Anna Kendrick Had to Be Rescued by Firefighters After Getting Stuck in an Elevator

Anna Kendrick experienced a slight mishap at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch Perfect actress shared Sunday that she and her team were stuck in an elevator on the way to an appearance. Kendrick recorded the entire incident and later uploaded it to Instagram. “Ah, the classic ‘I’m behind schedule at this film festival because I had to be rescued from an elevator’ excuse #TIFF22,” she wrote in the post.

Kendrick jokes about rationing food and the importance of always carrying a water bottle in the clip. Playfully, the 37-year-old pans the camera to show the packed elevator and quips that she is “just vibing” as everyone tries to exit. As fire department officials lower a ladder into the elevator, Kendrick jokes that she is wearing the perfect outfit. “It’s a good thing I’m not wearing a short skirt today,” she remarked while climbing the ladder. “The Lord said to me, choose a long skirt, Anna.” Kendrick told the firefighters when she exited the elevator, “And I’m in love with every one of you.” 

During a conversation with People and Entertainment Weekly, the actress opened up about the experience while at the festival to promote her new film Alice, Darling. “I got in the wrong elevator at the wrong time,” she joked on Sunday at People and Entertainment Weekly’s TIFF photo studio.

“I got out. Some lovely Canadian firefighters had me crawl out the top of the hatch,” she recalled. “But, yeah, it was, like, seven of us in an elevator just waiting to be rescued by firefighters. It was so absurd that it would happen on a film press tour that it just seemed so immediately comical.” Kendrick added,”I couldn’t stop cracking jokes. Although, maybe that’s a defense mechanism. Come on, Anna. Do you know anything about yourself? I think that was probably a defense mechanism. Oh no, I’m not healthy!”

In a recent interview with People, the Oscar nominee discussed Alice, Darling and bonding with her costars and director Mary Nighy. Kendrick said it was the first project to resonate with her so deeply. “Usually, it’s just I read a good script and I like the people involved, and I make the movie,” she says. “And it was really surprising timing that we found this script at that moment in my life. And in fact, I remember my first Zoom meeting with Mary Nighy, the director, disclosing to her what I was going through. And I even said to her, ‘This all happened very recently. In fact, it happened so recently that if the movie was shooting in a month, I probably shouldn’t do it.’ But it was many, many months away. So I wasn’t in danger of re-traumatizing myself. But yeah, it’s certainly a unique experience.”

Because of her connection to the film’s themes, she said it “felt incredibly cathartic. Like so many things in life, I think the piece that was most therapeutic was actually building relationships with these collaborators and sharing our personal histories with each other, and then creating this thing together,” Kendrick said.