Actress-director Anna Kendrick has revealed she donated her entire earnings from Woman of the Hour to charitable organizations, citing ethical concerns about profiting from the true-crime story. The Netflix film, marking Kendrick’s directorial debut, chronicles the disturbing true story of Cheryl Bradshaw’s encounter with serial killer Rodney Alcala on The Dating Game.
During an appearance on the Crime Junkie AF podcast, Kendrick explained her decision: “This was never a money-making venture for me. All the resources went to actually just making the movie.” The realization of potential profits came shortly before the film’s Toronto International Film Festival premiere. “I went from being like, ‘Let me know when the movie happens,’ to being like, ‘Oh god I am responsible for this.’ And then it was making the movie — we just barely made the deadline to get into TIFF — and then it was like, ‘Oh, there’s money gonna be exchanging hands,’” she recalled. “I asked myself the question of, ‘Do you feel gross about this?’ And I did.”
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Consequently, Kendrick gave her earnings to RAINN (the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network) and the National Center for Victims of Violent Crime, two leading American nonprofit anti-sexual assault organizations. “It’s still a complicated area but that certainly felt like the least that I could do,” she shared.
The film, which premiered on Netflix on Oct. 18, features Kendrick as Bradshaw alongside Daniel Zovatto as Alcala, with additional cast members including Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Pete Holmes, Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher and Kelley Jakle. Screenwriter Ian McDonald highlighted the project’s unique approach to the serial killer narrative, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “People will compare him to Ted Bundy, but Ted Bundy was really good at pretending to be this good-natured, all-American guy, and Rodney Alcala really didn’t even pretend. The thing that’s most interesting about him is the way in which the people around him look the other way.”
Initially attached solely as an actor, Kendrick later pitched herself as director, even seeking advice from Paul Feig. “I was really surrounded by people who were incredibly talented and supportive, and they’re really the reason why it didn’t all fall apart all the time,” she told the outlet at the film’s L.A. premiere.
McDonald credits her involvement for “saving the movie” after earlier deals collapsed, praising her collaborative approach: “She saw the movie exactly the way that I did, and she just had really smart, incisive notes. But importantly, her notes were things that made the script more what I wanted it to be, not less. She was a fresh set of eyes, and she could see things that, over the course of years, I had become blind to. A wonderful collaborator.” The film has earned recognition for its sensitive handling of difficult subject matter, avoiding explicit violence while maintaining focus on the female experience and humanizing the victims.
