective, and I just, I had so much fun doing it, but I, I will say that, like, I, you know, directors, like, they're great, they're, they're great, please hire me, but they think they're really interesting, because they're so, like, hyper-focused on the thing that they're making, that they, I think they expect you to be as interested in that thing, but then I'm now, like, the last, like, three months of my life, I've been hyper-focused on this thing, so I find myself going, like, well, there was this one set that was, like, orange and purple, and then we decided that, like, we wanted to make it more rust than eggplant, and, like, why is every, why is everybody walking away, and why does everybody feel like they hate me, like, more than usual? Do you have someone in your life who pretends to think everything you say is interesting? Well, you have to. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, but once the commercials hit, forget about it, then that's, it's over. No, but no, that's so fascinating about the orange set.
No, it is, it's, like, nobody wants to talk. That's a great story. All my stories are, like.
That's a crazy story, I look forward to seeing that. I know a little about, about that story, they think that guy may have killed, like, over a hundred people, right? Yeah, no, it's really terrifying, it's, like, definitely a great kind of metaphor for, like, you think you know what you're getting yourself into, and, like, who's the person behind the curtain, and it's just, like, such a terrifying story. I wonder if, like, in, like, 25, 30 years, we'll find out one of the bachelors killed a hundred people. That seems likely. Yeah. I mean. For sure. Yeah. Well, it's great to have you here. What's the name of the movie that you directed? Oh, it doesn't have a title right now. Oh, well, okay. That's a terrible answer. Okay. You have to seem interested.
You're doing a great job. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Well, I can't wait to see
Untitled, and Alice Darling opens at the movies in AMC theaters on January 20th. Anna Kendrick, everybody. Thank you, Anna and Rebecca. Jermaine Fowler.