Anna Kendrick Shares How 7-Year Relationship Turned Abusive ...
Anna Kendrick Meets the 'Dating Game' Killer: Hear The True Story Behind the Chilling Trailer
Anna Kendrick is sharing a vulnerable part of her history.
The Pitch Perfect alum recently got candid about the ways in which her 2022 film Alice Darling eerily mimicked her real-life experience of coming to realize she was in an emotionally abusive relationship.
“I had just gotten out of a relationship that was extremely similar to the movie,” she told Alex Cooper during the Oct. 23 episode of Call Her Daddy, noting she didn’t tell anyone close to her she’d taken on the role because, “I didn't want anybody to tell me to not do it.”
And much like it took her character a while to recognize the abuse for what it was, Anna, too, detailed the difficulty she had in identifying the problems in her relationship.
“It didn't follow the traditional pattern,” she explained, noting how abuse can often manifest over time. “Because I was reading all the articles and going like, ‘This doesn't look like—some of it looks like how they're describing it, but not completely.’ The relationship was seven years, but it was like an overnight switch, and that went on for about a year.”
“It came out of absolutely nowhere,” the 39-year-old continued, “but I had so much love and trust for that person, so I thought it had to be me. Like I if one of us is crazy, it must be me. So it was very, very difficult to actually go, ‘No, I think this is him.’”
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
In fact, Anna noted that the couple’s then-therapist even had trouble recognizing the signs of abuse for a long time.
“I've had several sessions with him in the last several years,” Anna said of the couple’s therapist, “where he's apologized to me, because I think he realized what was going on right toward the end.”
In fact, it was an experience during one of these sessions—in which she explained she finally lost her composure—that truly helped Anna be able to look at her relationship through a critical lens.
Jason Mendez/Getty Images
“I sent the therapist an email being like, ‘I'm so embarrassed. I'm so sorry. I know I need to control myself,’” she remembered. “And he called me, which he hadn't done before, and was like, ‘No, I'm so proud of you.’ And that's when I knew, like, ‘Oh, something has shifted.’”
As she added, “Things ended pretty quickly after.”
So when it came time to decide whether to take on Alice Darling, Anna didn’t want anyone swaying her decision.
“It's a similar thing where it was like pushing myself off of a cliff and not giving myself the time to go, ‘Is this a good choice?’” she remembered. “Because I just didn't want somebody to tell me—maybe this is the childhood thing of, like, ‘I don't want you to tell me it's bedtime.’ Like, ‘I need to do this. I'm gonna do this.’”
For more information on domestic abuse or to get help for yourself or someone you love, visit the website for The National Domestic Violence Hotline (http://www.thehotline.org/) or call 1-800-799-7233.
