Anna Kendrick says she had to pitch herself twice to direct Netflix hit ‘Woman of the Hour’ because she wasn’t confident enough the first time
Anna Kendrick, the lead actor and director of “Woman of the Hour,” on set with Zach Kuperstein, the cinematographer.
Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, “Woman of the Hour,” is getting rave reviews, but the actor told Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” that she was “beyond terrified” of taking the leap.
“Woman of the Hour” is Netflix’s latest true crime thriller. The genre has been a huge hit on the platform with shows including “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (the third most-watched series of all time on Netflix), “When They See Us,” and “Inventing Anna.”
These successes are just one part of Netflix’s financial comeback. The streaming giant’s stocks are soaring, reaching an all-time high of $725 a share this month, up from 2022 lows of $180.
During an appearance on Wednesday’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” episode, Kendrick said she signed on to star in the film two years before they started filming because she had become “obsessed with true crime.”
Six weeks from the production start date in 2022, the producers still didn’t have a director, and the project was close to falling apart.
The producers wanted someone with experience as they planned to start shooting soon, but Kendrick told Colbert she had other ideas.
“I have this voice inside of me that was like, ‘We should pitch ourselves to direct.’ And I was also going, ‘Shut up. Everybody shut up. We’re not doing that,'” She said. “I couldn’t help myself, and I pushed myself off a cliff and figured, ‘Well, we’ll find out on the way down if I’ve packed this parachute correctly.'”
Kendrick joins a trend of actors trying out the director’s chair. Chris Pine, Dev Patel, Jerry Seinfeld, and Michael B. Jordan have all made directorial debuts in the last two years starring in the films they directed.
Kendrick said on “The Late Show” that she had to make a pitch to the producers the next day to persuade them to allow her to direct.
She said she was “beyond terrified,” adding “I was in the Zoom with all the producers going, ‘Here’s my pitch.’ And I’m sort of half doing the pitch and also going, ‘Unless you think it’s a bad idea, in which case, let’s not do it. I just want to do what’s right for the movie, you guys.'”
“Woman of the Hour” is the first movie Kendrick has directed.
Kendrick said the producers asked her to redo the pitch the next day but with more confidence.
“It was a fascinating example of just how phony Hollywood is because then I did it again the next day,” Kendrick continued. “And I just did, ‘You’d be fools not to hire me.’ And they hired me.”
“They knew that I was faking it. They have told me to fake it, and they still were like, ‘Well, that lady seems like a leader. Let’s hire her.'”
In recent years, Michelle Obama, Tom Hanks, and other celebrities have been vocal about their imposter syndrome, a psychological condition where individuals doubt their abilities and fear being exposed as a fraud.
Valerie Young, the cofounder of the Imposter Syndrome Institute, previously told B-17 that people who work in creative fields are significantly more prone to self-doubt because art is subjective, allowing artists to think that they can always do “better.”
Young recommended: “Shifting your mindset about competence — to know that sometimes good enough is good enough and moving on.”
It seemed to have worked for Kendrick, who was on Variety’s 10 directors to watch list in Janurary. “Woman of the Hour” has a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 91% and debut on the second spot of Netflix’s top 10 movies last week.
