Anna Kendrick opens up about ‘cathartic’ filming experience of Alice, Darling

Filming the movie was a ‘cathartic’ experience, Kendrick said

Anna Kendrick (Getty Images for RBC)

Anna Kendrick has opened up about how making her forthcoming film Alice, Darling helped her recover from her own difficult relationship.

The process of filming the thriller, which deals with psychological and emotional abuse, was a “cathartic” experience for the actor.

“The movie was so personal, there was a point where I was like ‘Oh, I don’t know if this is too soon to be doing this role,” the 37-year-old said during an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

The Pitch Perfect star told Clarkson on Monday (19 December) that the film discusses “the power of friendship in the way that you can get through things if you have the right people in your corner”.

“I know that’s how I got out and how I started my recovery,” Kendrick added.

Alice, Darling, directed by Mary Nighy and written by Alanna Francis, is scheduled to be released in cinemas on 20 January 2023. Kendrick plays the role of Alice, a woman trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship with her boyfriend, Simon (played by Charlie Carrick).

Kendrick told People that when she first read the script, she was “coming out of a personal experience with emotional abuse and psychological abuse”.

“It felt really distinct in that I had, frankly, seen a lot of movies about abusive or toxic relationships, and it didn’t really look like what was happening to me.”

She said that these films would help her “normalise” and “minimise” what was happening to her.

“I thought, ‘Well if I was in an abusive relationship, it would look like that’.”