Anna Kendrick Took a Big Risk at 12 Years Old

As a pre-teen, Anna Kendrick put her safety at risk to advance her career. On the Jan. 19 episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden, Kendrick shared how she took a bus from Maine to NYC at 12 years old to audition for High Society on Broadway in the ultimate fake it-until-you-make-it story. “I know it sounds so bad,” the actress lamented.  After Corden mentioned the experience, Kendrick admitted the tale of the six-hour bus ride was “mostly” true. “I was 12, but my 14-year-old brother was with me, so, ha, wonderful. So very responsible,” she deadpanned. “So I auditioned for High Society, the first job that I had. And we were told, no matter what happens in an audition, just be like, ‘yes of course.’ You know, anything they ask you just be like, ‘oh, of course.’ And so they were like, ‘oh, can you stay for a callback tomorrow?’” The pre-teen and her young brother were taken aback by the request. “I don’t know what to do. So, my parents faxed a copy of their credit card to like the cheapest hotel in New York City that they could find. And they were like, our children are checking in first, and we’ll be along shortly, obviously, because it would be insane for these two children to just be checking into a hotel by themselves,” Kendrick said pointedly.

“And I washed my socks and underwear in the sink. And then it happened again. And in the final callback, they were like, ‘oh, we’re gonna bring you in one last time. Do you think you could maybe dress a little nicer?’ because you know you wear the same thing to a callback, right? “Because you know, you don’t wanna change anything,” she explained. “And I was just kind of a ratty looking child and, it’s High Society, it’s in the name, and I was wearing these combat boots that I thought was so cool. So we spent the little bit of cash that we had going to Payless and buying church shoes, like little white church shoes. “But I still had these disgusting jeans on and this chunky cardigan. And that was like my attempt at looking aristocratic,” Kendrick said as the audience laughed.  

The Pitch Perfect star also discussed her upcoming thriller Alice, Darling, in which Kendrick plays Alice, a woman enduring emotional abuse from her successful boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick).  During a birthday trip, Alice seems distressingly distant to her friends, played by Kaniehtio Horn and Wunmi Mosaku. As Alice slowly unravels due to Simon’s mind games, her friends attempt to intervene and support her. Kendrick noted how the film was a departure for her, which attracted her to the project. “It’s about a woman in a psychologically abusive relationship. It’s really not what you expect it to be. It kind of feels almost like a mystery film or a horror film or something. And it’s very simple and paired down. And I was really looking to do something a little more challenging.” She added, “I think it was just nice for me to try something different at a kind of weird moment in my personal life. To lean into it and be like, let’s run towards the scariest thing that nobody knows me for or wants me to do.”