Up in the Air's Anna Kendrick on Getting Hired, Not Fired
Twilight (2008) and New Moon (2009)
You ended up playing Bella's friend Jessica in the Twilight series. Did Catherine ever have you read for any of the vampires?
No. It was always a little strange -- I never really knew why she asked me to come in and read for Jessica. If anything, I thought I would read for Angela [played by Christian Serratos], because I just don't see myself as the sort of girl who has any business pretending to be the most popular person at school. I think that's where the comedy came from, because I didn't know how to play up these really confident, catty, alpha female qualities. I had to go in and play all the things those girls are hiding, like the desperation and insecurity and jealousy, and I think that's what makes Jessica so funny.
Was that your biggest example of going in for a role thinking, "I don't know if I'm right for this," but getting it in the end?
I would say so. I definitely am different from that character in Twilight and the character in Up in the Air, but I enjoy exercising that strong part of myself that I don't get to use in real life. It was a strange thing to go in for Twilight feeling like, "Why am I auditioning for the girl making fun of Bella for being tan when I'm the palest, most awkward kid on the planet?"
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Comments
She was amazingly hilarious in Camp.
I'm proud to be gay enough to have loved Camp and to be able to sing the entire "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" song she's performing in that first picture after the jump.
She's fancy.
What a lovely woman. She's absolutely brilliant in Up In The Air, which is a terrific film in itself.
Thank you for the best interview of Anna Kendrick for fans anyone has done in years. Way more than just the standard Twilight and Up in the Air questions of other interviews. And, unlike other interviewers, Kyle Buchanan clearly knows Anna Kendrick was an experienced and talented pro before those two movies (although she's great in them, too).
That 1998 picture of little Anna in curls is not from High Society. It's from the "My Favorite Broadway" special that year (later on PBS), when she sang "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" from Showboat, backed by dancers from the then-revival production of Cabaret.
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Without question, Anna is my favorite new artist, and this interview only confirms my appreciation. Talented, beautiful, gracious and smart, it's hard to imagine a more deserving person. A superb interview.
[…] discusses getting the Camp role. A cousin to the director encouraged her to audition for the […]