Anna Kendrick has been making the press rounds in support of her movie “Alice, Darling” since September, when the film debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Oscar nominee stars as a woman forced to process a toxic relationship during a weekend getaway with friends. Kendrick told People magazine in September that her “personal experience with emotional abuse” was the backbone of the film, which she also executive produced, and that led her “Alice, Darling” press tour to be dominated by questions about surviving her own abusive relationship and processing the resulting trauma.
In a new interview with IndieWire, Kendrick reconsidered her “Alice, Darling” press tour and her decision to be so open about her personal experience. While journalists at press junkets certainly had the right to ask Kendrick about her own history of emotional abuse, she recalled feeling “shitty” afterwards.
“People have asked me, ‘Was it challenging to shoot the movie?’ and I guess that question makes sense,” Kendrick said. “But I’m actually finding that the press is the thing that has been a little trickier to navigate, making sure that I’m ok and feeling safe in my body.”
“There was a thing early on where I was doing like a junket-style day for ‘Alice, Darling’ where it’s like six minutes per person and you kind of run through like 30 interviews really quickly,” Kendrick continued. “I went home and was in the shower and was like, ‘Why do I feel so shitty right now?’ And I sort of told everyone, ‘I don’t think I can do another thing like that.’”
Kendrick added, “I totally get it’s no journalist’s job to show up for me in the same headspace that I’m in, but I’m trying really hard to go into these conversations really open, and it feels kind of strange to be talking to somebody who clearly just has a million things to do that day… I was like, ‘Oh, I need to draw a boundary there. I can’t really be talking about this in that style of conversation.’”
In previous interviews, Kendrick credited “Alice, Darling” with helping her “normalize” her own experience with an abusive relationship. The movie earned positive reviews out of TIFF, with Variety writing in its review: “It’s a strong role for Kendrick, whose character may seem less than fully defined, but then that’s part of the point — Alice’s boyfriend has insidiously worn away any part of her personality that doesn’t prioritize him.”
“Alice, Darling” is now playing in theaters.